MOOC Interface Redesign

Background

 

MOOCs, or massive open online courses, are typically free and available to anyone. Although the design of the course interface is closely linked to success, little research has been done in this area.

 

Purpose

 

The purpose of this project was to develop best practices for MOOC interface design to improve student ouctomes in courses.

 

User Research

 

I conducted:

• 5 thinkalouds on introductory computer science courses on major existing MOOC platforms

  • Users with little to no MOOC experience

  • Benchmark tasks

  • Recorded time on task and number of mouse clicks

• 3 interviews with students who had some MOOC experience

• 1 interview with a MOOC professor

 

User Needs

 

The data from my user research revealed 4 main requirements for MOOC interfaces:

• Clear navigation to course materials

• Transparent labels and processes

• Concise layout with few distractions

• Progress indication

 

The Mock-Up

 

With these findings in mind, I created a fully-clickable MOOC interface called Learnster using Balsamiq. I conducted 8 thinkalouds with this interface, asking users to complete the same benchmark tasks as users had for the previous tests; again, I recorded time on task and the number of mouse clicks required to complete each task. This would allow me to compare my interface design to the designs of existing MOOCs.

 

Results and Redesign

 

Users struggled with the Learnster interface in 3 areas:

• Menus

• Asking a question

• Progress indication

 

I updated the Learnster interface to address these problem areas. The images above are screenshots of the final interface design.

 

This was the capstone project for the M.S. in Human-Computer Interaction program at Georgia Tech. Here is a link to my final report.

 

 

Check out the video below for more details and more views of the mock-up interface!