Story-based learning model

Using insightful design to make learning to build privacy preserving technologies easier to understand.

Role

UX researcher

Industry

Education, AI, Data privacy

Duration

8 months (part-time) • 2021

Overview

This work sits at the intersection of AI, education, and data privacy - three highly complex domains. I led UX research to understand why students were dropping off from OpenMined's data-privacy course 'The Private AI Series' and how design could help them succeed. As UX researcher, I led research strategy for a cross-functional team, choosing the right methods and translating insights into actionable design recommendations to understand how students learn and progress through content.

Impact

By applying UX principles like clarity, motivation and better feedback loops through storytelling and skills quizzes, a 9.5% conversion rate on lessons completed, 20.4% conversion rate on concepts completed and 10.3% conversion rate on quiz completion was achieved - significantly increasing engagement.

By applying UX principles like clarity, motivation and feedback through storytelling, skills quizzes, and better feedback loops a 9.5% conversion rate on lessons completed, 20.4% conversion rate on concepts completed and 10.3% conversion rate on quiz completion was achieved - significantly increasing engagement.

9.5%

Conversion on lessons completed

20.4%

Conversion on concepts completed

10.3%

Conversion on quiz completion

Problem

Dense subject matter, unclear progression, and slow pacing were causing students to drop off halfway through the course.

Dashboard

Constraints

Working with a global open-source community meant research and collaboration had to be flexible and asynchronous.

Business goals

To increase engagement, course completion, successful project submissions and decrease drop-off rates.

To increase engagement, course completion and successful project submission rates and decrease drop-off rates.

Research process

I followed a double-diamond, human-centred design process to explore problems deeply before converging on solutions.

Research goals

To uncover why students were dropping off at the 50% mark and find insights into how to reduce cognitive load, improve clarity, and keep students motivated through the learning journey.

Hypothesis

Making learning clearer, more engaging, and better paced, will lead to higher project submission and lesson completion rates.

Users

Open-source community members situated globally with a keen interest in data privacy and learning how to build privacy preserving technologies.

Community board page

"There’s a lot of time spent on coding examples."

- User feedback

Research

I combined domain research, stakeholder interviews, and UX planning to fully understand both the content and the learner journey. Through audits, analytics, surveys, and interviews, I uncovered major drop-off points and unmet user needs.

Quantitative Insights

Data showed high sign-ups but low completion, with most students dropping off around the 50% mark.

Qualitative Insights

Users wanted faster pacing, clearer summaries, better navigation, and more visual explanations.

Lesson page

User feedback

Direct feedback from students confirmed issues with pacing, cognitive overload, and lack of learning support.

More control

Subtitles and video chapters would make it easier to return quickly to concepts.

Visualisation

Visualisation of concepts would make learning easier.

Pacing

Too much time spent on coding examples.

Overwhelm

Students were motivated but overwhelmed, and the experience wasn’t supporting how they actually learn.

Certification

Students are motivated by certification.

Cheat sheet

Cheat sheets / lesson summaries would help prepare project submissions.

"Consider including a cheat sheet to help with project submissions.”

- User feedback

Video lesson

Outcomes

Since my recommendations to introduce storytelling, skills quizzes, and better feedback loops were implemented, a 9.5% conversion rate on lessons completed, 20.4% conversion rate on concepts completed and 10.3% conversion rate on quiz completed has been reported - significantly increasing student engagement. I also established OpenMined’s first outreach framework to gather user feedback, help track consent forms and define user research parameters for outreach efforts where there was none.

Since my recommendations of storytelling, skills quizzes, and better feedback loops were implemented, a 9.5% conversion rate on lessons completed, a 20.4% conversion rate on concepts completed and a 10.3% conversion rate on quiz completed has been reported - significantly increasing engagement. I also established OpenMined’s first outreach framework to gather user feedback, help track consent forms and define user research parameters for outreach efforts where there was none.

Reflection

This project reinforced the power of UX to reduce complexity and support real user motivation through active listening and translation of user insights into desirable, engaging and rewarding user experiences.

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