Pixel Paper

This case study is focused on communications and resource sharing between high school students and faculty. The goal of this project was to create website and app prototypes to show a possible solution for the disconnect felt in remote learning.

My Role: UX Researcher & Designer

Collaborators: Dymen Barkis, Elizabeth Codick, and Sagarika Verma

Initial Research and Analysis

Interviews | Affinity Diagrams | Personas

Interviews consisted of zoom meetings that lasted between 20 minutes to an hour and a half. Participants for this study included high school students, parents, and teachers (n = 20). The interviews were semi-structured, meaning the interviewers came in with a list of questions and allowed the participants to expand off of the topics presented. The interview questions were centered around the use of online learning platforms and the struggles and advantages that are present in a remote/online learning experience. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, allowing the interviews to go back and take notes off of the interview session.

The results from our interviews and research showed that the two main areas we needed to focus on were student/teacher engagement and accessibility/usability. We found that students were missing the motivation received from in-person instruction, and students and teachers alike were daunted by the thought of learning new software, being already overwhelmed with what they were currently using.

Visual distillation of interview responses into focus areas

After we distilled our data to a more narrow focus, we created personas that encompassed the types of people we interviewed.

Ideation

Sketching | Low-Fidelity

Our paper sketches and wireframes led to this low-fidelity prototype and visual site map.

Design System

Inspiration | Typography | Color

An example of the inspiration we gathered from similar websites and applications. This research, paired with the data we gathered from the people we interviewed, laid the foundation for the design of our project.

A sample of some of our gathered inspiration for color, type, and interaction, etc.

We started to experiment with different combinations of type and color. Yes, my team voted with colored stars. It was surprisingly effective and allowed for open conversation!

The finalized guidelines for Pixel Paper

Illustrations from blush.design.

Prototypes

Desktop | Mobile

Reflections

This was a valuable and relevant project with a fantastic team. If we had more time and resources, I would have loved to conducted a thorough competitor analysis, an in-person contextual inquiry, and more usability tests with our final prototypes.