SYNOPSIS

In 2018, we've teamed up with Florida International University to work on two projects on our UX & Product Design strategy capabilities.

Nevertheless, both projects required a hands-on approach to solve complexity through interaction design.

ROLE

Digital Business Strategist | UX Research | UX & Product Designer

METHODOLOGY

• UX/UI audit

• Product strategy

• Project management

• User research

• User interviews

• Design workshops

• Stakeholders interviews

• Personas

• Sitemap

• Information architecture

• Hi-Fi Wireframing

• UX design

• Protocol design

• Wireframes walkthrough videos

• Design system

Our first project was the redesign of the Faculty Center, a website managed by the e-learning department inside FIU. 

The Faculty Center was meant to provide the needed services for the faculty personnel to be able to inform themselves about the process and then, create exceptional courses.  

After researching the user roles and the department business model, we discovered that the current site structure was not providing scaffolding to the user's activities.

SOLUTION

We redesigned the entire sitemap, reducing the number of pages and the amount of content available considerably.

The finished product became a two-sided website:

• An external side focused on promotion and information.

• An internal side, containing a protocol dashboard for faculty and students, focused on making the content consumption easier.

Our reorganization and UX copywriting work ended up giving a new structure to the Unique Value Proposition of the department.

The homepage worked as a storefront, that provides information to the faculty members that are interested in joining.

The departmental structure provided a rich array of services, but they were not connected with the users' journey.

We redefined the internal site to be a dashboard, which contains all the required steps for them to become online instructors.

To engage faculty members and administrators, we put our focus on creating a 'golden path' to allow users to first understand the benefits of working with FIUOnline, then know what will be the critical path and resources needed to achieve success. 

Lack of autonomy for faculty users created overhead work for internal teams. So we designed a content structure focused on protocols, to allow faculty users to be more accountable and obtain a clear view of the process.

FIU utilized Canvas LMS for the course’s management, and they were looking to innovate by creating a compatible Syllabus Management Tool that lived inside. 

SOLUTION

We created a web app that takes the Canvas ecosystem beyond its limits, taking into account the true needs of both students and instructors: keep themselves accountable and ready for the course’s challenges.

Through our discovery process, we learned that the absolute freedom that instructors had was playing against them regarding the organization and overall workload, by having to think not only in the syllabus contents but its structure.

We lifted this weight by incorporating guidelines in the design of the tool, following the best practices included in FIU's Faculty Handbook.

After interviewing users, a common thread emerged: time management during the semester becomes a liability.

Thanks to the Gantt-Chart visualization we designed, the Syllabus becomes a tool that allows the milestones to be communicated clearly.

Instructors get a visualization of the time available for the course and an easy way of creating an outline that later will be the blueprint for the rest of the assignment contents.

The students, on the other side, get a study planning tool that allows them to be on top of their upcoming duties.

The syllabus editor was created as scaffolding for the faculty members, allowing them to follow a template that complies with the highest educational standards of the University.

All design decisions were based on the user research phase conclusions. We conducted video interviews with students, instructors, and members of the academic quality assurance team.

Using tabs allowed us to offer simultaneous edition of different courses, which ended up being a very welcomed feature for the supervisors.