SkillShare is the largest creative learning platform for entrepreneurs and creative professionals. They want to further improve their app that allows students to build trust and confidence. Our team designed new features that reflect it.
Overview
Client
Skillshare
My Role
Co-Lead UX Designer, Researcher, Prototype and lead visual designer. Designed the 1-on-1 session feature and teacher profile.
Platforms
Mobile App
Tools
Figma, Miro, Google Forms, Trello
Duration
2 weeks
Team
2
THE CHALLENGE
Last year, daily views and time spent on SkillShare tripled during the 2020 pandemic. SkillShare wants to further improve their app to meet the needs of their users, retain current users, and gain new users.
Skillshare currently has an existing mobile app and we need to implement Skillshare’s existing style guide to keep the same look and feel.
So what was our task?
Designed new features that allow students to continue building trust and confidence in their classes and teachers
Maintain Skillshare’s branding and values
RESEARCHING UNDER TIME LIMITATIONS
Do people know Skillshare?
To not limit our research only Skillshare users, we conducted a user screening of users who have learned online and/or used an online learning platform. We surveyed 30 participants and interviewed 6 people. These users have not used or heard of Skillshare: 80% are YouTube users and 20% are other online learning users.
Our key findings summarized with users needs and challenges:
I want to ensure that my instructor is qualified and able to receive their feedback
I want to only spend time on high-quality content
"I won't waste my time watching Joe Schmoe teaching jiu jitsu when all these former world champions are making content."
"I want to be able to see that the content has been validated and the instructor is qualified to teach."
Looking deeper into Skillshare’s teaching standard.
We want to know how someone can become a teacher on Skillshare so we research deeper into the current qualifications.
We found that Skillshare teachers are everyday creators, entrepreneurs, and professionals. You don’t need to have experience teaching or be well known to publish your first class and grow a following. From this, we know that we need to design features that strengthen Skillshare’s teachers and ensure that users that they can trust them.
Teachers must follow these guidelines:
Include 20-60 minutes of pre-recorded video content broken down into a series of short 2-5 minute videos
Creating and sharing projects, and giving and receiving feedback
Skillshare’s current app screens
Quality Classes is key
Through competitive analysis, we found that Skillshare's qualifications for teaching are more simple compared to other competitors such as Udemy, Coursera, and LinkedIn Learning.
Anybody can publish a course
Less focused on academics or job training
No teacher and class ratings
Lack of information about the teacher
No class statistics
Compared to the Skillshare desktop, the mobile app is limited in displaying the quality of the class, giving and receiving feedback, and information about the teacher.
We learned that quality classes, receiving feedback, and teacher credentials are extremely important to online learning users. In fact, teacher credentials are the number one factor in choosing a class. This finding aligns with pain points that users share during user interviews.
DEFINING OUR INSIGHTS
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Skillshare app users need a way to learn more about their teachers and connect with them beyond the classroom in order to feel like they are receiving the best quality instruction.
Opportunity
How might we let students see that their teacher is qualified and ensure that students can find the best quality classes so that users feel like their time spent on Skillshare is worthwhile?
IDEATING AND TESTING OUR SOLUTIONS
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Early Concept: Community on Skillshare
Our original idea for a comprehensive community section of Skillshare where students and teachers have more expanded profiles than currently available. After reanalyzing our user’s needs, the big idea of creating a community on Skillshare was not the best solution.
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Feature 1 Development: Booking a 1-on-1 Session
This feature was created to provide more interaction between students and teachers. Skillshare teachers have the option to offer 1-on-1 meetings outside of class. This flow shows how students can book a 1-on-1 meeting
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Feature 2 Development: Preview of Teacher Profile (on class page)
Conceptual sketches for the addition of a drop down feature displaying a summary of a teacher’s info in order to provide users immediate insight into who is teaching their class.
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Feauture 3 Development: Leave a Teacher/Class Review
Our new feature is where students can review a teacher, in addition to the feature that already exists to leave individual class reviews.
The importance of organization and designing the right thing
As we started to design our solution, we used the guidelines we discovered during the research phase. We reflected on existing features from both the Skillshare desktop and app to make sure we’re not duplicating features.
We concentrated on the order of content or information architecture. When should we introduce the new features? How would this impact the retention and interaction? We chose to make the 1-on-1 session, teacher profile, and ratings visible in multiple sections for transparency.
During our interviews, we noticed users lighted up when we asked about teacher validations and connections. We assume this would help retain users' engagement.
Original app site map
Updated app site map with new features
CLARITY AND FEEDBACK = TRUST
After determining our solutions, we tested our hi-fidelity. During this stage, we tested 5 participants.
During our usability testing, we made discoveries regarding accessibility issues and showed us that we need to make some iterations to our initial designs.
We made changes to the class page based on our findings. We changed the 1-on-1 icon and increased the font size to make it easier for our users to understand and see them more clearly.
During user testing, we noted that users tried leaving teacher reviews under the class page. We added the option to leave a class review and teacher review on the class page.
The 1-on-1 booking calendar is now separated from the profile after usability testing. Users like the booking calendar but it was too busy within the teacher profile. Additionally, users prefer to have larger buttons.
Before After
NEXT STEPS
Overall.
We would love to Interview more Skillshare users and conduct further usability tests for more iterations on our designs. The community feature for students and teachers was not possible for us to achieve within 2 weeks so we would love to expand on it. Also adding further details to profiles and rewards and gamification of learning goals
App.
We would love to include additional wireframes, prototypes and build out sorts and filters to create a better search interface. We weren’t able to build out the feature to submit additional projects so the first step is to further user testing the 1-on-1 and teacher profile feature and then add on additional project submission to enhance user needs.
FINAL THOUGHTS
As someone who loves collaborative work, my first group project at General Assembly offered a great introduction to the work environment of UX Design. It was a great learning experience to balance applying new UX/UI skills, whilst working as a team with my talented teammate. We both have different backgrounds and we’re able to use each other’s skills and strengths to design a solution for the problem at hand. It may seem intimidating at first, but it only took a little bit of time for us to adjust to each other’s working styles, establish trust, and soon work very well together.
I found it valuable to have a growth mindset and to have an open and honest conversation each step of the way. I enjoyed having a standup at the beginning of each meeting so that we can take turns sharing our work, findings, questions, and/or concerns. We always make sure that we check in on each other, and support and motivate each other to persevere. These small steps made a huge difference to our relationships and work, and we’re able to together effectively.