Backyard Brains Teacher Portal
Backyard Brains develops DIY versions of advanced neuroscience research tools which are appropriate for amateurs and are used in middle/high school educational programs. Backyard Brains seeks to make neuroscience education more hands-on and accessible. Twenty percent of the world has a neurological disorder, so training young minds on how to do neuroscience research is important for recruiting bright minds. Their products are sold mostly to teachers. Their website is usable, but the teacher support and interaction between users on the site is lacking. As a solution our team (Danielle Godick, Lauren Jackson, Rhea Kulkarni, and Fernando Cueva) worked to develop a teacher portal external to the Backyard Brains website. Our goals were to improve the discoverability of Backyard Brains’ online resources, provide a more interactive customer support experience, and facilitate interaction/communication between Backyard Brains users to increase their sense of support and community. We attempted to provide users with easier methods to look for and view experiments and tutorials pertaining to Backyard Brains products, as well as troubleshooting information and videos. Another important component of this project is the community forum page, where users interact with other users, incorporating peer-to-peer assistance.
Over the course of the Winter 2020 semester we used an iterative process to develop our final product. There were three phases in our project process: research, design, and validation. Our research methodology consisted of a survey, an open card sort, user interviews, and persona development. We synthesized our user research using an affinity diagram. Using our user research, we then defined our project requirements and bucketed them into three categories—must have, should have, and nice to have. All teammates had previously taken SI 422 (Needs Assessment and Usability Evaluation), which was extremely helpful during this phase as that course teaches user testing, interviews, surveys, personas, scenarios, and other research mechanisms in a hands-on way. Our design process consisted of a user flow diagram, low-fidelity sketches, and two iterative rounds of mid-fidelity wireframes and user testing. SI 422 was helpful in this stage as well, and each of these components was discussed in the course. Our mid-fidelity wireframes and our final prototype were both built on Figma. To validate our design, we conducted a single-system, unmoderated usability test. This test was designed to assess how intuitive the platform is to use and how easily users can find information and navigate the site.
Overall, this was a great learning experience; this project allowed us to learn to work and collaborate in a team, interact with clients, and conduct research with participants. Additionally, it allowed us to experience a complete UX design process in a hands-on, realistic process. Not only do we see this project benefitting our team in terms of the skills and knowledge we gained throughout the course, but we also believe that the teacher portal that we designed consistently follows and aligns with the scope of the project, as well as the requirements we created. Consequently, we believe that the teacher portal holds an immense amount of value for our primary stakeholders, both for our client and their users.
Over the course of the Winter 2020 semester we used an iterative process to develop our final product. There were three phases in our project process: research, design, and validation. Our research methodology consisted of a survey, an open card sort, user interviews, and persona development. We synthesized our user research using an affinity diagram. Using our user research, we then defined our project requirements and bucketed them into three categories—must have, should have, and nice to have. All teammates had previously taken SI 422 (Needs Assessment and Usability Evaluation), which was extremely helpful during this phase as that course teaches user testing, interviews, surveys, personas, scenarios, and other research mechanisms in a hands-on way. Our design process consisted of a user flow diagram, low-fidelity sketches, and two iterative rounds of mid-fidelity wireframes and user testing. SI 422 was helpful in this stage as well, and each of these components was discussed in the course. Our mid-fidelity wireframes and our final prototype were both built on Figma. To validate our design, we conducted a single-system, unmoderated usability test. This test was designed to assess how intuitive the platform is to use and how easily users can find information and navigate the site.
Overall, this was a great learning experience; this project allowed us to learn to work and collaborate in a team, interact with clients, and conduct research with participants. Additionally, it allowed us to experience a complete UX design process in a hands-on, realistic process. Not only do we see this project benefitting our team in terms of the skills and knowledge we gained throughout the course, but we also believe that the teacher portal that we designed consistently follows and aligns with the scope of the project, as well as the requirements we created. Consequently, we believe that the teacher portal holds an immense amount of value for our primary stakeholders, both for our client and their users.
3 Teammates
