Quest

Project Overview

Quest is a responsive website for online exams. It is composed of two different platforms, one that allows professors to easily build exams, and the other is made for students to take them. The purpose of Quest is to take online education to the next level.

Goals

Make online exams 100% cheat-proof
Allow students to take exams remotely and at their own peace
Reduce bias during exams
Simplify exam correction for professors

Kickoff

The hardest part of Quest was figuring out how to start. Student or professors? who is my primary user? Do I have to split the product into different parts? Which kind of exams can be performed online? Is this an improvement for universities and schools? Will both students and professors like this?

During the brainstorming a had so many questions that I felt the need for strong foundational research based on direct interviews and surveys with both students and professors as well as a competitive audit.

Who is my primary user? prefessors or students?
What type of product should I build?
What is the weakest point of online exams?
How can Quest improve the online education business?

Interviews

I conducted in-person user interviews with 1 student and 1 professor to answer the questions that arose during the brainstorming. I focused on understanding the weaknesses of automated remote exams and how to avoid them. I also created empathy maps to analyze better the interviews.

Insights

Cheat-proof Reliability
The main reason why online universities and courses are overlooked is that online exams are easy to cheat on, so people are not inclined to invest their money and time in an online university: they don’t produce reliable graduates in the general opinion.
Professors interactions
‍Professors are not used to create online exams so they need an easy-to-learn platform.
Students' stress
‍Younger Students need and easy way to take online exams without making the process even more stressful than it is.

Surveys

I submitted a survey to 25 students aged from 20-30 to collect more data and have a decent sample. This survey confirmed what I found during interviews and highlighted some other aspect such their exam type preference and correlated stress.

Insights

Oral vs Written
In general, 66.7% of participants prefer oral exams. However, regarding written exams, the majority of them would be happy to use an online platform to take them.
Lack of rapport with peers and Professors
According to participants, the biggest downside of online courses is impersonality. Human connection has to be taken into account to provide a more pleasant experience.

Personas

As previously stated, Quest is a double-sided project since it involves two groups of radically different users: professors and students. Based on my interviews and surveys with students and professors, I created two personas to represent those groups.

Competitive Audit

Also throughout the competitive audit, the user duality among students-professors increases the complexity of the problem. Online websites for exams are direct competitors, while online platforms for surveys and questionnaires can be considered indirect competitors since they target different users but share some common traits and face similar problems.

Key-points

Account both for students and professors VS professor-only account
Weak cheat-proof system
Multiple-answer based exams/surveys
Not every exam types guarantee automated correction

Crazy 8 method

HMW method

Interesting ideas

Create a high level of cheat-proofing with a check-in procedure that includes fingerprints/SMS code access, a 360° camera to monitor the student during the exam, and browser locking during the exam
Create a memo for students to remember to students important things to bring with them during the exam
Create a wide variety of question types such as point-on-image, mind-maps, or using different digital tools such as a tablet with a pen to draw things.
Allow professors to keep in touch with students to encourage them with a brief message or video before starting the exam. This will cheer up them and release part of the stress

Design thinking

I have used two methods to produce a lot of ideas: "how might we?" and "crazy eights". With the first one, I created a map of questions and answers, while the outcome of the second method is some sketches. I did two rounds for each of them, solving the problems of students and professors that I point out during the user journey.

User journey

I constructed two user flow: once for Brad, a professor, and one for Deborah, a student. This helps me to empathize with users, figure out pain points, and to understand how they interact with the platform.

Wireframes

After sketching some basic wireframes I converted them into a digital version, suitable for a usability test. I focus my effort on the basic structure of the platform (the students' one in particular) to rapidly check with a usability study if I was on the right track before developing all the funcionalities.

Sitemap

Hand in hand with the wireframes I created the sitemap. The structure is very simple: on the left part there is the brand website of the platform with all the pages typical of a website that sells a digital service. On the right there is a specular structure composed by the two platforms, one for students and one for professors.

Usability study

The usability study of Quest lo-fi prototype was a moderate session with 5 partecipants, all students or recently graduated students. The tasks were to log-in as a student, find an exam, check the requirements and stat the exam.

Insights

Once at the exam page, users are inclined not to check carefully if they are ready to start the exams and if they meet the check-in requirements
It's not easy to find an exam among thousands with a similar name
Time bar and progress bar make some users anxious
Users want to be sure that everything goes well during the check-in procedure

Iteration

I inserted an alfanumarical code for each exam, which will make easier to search an exam that hasn't been saved yet to the personal board
I added a "security step" before actually start the check-in and the exam
I introduced a hide/show button for the progress bar and the time bar
I inserted a "test check-in" button

Final design

I implemented the visuals of Quest and made some modfications according to the usability study insights and expanded the user flow for both professors and students to create a hi-fi prototype that could provide a real user experience of taking and composing an exam in Quest.

Prototype in action

The final prototype of Quest covers the main user flows that the platform can perform: logging in as a student or professor, scanning the carachteristics of an exam (as a student), going through the check-in and taking an exam, and creating a new exam (as a professor).

Homepage scroll

This is a small tour of the homepage of Quest, consisting of a brief presentation of the characteristics of the product and some testimonials and partners.

There is a single log in page for both students and professors, to simplify the structure of the website. Once in the log in page, the user can specify their role. During the log in of a registered this could be automated by the sistem. The video shows also an error-prevention pattern.

Exam page

The exam page is structured with cards to visually organize all the important informations in a clear and concise way, especially the exam's requirements which will be verified during the check-in phase. To prevent errors it has been introduced a final check-list before starting the check-in.

Check-in and exam

The check-in aims to prevent cheating and to guarantee a fair exam. The requirements for the check-in are decided by the professor and then automated by the system. Once the check-in is finished the exam can start. To prevent cheating some problems can hide the multiple answers until the student confirm that he is ready to answer.

Exam creation

Creating an exam is very easy. Even if multiple answer questions are the easiest way to compose an exams, Quest offers also other types of questions to address all the possibile needings of a professor that wants a very specific type of exam. Exams cam be subdiveded into multiple section to create complex and long test.

Design system

Since Quest is a tool dedicated to taking and creating exams I choose a very sober palette. Almost everything is in Black and shades of gray to promote the focus on the content both for professors and students. Apart from the brand font, which is Candara, I used Calibri, a very neutral font, for all texts. However, I also used splashs of pure colors here and there when appropriate: various in the homepage and for question types in the professors' platform, red for warning notifications and green for confirmation.

Conclusions

Quest has been a big challenge. Splitting a platform into to parts very different from each other and keeping them consistent was not easy. This project can surely be deepened since online learning and exams is a great topic nowadays. Implementing handwriting recognition will be amazing for the automation of some exams.

In the end, the partecipants of the usability study were very surprised about how a platform such as Quest can impact their way of taking and creating exams. Anyway, there is still a lot of room for improving. Very soon, those type of platforms will set a new standard in the education field.