UX case study
How to effectively connect educators with the audience?
Establishing e-learning brand Ewolu
NOTE: This project is 5+ years old...
The Challenge
In 2016 M&P launched innovative course "World Class Speakers Academy" forging new wave of power-speakers and coaches. Our goal was to establish a space where those certified educators could connect with their audiences.
My role
I led the design of a complex e-learning platform, creating a visual strategy for Ewolu+WCSA, user journeys, and branding. I also managed the design process of WCSA alumni's websites, consolidating individual visions across the entire programme to ensure unified, excellent user experience within the platform.
Note
This case study covers only parts of several months of design process focusing mainly on my role within the project. I retracted or changed portions of findings to conceal any confidential information.
"Let's build the next masterclass"
Distilling the real problem
I joined the project when M&P acquired VOD technology for a new product, which vision at that point has been described as "the next masterclass". To distil the real purpose of the project I've started conducting interviews with stakeholders and mapping M&P ecosystem.
We concluded there was a severe lack of connection between educators graduating WCSA and their audience (only M&P events at the time) and recognized it as an excellent starting point for a new platform.
User goals
At the start, I think it is vital to focus on user goals rather than on features, so I researched what defined different user sets, to find out how those two groups could interact with our product and each other; and what effects those users would except.
We then utilised this knowledge to explore possible product features and identified two areas that we already had the technology available for and decided to break design process into two phases accordingly.
Information architecture
After grouping user goals and features into collections I created impact maps for each lot against both sets of users allowing us to create goals and features ranks. Using Pareto principle (20% of efforts delivers 80% of result) we chose the most desirable candidates for design sprints.
I then created wireframes for our ideas and tested them on both user groups incrementally revealing the more exact flow of the platform.
Brand vision
Mapping essential values of Users, Educators with M&P mission revealed that the common goal and fundament for Ewolu would be an aspiration to learn and grow, evolution, spiritual awakening, achieving self-excellence.
I created diverse ideas to represent those values graphically and independently tested them on each user group. The choice was unanimous - blooming lotus flower.
Video modules turned to be one of the fundaments of Ewolu. I wanted to explore several possibilities of giving final form a motion. We preferred blooming flower animation and planned to use it for intros and micro-interactions with logo.
As a part of colour discovery, I mapped brand values into hue charts creating suitable colour palettes. We then tested results against desired vision with both user groups to reveal most appropriate choice.
Thanks to a simple form of the logo we could easily expand basic logo to cover categories subtly with the use of two hues applied to two textures.
Using the list of design elements we created a style guide and elements inventory for Ewolu brand to keep designs feel uniform.
Platform
M&P decided that Ewolu will be distributed as a stand-alone software platform. We designed landing page detailing features, different pricing stages and gains from using the program.
Marketplace
Connecting with World Class Speakers Academy
Part of my assignment was managing designs of WCSA educators websites. I took this opportunity to create design framework ensuring cohesive experience on both Ewolu platform and WCSA websites. At the same point assuring the individual character of each site was crucial.
Admin panels
Conclusions
The reception of the platform was remarkably positive. Over 90% of WCSA Educators signed up for the platform and successfully keep using it as a base for their shops and blogs.
I learned a lot about combining goals of different user groups and had amazing opportunity to explore e-learning market.
I believe a proper design process should continue through development and product launch, and then keep improving the product.
Alas, in case of this project design team was only contracted for a single linear design iteration and the process ended by the time product went into development, in my opinion ultimately grounding its potential on "day one".