Redesigning Online Design Education
Desportal
A webportal for design students
Introduction
The online design education needs to be refined as the design education is not a classroom- based education rather studio based that requires collaborative thinking, studying users in their environment, discussion, prototyping in physical space and testing with users.
Target Users : Product Design Students from India
Design Process
Primary Research
This project was carried out in a team of three. We essentially started with some information gathering. Being a student of design we tried to keep our assumption and biases out of the project and conducted 1:1 interviews with Bachelors and Masters design students of different institutes of India.
Insights obtained:
Learning feels forced - mandated to sit in front of a screen without any tangible engagement.
Social learning was important - lack of creative stimulation from physical spaces and ideas from others' comments.
Lots of disruptions at home. Work and leisure both happen on the screen so no separation.
Tough to get prompt feedback from profs. Have to schedule appointments. Responses take a while.
Not everyone vocal since everyone can hear when you speak up. Pressure to add something productive to discussion.
Classroom discussions don't feel dynamic, organic. Difficult to read people from just audio.
Difficult to be on the same wavelength even when on video call. Syncing up schedules also a problem.
Feedback on prototypes not as comprehensive as they were in person. Not possible to physically point out to flaws and areas of improvements.
Random interactions in messes or campus absent. Helpful for critique and development of ideas.
Absorption of ideas is not so easy virtually.
Leveraging networks helped find users. Wasn't possible to observe them though.
Proactive technical support from college and comfort with online submission system made adapting easier.
Understanding the Problem Space: MindMapping
Identifying pain points in the Design Process
Affinity Mapping
Identified Problem areas and Ideations
Organisation of Ideas
Final Concepts
Concept 1 : Virtual classroom/ studio space
An integration of tools such as Miro as interactive surfaces (such as the whiteboard) with spatial audio to recreate a class environment having gamification elements and manual selection of seats and positioning of self.
Concept 2 : An interface specific to design education
A sytem of video call 'rooms' or spaces for different disciplines for co-working and instant messaging between students and profs with central 'notice board' home page for projects currently underway by students and faculty, integration of design tools such as Miro or Figma, templates for process documentation for students and evaluation by professors on discrete steps/milestones in the process.
Concept 3 : Value co-creation by collaboration with local Institutes
A service that allows collaboration with local organizations for access to resources and delivery of learning materials, separation of college life and personal lives , integration of tangible experiences into the learning process, integration of existing tools into an online instruction ecosystem, balancing of educational needs and student well-being and intersection of social experiences and learning goals.
Working on the final idea : A service design approach
Service Ecosystem
Existing Customer Journey Map
Service Blueprint
Information Architecture
Wireframe
Prototype
Team : Akhil | Arinjit | Noopur
© 2020 Noopur Kumari Kashyap