Case Study

Edukasyon.ph App

Designing the "LinkedIn for students" - a social networking app that focuses on the educational needs while connecting students and schools to help them succeed.

Client:
Edukasyon.ph

Duration:

2 weeks

Scope of work:

Research, Wireframing, Prototype, Usability testing

My role:
User research, Wireframes, UI Design, and Prototyping

Project Overview

Edukasyon.ph is the largest education technology platform in the Philippines —connecting millions of Filipino youth to multiple avenues for self-discovery and relevant advice on education, career, and life.

When Edukasyon.ph first launched, we thought that the best way to help Filipino youth with their education was through a website. We got a lot of helpful feedback from our users, but we weren't sure how much of it would actually translate into better services for them.

We decided to try something different: designing an app that can be described as a social networking platform that focuses on the educational needs of its users. It allows them to connect with various schools and people who can help them reach their career goals.

In just two weeks, our team designed a prototype app and put it in front of actual users to see what they thought.

We conducted an unmoderated Maze test on a few users and found three major themes: the School Pages (Easy Apply, Reviews, Info) was most useful to the users; they felt like the app was more of a resource while serving features of a social media platform; and they'd be able to recommend our new app to their friends. We were really excited by these results—especially since we were able to validate them so quickly.

HERE'S WHAT I DID AND

WHAT MY ROLE WAS:

  • User research 
  • Affinity Mapping
  • Wireframes
  • Individual Collaborator for UI design & Prototype

"We’d like to see how a mobile application can be a better platform for them versus our existing website. Moreover, our B2B partners are keen on reaching out to our users through a mobile app, more than just our website. We’d also like to see how a mobile application experience would be beneficial to our B2B partners."

- Edukasyon.ph

THE CHALLENGE:

  • How might Edukasyon.ph further establish leadership in education technology?
  • How might Edukasyon.ph gain more engaged users through a mobile app?
  • What opportunities can B2B Partners tap to reach out to Edukasyon.ph's user base?

HOW DID WE APPROACH THAT?

WE TALKED TO OUR USERS.

Our users are Students from PH

And we were moved by their thoughts

Sometimes it can get very tedious going through so much text in multiple school websites. I just want straightforward requirements and highlights for the schools i'm considering"

Martin,

 High School Senior

"I had no clue where to start in looking for schools, but I knew I wanted to study in Australia so I first talked to an education counselor who recommended schools to me"

Nina

Incoming Graduate Student

"The culture of the school is something I consider when applying. I usually ask from upper batches, family and friends about their experiences"

Patrice,

College Freshman

User Persona

from the interview, we were able to build user persona which served as our reference during the design process, to make sure we are designing features that serves our users best. Here is the user persona we crafted:

Competitive Analysis

We also looked at some websites that offer similar service as Edukasyon.ph to evaluate their strength and weakness and other opportunities we have that we can put into consideration to futher include features that will be useful for the users.

While the team did affinity mapping and brainwriting, we finalized a set of features that we will be designing and working on.

Wireframes

To transition from the ideation to design, we created Low-fidelity wireframes for us to come up with screen designs that we will design into high-fidelity prototype later on. Here are some snapshot:


To validate our design decisions we conducted

 Usability Testing

BRINGING TOGETHER ALL THE IDEAS AND FINDINGS, WE FINALLY CAME UP WITH

UI Design & Prototype

Based on the results of our usability testing on our mid-fidelity wireframes, the team came up with design decisions.

Here are some snapshot:

Why did we create a social media app?

For the stakeholders of Edukasyon.ph, these are the Edukasyon.ph app benefits

For Students:

  • Get accessible guidance on schools, courses and learn about other student services 

  • Receive honest reviews that can help make more informed choices

  • Connect with new people and join communities that interest them

For B2B Partners:

  • Connect to a more targeted audience.

  • Increase brand visibility through Sponsored Content (blogs, photos, contests, events, competitions, internships, etc.)

  • Strengthen brand engagement and recall through sponsored Quests

For Edukasyon.ph:

  • Increase revenue from more advertising opportunities.

  • Further establish Edukasyon as top-of-mind provider for education and career-related support.

  • Grow user base through the power of communities and social networking

Our Retrospective Notes

It would have been helpful speak with more users who currently use Edukasyon.ph
as a main resource for researching schools and see which features are most popular on the website

We would have wanted to conduct user test on the current website
so that we would understand how users interact with the current UX/UI of Edukasyon and how they feel about the existing branding.

We see this app has the potential to be the "LinkedIn for Students"
and later on expand to more offerings such as bootcamps and internships

What are the next steps?

These are the further steps that we plan to do for us to move forward with this project.

Test our working prototype with a larger and more diverse user base.

Revise our prototype based on the latest usability test results.

Revisit our UI to simplify components and colors based on feedback we received.

Explore other use cases and user personas such as parents of students, brand partners, internship seekers, etc.

Create app branding to differentiate it from the Edukasyon website and to also give it identity as a social media platform