Google Classroom
Product: Designed Workroom for Google Classroom to encourage teachers to share materials with other teachers
Role: UX and UI Designer
Timeline: September 2021
Tools: Figma, Excel, Word, Zoom, Google Venture’s Design Sprint, paper, and pens
Note: This is a project completed for DesignLab’s UX Academy
BACKGROUND
Living and going to school with ‘Rona
When the pandemic swept across the world, people retracted into their homes to stay safe from COVID-19. We didn’t know how long the pandemic would last but we knew certainly our lives have altered drastically. As a university staff, I felt the impact the virus had on the education system and the students I served. As an aunt, I felt the impact it had on my siblings and their children as they tried distance learning for the first time. I decided to focus this project on Google Classroom as it was a tool commonly used for distance learning. Google Classroom is a free platform used by teachers to manage documents, assign homework, centralize other apps, and host discussions between teacher and students.
Design as a Googler
Since I was working on a Google product, I thought it would be awesome to run this project using Google Venture’s design sprint framework. Their design sprint is compressed into 5 days in which they use this compact period to answer and test critical business questions with users. Typically these sprints take place in a team setting but this was a DesignLab assignment, so I went solo. I referred to Google Venture’s Checklist as a guide for this project.
Goals and objectives
Create an add-on feature for Google Classroom
Complete this project as closely to Google Venture’s design sprint
SPRINT PREFACE
An organic and scrappy design process
I tried my best to follow Google Venture’s design sprint in terms of activities, resources, and timeboxing but things don’t always go according to plan therefore my design process is non-linear to what’s in the guideline. There were times where I backtracked as better ideas came out, skipped some activities as (Google search and) I couldn’t figure it out, and utilized basic paper and pens to express my thoughts to meet this sprint’s deadline. Nonetheless, enjoy the ride with me :)
My sticky note to remind me that it’s OK to have a design process that looks like this. From the left there's a starting point of the process and as you make your way to the other side, the process can take you to all sorts of directions. Yet, somehow, things make sense in the end.
Prepping for the sprint
Before starting the sprint, I went through the checklist provided and I knew I couldn’t complete the sprint in an exact way so I made some modifications:
Researched Google Classroom to get a working understanding of the product
Took a week off from my 8-5 job in order to have a full week for the sprint
Scouted and confirmed teachers for interviews and usability testing
Collected sprint supplies around my home (as I’m still in quarantine and can only use what’s at home).
DAY ONE
A working list of goals
To be honest I had a hard time figuring out the short and long-term goals and potential failures for Google Classroom because I didn’t know enough to compile a good list so my goals were vague. I moved onwards with the sprint with the intent to visit my goals later in the future.
Interviewing the experts aka the teachers
I interviewed four teachers around topics of:
Demographics
Exposure to technology
Support
Challenges
Experience with Google Classroom
General perspective with distance learning
DAY TWO
Persona
Based on my notes from the interviews, I combined the most common traits the teachers had and I created my persona. Some of the biggest problems they faced with distance learning are
lack of work-life balance
too much time dedicated to prepping materials for lesson plans
looking for (free) materials
not enough support (mental health, resources)
How might we?
Across the four interviews, there were many common problems. I wrote several sticky notes and narrowed them down:
How might we decrease prep time?
How might we encourage sharing amongst teachers?
How might we empower teachers to help one another?
Iterating and refining goals
At this point, I had a better understanding of the scope of the project after analyzing the interviews so I went back to the list of goals and refined the list. This is not a part of the traditional sprint guideline but going back and revising my goals helped me see my North Star of this project clearer.
This time, I have one clear goal to create a robust catalog of free materials that teachers can share with each other. As a minimum viable experience, I wanted this project to be placed in front of teachers.
After the interviews, I learned implementing this feature may have systematic issues in the future:
each school district handles access to Google Classroom differently
a huge technology gap (many families don’t have internet and/or don’t have a computer)
In the near future, I envision there to be more collaboration between Google, schools, families, policymakers, and other stakeholders to make this feature more accessible to anyone wanting to learn across the world.
Auditing Google Classroom and gathering a comparative analysis
Google hasn’t mentioned anything about adding a feature to share existing materials with other teachers. I audited the tools the teachers mentioned from the interviews that helped them with distance learning and analyzed them based on their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats:
Facebook
Nearpod
Studies Weekly
Teacherspayteachers
I went over the visual design of each platform and documented elements that would help build the add-on feature for Google Classroom.
Nearpod: Clear filtering system; card is easy to read with large image, title of material and grade level
Teachers Pay Teachers: Detailed filter options that are more universal across different school districts; download button placed on the front of the card
Facebook: No visual elements that would help enhance the teacher experience
Nearpod: Overall layout is clear with large image/video, clear buttons to download, side bar that displays related materials
Not enough brain power to answer tech consideration and opportunities
I had a hard time answering the questions in this section because I didn’t know enough of the technical aspect of the product. This is the time where it’s helpful to collaborate with a variety of people to fill in gaps of knowledge. The questions below definitely require people who know engineering, legal, and product management--which I had very little information. I did use Google to kind of answer the questions:
How will the solution be built? Data sources? Devices?
Is the solution likely to be web-based? mobile? Embedded?
Where will data and information come from?
Will user data be used for personalization?
How will privacy be addressed?
How will accessibility be addressed?
What devices are likely to be used for the solution?
What product areas are involved and need to be coordinated?
Are there external partners involved?
DAY THREE
Sketching and converting images into a prototype
I spent the day working on the design. I drew references collected from the comparative analysis and quickly sketched using the Crazy 8 method where I draw eight different images of what the visual design may look like. From the sketches, I converted four of them into high-fidelity designs.
Left to right: Sketch converted to final version. Workroom is located in the left navigation when the user logs onto Google Classroom. I followed the existing sitemap of Google Classroom.
Left to right: Sketch converted to final version. The user sees materials displayed as cards once Workroom appears and with a filter to narrow to the cards. You have the option to download and upload materials.
Left to right: Sketch converted to final version. The profile page of the material displayed. The user has options to view the material and download it, or review other related content.
Left to right: Sketch converted to final version. This modal appears from the time the user creates a lesson plan in Google Classrom. The user has the option to download recently viewed materials from Workroom and place them directly into their lesson plan.
Voila! The final prototype :)
You can click on the video to watch the walkthrough or you can click through the prototype on Figma.
DAY FOUR
Testing the prototype with teachers
Objectives:
Determine the overall ease of use and flow of the website, as well as areas of confusion, or frustration for users
Determine whether the filter plugin is required when building the website
Subject: A high fidelity desktop prototype was used via Figma
Participants: 5 teachers
Methodology: Moderated via Zoom
Tasks:
Task 1 - Located Workroom
Task 2 - Download "1st grade Math Lesson" from Workroom
Task 3 - Upload "Holiday Math" to Workroom to 3rd Grade Math folder
Task 4 - You are putting together your lesson plan. Download "Synonyms" from Workroom into your lesson plan for Language Arts
Task 5 - You are done with Monday's lesson and you want to share your slide in Workroom. Upload "Look at Sight Words" in Workroom
DAY FIVE
Results of usability testing
4/5 tasks were completed with a 100% success rate
Task 3 had the lowest success rate with 40% as the testers could not figure out the icon to upload the material
In addition, I created an affinity map to document the commentary made by the testers. Overall, the teachers really like the concept of having a catalogue of free materials to share among teachers. For the next phase of iterations, I would need to improve the visual design of Workspace to differentiate the personal view of the account and the public view of Workspace.
REFLECTION
Takeaways from this case study
Many modifications are required when it’s a one-person sprint
Tight deadlines encourage you to keep your process simple and the number of supplies minimum
I felt stuck but with a tight schedule, I just have to move on, and that’s ok!
Don’t replace a solo sprint with a team sprint. The insights from your teammates is invaluable.
Deep, deep respect for teachers
Although it wasn’t a part of the project, I learned distance learning made it very transparent the huge technology gap between poorly-funded and well-funded schools. It’s so crucial to have accessible and free resources, such as Google Classroom, to ensure there’s a more equal playing field for teachers to teach and maintain a work-life balance and students can learn without technical and financial difficulties and feel that they are supported at school and at home.