Aligning Features and Workflows with Client Needs for Administration Creation

This project focuses on the design of the 'Administration' feature within the course evaluation platform of an education technology company. The 'Administration' feature allows administrators to configure all aspects of a course evaluation, including target audience, evaluation period, and access permissions.

Administrators utilize the 'Create Administration' page to define key parameters for each evaluation. These parameters were broken down by the 3 sections shown:

  1. “Select Course Sections”: Selecting the specific course sections that will participate in the evaluation. This will define your target audience and allow any students enrolled in those selected course sections to participate.

  2. “Select Details”: Specifying the name of the administration and the evaluation instrument to be used.

  3. “Select Dates”: Defining the evaluation access window and report release dates.

Despite the seemingly simple nature of the page, our product team received numerous requests for improvements. We identified the course selection process and the rigidity in our scheduling feature was the crux of user dissatisfaction

With that information I began crafting a succinct problem statement for further investigation.

Problem

Users face significant challenges in effectively targeting student populations for evaluations and creating flexible evaluation periods that accommodate diverse student schedules. This has led to inefficient workflows, duplicate efforts, and manual intervention which has decreased user satisfaction.

Impacted Users

This problem impacted site administrators, students, and instructors. Administrators faced challenges in efficiently setting up evaluations, while students and instructors experienced difficulties accessing and completing evaluations due to inflexible scheduling options and limited reporting access.

My Role

I led the full lifecyle research and design of this project in collaboration with our development team.

My investigation began with a thorough analysis of the existing workflow, complemented by user interviews and site analytics.

This research revealed significant limitations in the current target audience selection process.

From my research I found that institutions require flexibility in targeting student populations, often combining various criteria (e.g., department, course type, and sometimes limiting by a specific course ID).

  1. The existing options for filtering included "All Available Courses" and filtering by attributes (e.g., online, lab) were insufficient to meet these complex needs.

This resulted in significant workarounds such as altering data import files to create backend course groupings or bulk adding courses to the administration and manually removing them post creation.

These workarounds were compounded by a need to dynamically adjust an evaluation period to align with course schedules.

The current date selection process within our system relies on static date and time inputs, resulting in significant user frustration. To address this, I conducted thorough research to understand the root causes of this dissatisfaction:

  • Analyzed existing client setups and data imports to identify patterns in course schedules and understand current scheduling practices.

  • Conducted in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, including administrators and faculty, to understand their specific scheduling needs and challenges.

Research revealed that institutions operate on diverse academic calendars with staggered course schedules.

Since course evaluations are typically administered during the final weeks of the course to maximize participation, the fixed date selection required users to manually duplicate administrations and adjust dates for each unique course group schedule, leading to increased administrative burden.

Solutioning

Modernized. Optimized. Upgraded

The final solution introduces a user-friendly stepper UI that guides administrators through the 'Administration Creation' process.

Key Enhancements Include:

  • Enhanced Course Selection: Users can now easily select or deselect individual courses and create custom segments using advanced filtering options.

  • Flexible Date Scheduling: Administrators can now define evaluation periods relative to the course end date, eliminating the need to create multiple administrations for varying schedules.

Once the user selects their basic administration settings they can move through the stepper UI to begin segmenting their target audience.

Users can select course sections in three ways: 'Add All Available Courses,' 'Create a Custom Segment,' or 'Add Individually.'

In direct response to user feedback, the 'Create a Custom Segment' feature has been significantly enhanced, allowing users to:

  • Apply a series of filters to quickly identify relevant courses.

  • Easily include or exclude individual courses within the selected segment.

  • Heightened visibility on what course sections are being included.

Next, I addressed the need for setting evaluation periods relative to the course end date.

We introduced flexible date scheduling options, allowing administrators to define evaluation periods relative to the course end date (e.g., "2 weeks before course end," "1 week after course end").

This introduction significantly reduced administration setup time by eliminating the need for administrators to create multiple administrations to accommodate varying course schedules.

RESULTS

This solution is currently under development and is currently being tested with users. Stay tuned for future updates!