Go1 Client Project
Go1 are an established leader in online learning and education. The brief was to explore the need and desirability of a mobile app for end users (learners). It also included a Portable Learning Experience Vision in the form of a storyboard.
Contrary to our clients' assumptions our interviews showed that workers do not wish to do learning on a mobile device or complete it out of work hours. The Go1 app could be of benefit by ensuring mandatory learning was completed during work hours. Which solved a major pain point for learners.
Our scheduling feature has been added to the Development Backlog for the Go1 mobile department. It has also been added to the website Roadmap by the Go1 Head of Design who could see it being of benefit to all Go1 users.
While working on every stage of this project I was Team Leader during the Deliver stage. This included liaising with Go1 to complete two rounds of usability testing. The project lasted two months.
Methodology of Project
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e-Learning was experiencing huge growth in 2021 and there is increased mobile device use within the workplace.
It appeared that the addition of an app to complete learning on a mobile device
would be a beneficial, low-risk undertaking for Go1 to invest in.
When we were looking into Go1's competitors it proved to be more challenging than in other projects as often a business that appeared to be a competitor was already a partner of Go1.
As of July 2021 Go1 worked with 3.5 million users and more than 1,600
enterprises globally across multiple continents. Companies include Microsoft and Tik Tok and they had just raised an extra $200 million in funding.
The brief included these key areas of work.
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Research and explore the need and desirability of a mobile app for end users (learners)
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Increase completion rates of courses. Increase in learning minutes. (Learners are clear on what they are assigned and the experience is so great they continue to more self-directed learning)
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MVP prototype mobile app with prioritised features (access to Go1 Design System and Style Guide was provided)
Instead of being intimidated by how big our client was we took on the project with a "We Got This!" attitude and trusted the UX process we had used on previous projects.
By communicating regularly with our clients we made ourselves comfortable and felt like part of their UX team early on in the project.
Client meetings were held via Zoom across three states and two time zones and all under Covid restrictions. From this shot, you may not be able to pick out who is from Go1 and who is in my GA team? (apart from Luke)
Our team were the first to test the viability of the scenario "completing mobile learning on a mobile device while commuting" with Go1's end users, workplace learners.
This storyboard was created in response to feedback from the Go1 Sales Department. During meetings with buyers, sales reps were being asked if there is a mobile learning platform. The buyers are usually HR and L&D managers, not the end-users.
Storyboard provided by Go1 as part of our initial brief.
Go1 operate across many demographics and industries they wanted us to focus on one main target group.
These were professional workers, mostly desk-based, who were required to complete mandatory workplace learning regularly.
Privacy laws prevented access to existing user data and interviews that Go1 had so we were starting from scratch with our research.
Interview Goals: to evaluate pain points and barriers to having a good workplace mandatory learning experience.
Understand people's Current Learning Behaviours:
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When and where do you do your workplace learning?
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Do you do any learning outside of work: Duo Lingo for example?
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When and where, which device do you use?
Learn about perspectives and sentiments around workplace learning:
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Tell me about the last time you completed workplace learning?
Understand user's behaviours and preferences with different devices:
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What devices do you use for work and which tasks do you complete on each of them?
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Is there an app you use on your computer but not your phone and why?
Dovetail was used to synthesise data from 19 interviews.
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On previous projects, we had used Miro very effectively, but none of us missed having to type the data into a spreadsheet before transferring it to Miro.
Note: We did not progress further with Content Engagement as a problem. Even though it was top of the results table, course content is not directly provided by Go1.
The initial brief from Go1 included the assumption that learners would want to use their mobile to be able to do their workplace learning anywhere and anytime.
Our interviews were decisive in showing that our users did not want to do their learning on a mobile device.
Users also did not want to complete workplace learning outside of work hours.
As the learning was compulsory users felt they should be given time to do the learning
during official work hours.
Mobile usage within the workplace is generally as a support device for completing smaller tasks such as communicating with workmates in team chats and checking emails.
Users felt that small screen sizes meant mobile devices are not suitable to use when learning.
Meet Robbie: A professional worker required to do annual mandatory workplace learning.
Robbie's Existing Journey Map: he just beats the deadline
Finding time for learning at work was not the problem we initially set out to solve. However, it was a major pain point for our users and prevented them from having a good learning experience.
After synthesising our interviews we could see two clear paths for our project. One was based on
finding time for learning the second Problem Statement was: Robbie needs an engaging learning experience so that he can develop professionally.
Solutions for this option included surveys or AI to gain Robbie's interests,
group learning systems and star ratings. These solutions were more in
keeping with our original brief. However, after consulting with Go1 many
of our options had already been investigated. More details on this part
of the journey are in the full case study.
The Go1 team were excited that we had come up with something new for further investigation. They actively supported our decision to pivot away from the original brief to solve our new problem.
Problem Statement:
Robbie needs a way to find time for mandatory learning at work so he doesn't need to do them in his free time.
How Might We help Robbie to find a time for mandatory learning at work to keep his work and personal life separate?
We held Crazy 8's sessions to come up with solutions to Robbie's Problem. Each team member voted for three of their favourites each before we proceeded further.
(Our Persona was still called Robin at this stage, we got to know him better as the project went on and got to use his nickname by the end of it.)
Our solutions revolved around scheduling, notifications and making sure managers knew when workers would be completing their learning to help prevent them from getting double booked.
Introducing the Go1 Scheduling Feature
Key Features for MVP Mobile App:
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"ONBOARDING" Highlights the scheduling feature and encourages users to select personal interests for further study.
A feature requested in the brief to encourage interaction with the Go1 platform after mandatory learning is completed.
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"SCHEDULING" MVP version user will manually select their date and time to schedule mandatory learning within their existing workplace calendar.
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"LEARNING" On the scheduled date and time user is notified and they complete their course.
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"COMPLETION" User will be able to view their certificate and leave feedback for others.
Prototype
The section I researched and built for prototyping was Onboarding. I began with studying existing Go1 draft concepts for mobile and what they had used on their website and a competitive analysis.
Miro was used as a planning tool to create an informal user flow before moving on to Figma to build the prototype.
Using the Go1 Design System we created a mid-fidelity prototype in Figma.
Some of these elements had only been designed and tested for use on the website and not on mobile devices. We took advantage of this resource in order to skip past the low-fi stage.
We were able to access buttons, icons, fonts, layout grids
and graphical elements from the Go1 Design System.
Onboarding Task:
Sign Up and save "Leadership" as a subject you are interested in.
Scheduling Task:
Log in and schedule a time in your calendar to complete learning.
Complete Learning Task:
Log In and complete your scheduled learning.
Leave Feedback Task:
This step was optional and not mentioned to users to test the level of engagement.
Our project was widened to target a second demographic of users as Go1 works with a broad range of businesses.
These were non-professional workers from manufacturing, hospitality or retail industries which make up a large market segment for Go1.
Our reason behind this expansion was an assumption that this group would
be more interested in completing learning on a mobile device as their work is probably not entirely desk-based.
Would these users be more willing to do their learning on a mobile device than fully desk-based professionals?
Round One: Usability Testing included moderated and unmoderated testing across the two target groups.
Five un-moderated tests with non-desk-based workers were set up to test the assumption that they would be willing to complete workplace learning on a mobile device.
Six professional workers completed moderated tests to see what response our scheduling feature would receive.
Both tests would show if UI was effective as well as observe how users engage with onboarding and course reviewing.
Five is considered the optimum number however my trusty network excelled themselves. User Three encountered a work laptop security issue and was replaced by User Six. User Three then hacked his laptop security to access the prototype in Figma and I couldn't say no.
Users liked our scheduling feature and 10/11 could see themselves using it.
When 4/6 professionals questioned the point of scheduling if it was separate from their existing work calendar we highlighted this as something to change before Round Two of testing.
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"I liked that other people will be able to see that I am blocked out on the calendar"
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"Easy to use"
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"It had logical task completion"
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"The process is simple"
Modifications for Round Two: All tests were un-moderated, we continued working with two separate target markets.
Round one testing highlighted a few key pain points. Including 4/6 professionals who questioned the point of scheduling if it was separate from their existing work calendar.
Only one user questioned if the calendar was synced to their workplace calendar.
6/10 users went straight to the drop down menu. The two users who did have trouble when clicking on the direct selection in the chart area quickly moved to the drop down option after no more than three unsuccessful clicks.
Once the drop shadow was added users clicked on the cards without question when using a mobile device. The cards were part of the Go1 Design System and had previously only been used on the Go1 website and had never been tested on mobiles. Go1 flagged this issue for investigation.
More users did submit feedback in round two. During interviews users reported relying on peer feedback and reviews when selecting courses, a/b testing may discover a more successful format.
For full results from Round One and Two of testing, plus planning for Round Three based on these results please view the full case study.
Our assumption that non-professional workers may be willing to complete workplace learning on a mobile device was proved entirely false.
Overall insights and feedback from our testing was mostly positive. Attitudes towards learning on a mobile and test results were consistent across both target markets.
From a total of 21 user tests, 19 user interviews, and 2 target markets only 1 user wanted to do mobile learning and did not want to use our key feature.
"I do learning on my mobile in my spare time. I would not schedule it."
Users willing to complete learning on a mobile device:
Feedback from Go1 was very positive and we were proud of how we solved a major pain point for our users. Even if at first glance it appeared we had not met the initial brief.
Having scheduled their work into their calendar our learners were not having to finish their learning while commuting in order to beat the deadline for completion.
Our solution also meant that they would not need to use a mobile device when learning. Completing it during office hours meant that they could conduct their workplace learning on a computer as preferred.
The Go1 mobile department has added the scheduling feature to their development backlog.
The Go1 web platform management team decided to put our feature on the roadmap for future investigation as they could see it benefiting all Go1 users.
Our team were very proud of this project and our final solution. We were working on our fourth UX project and presenting it to a very large company.
We stood up for our users and presented Go1 with something they were genuinely excited about and could work with in the future.
Future research for the Go1 mobile app could include:
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Three management-level professional workers showed interest in using the new scheduling feature to allocate learning times to their staff. This ties back to feedback from the sales team that managers are asking what mobile features Go1 comes with.
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"Lower ranked non-professional workers" from different fields such as manufacturing, hospitality or childcare may find learning on a mobile device more appealing and further investigation could be conducted.
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As we moved through the two rounds of usability testing I scribbled down some ideas for features that may be useful on the app as it moves beyond the MVP stage.
Client Feedback
"Well done on your presentation! Amazing effort, insights and process. I am not responsible for the native mobile app but I think the scheduling feature makes sense even on desktop so definitely going to explore it further " Go1 Product Manager: Peter Skalkos
Feedback included a question about our choice to stick with working on a mobile app.
"This is really great - well-done team! A question: With finding time being identified as the root cause - and a general resistance to an app for consumption - what led you to the mobile app as the preferred solution to address that? eg. Why not other mediums?" Go1 Head of Product: Trevor de Vroome
Our solutions were based on a lot of solid research and I felt I was able to justify the reasoning behind our decisions:
"We felt that since Go1's sales team were being asked by buyers if there was a mobile app available that we would explore ways to engage our target market with the mobile platform in an alternate way to completing their learning on the phone.
Our learners were using their mobiles as more of a support device to their computers and generally only using them to do smaller tasks and we wanted to fit in with this existing behaviour.
Some of our other ideas and solutions are already being worked on by the Go1 team, and for our target market creating a way for them to do workplace learning at work would provide the most impact on them having a positive learning experience.
Our brief was very much focused towards Go1 wanting to build an app to increase the portability of learning and it may be desirable in other industries in markets we did not have time to explore."
My Key Takeaways:
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Interviewing people involves listening for potential bonus insights and diverting from the script if needed. During Usability Tests three users worked in management and so I questioned them on willingness to use our feature for assigning work to their staff members.
- Not all assumptions are going to be true. We followed the research on this project even though it did not let us follow the brief and provided a solution for one of our users biggest pain points.
- Adding a second method for doing something on a page helps users move through a task with little or no confusion.
- Figma is a great tool, and being able to find things ready made to use in wireframing and prototyping is a great time saving resource.
- During a second round of usability testing we encountered a new problem with the UI that had not yet been picked up. "Test Early and Test Often" we kept getting told in our course, I can see why.