Apollo Group Platform User Profile

Our goal was to create a learning platform that tracked every user interaction, from first contact point and enrollment through the classroom and on to graduation, to create a data-based archetypes and eventually add color to the specific personas of our users.

These data points would eventually help inform a predictive model of the student’s success that could be used to generate personalized learning materials based on the students learning style, and previous interactions and completions with things like: Course materials and classroom discussions, assignments and quizzes, and even social media, and filter it through a lens of an individual’s demographic and personal information enter on the user’s profile.

My role was to develop the product of the profile and the experiences around it—in particular, the creation of the student and faculty profile, Unification of three separate profile experiences into one, and how to gain adoption of the profile as a whole.

This case study is complimentary to my work on the platform located here

Analysis / Research

There were many challenges in this product where we had to solve legacy technical issues and even more complicated ones, changing or creating processes to replace duplication or manual processes.

The first large technical challenge was a need to connect three different profiles that were created in the user’s journey. They were all fractured and un-synced profiles across multiple sites, and absolutely no integration between information on any of them and the larger ecosystem, causing a frustrating experience of having to enter in the same data multiple times while not benefitting the users in any way.

Perhaps most challenging regarding the user profile for the platform was an underutilized feature that students and faculty alike were actually diametrically opposed to using. They saw it as “ more forms to fill out” that were cumbersome, unnecessary and most of all intrusive to their privacy as well as redundant to their external social network profiles.

When we were creating the profile, we started by empathizing with the users who would ultimately be using the larger system like students. But we collected the goals from all the other user types along with pain points around the profile. 

We interviewed students, faculty and staff to see what information they would find useful to view and provide to their peers, do for their roles or teams, and determine the use-cases around interaction and collaboration. We also were curious about what their motivations, fears and feelings around connecting to other students in an online educational environment.

I was imbedded with the researchers and ethnographers in the field as they created the overall persona, so I was able to probe deeper within the IDI around things around privacy, time management and the user’s motivations and involvement in online social networks. One area of my particular focus was their attitudes towards sharing and attachment to their peers and instructors in their educational journey.

The research was overwhelmingly clear that, though most users participated in social networking outside of the classroom, they did not see the value of participating in yet another social network with their classmates.

Our research showed (unsurprisingly) that MOST users wouldn’t do anything more to fill this out on their own, as their archetype was typically older, working and were only involved in social media within small groups of direct relatives and friends. On top of this, students and faculty alike were uncomfortable and unwilling to share the details within their profile with the larger school, and in some cases even with their classmates.

This was problematic as it meant that we could create a great experience and solve for many of the students’ issues at the same time.

User adoption was an issue, and there was no way to motivate the user other than making it required. Integrating this into an assignment within the classroom was critical. We worked with the universities deans and stakeholders to convince them of the importance of the profile.

We came up with the plan of the introducing users to the University Profile early in the enrollment/onboarding process, when they were eager to provide such details, and not specifically make it a firm requirement of the curriculum but offer it as extra credit in their first few weeks.

Additionally, we introduced multilevel privacy and the ability to share with classmates, friends, everyone or no one, which helped the individuals who were still unwilling to share details provide the information to the system for our models but allowed them the privacy they wanted.

Design

As we went about to expand the user profile to accommodate users beyond the students, we tried to ensure that the primary architecture was scalable and customizable to accommodate the other use cases for faculty and alumni across many schools.

The profile had to be seen and accessed unobtrusively across virtually every part of the ecosystem, so considerable time was spent on where it would live on each page and how it fit in with the rest of the tasks and flows that students and faculty had to accomplish.

Medium fidelity wireframes were created and tested to ensure the proper information architecture was usable and contained all the required (and requested) information that would not only provide meaningful context to the users activity but give other people in the user’s network a snapshot of their peers and instructors for meaningful social connection and understanding.

Not only was this to be essentially the student and faculty’s résumé, but a window into their motivations, hopes and dreams and experiences. That connection fostered deeper engagement in the day-to-day interactions and among other things helped with things like retention.

By helping to create a support network we discovered that students and faculty who leveraged these features were more likely to participate with higher quality feedback and input. They were also more likely to develop social connections outside of the university, which helped them in a more traditional way like brick and mortar schools.

Results

The profile became the online image of the students that was an introduction to their classmates and calling card for the rest of their student career. It accommodated the two main roles and was made to be a seamless artifact that followed you through your career as a student and beyond. The profile also provided meaningful context to data about the individual student that served business goals as well.

User adoption of the profile went up by 80%, and in follow-up questionnaires and studies indicated that this product actually effected learning outcomes by creating meaningful connections and support networks to help students and teachers alike.