Product Design (UX/UI)
3 weeks (2023)
Figma, Miro, Optimal
Student project at designlab
I initiated a solo journey to create a mobile app that leverages the power of Virtual Reality (VR) for educational purposes. The aim was to make school field trips more accessible, affordable, and easy to plan, allowing students to explore the world directly from their classrooms.
Design an MVP app that addresses the logistical and cost issues of traditional field trips by using VR technology to allow affordable, accessible, and limitless explorations right from the classroom.
Create an app that uses Virtual Reality to bring the world into the classroom.
To look into the problems faced during field trips.
To study the current VR learning tools and find out where they can do better.
To gather useful ideas that can guide how the new app should look and work.
I initially attempted interviews, but finding the right participants was challenging and yielded limited insights. I then pivoted to other research methods, which were more fruitful for my study.
I looked at websites like Quora, reading what teachers and principals said about field trips. It was a different way to learn, but it turned out to be pretty helpful.
“ They have a lot of paperwork „
“ logistics of planning the field trip„
“They are a pain to coordinate„
“ Students get lost/break things / etc„
“Students are unappreciative or waste time „
“ Costs (low or no budget for field trips) „
“ They take so much time „
While exploring, I stumbled upon a chart that neatly captures the biggest challenges in planning a field trip.
I took a close look at popular travel sites like Expedia, Booking.com, TripAdvisor, and Kayak. I wanted to see how they handle eco-friendly travel options. Here’s a breakdown of what I discovered.
Quality content and immersive VR experiences
User interface could be improved for better navigation.
Offers a wide range of historical and cultural sites.
Successfully blends education with VR for an engaging learning experience.
Subject variety could be expanded.
Real-world environments translated into VR experiences.
Comprehensive VR curriculum and hardware solutions.
Cost-prohibitive for some institutions.
Provides integrated curriculum-specific VR content.
Makes complex subjects engaging through VR.
Overall user experience could be improved.
Specializes in complex subjects like physics and biology.
From my research, three critical POVs emerged representing the users' experiences and needs.
From the concerns I've heard, one big question stands out: "How can we make planning and going on field trips easier and cheaper for teachers?"
This leads me to the following commitment: "I'm set on making it simpler and more affordable for teachers to plan and go on field trips."
Following my user interviews and research, I crafted a user persona. This character symbolizes my primary user, guiding my design decisions based on their needs and goals. Let's introduce this persona.
After defining the persona, I explored the user's journey within our app. I arranged this journey into clear steps using a card sorting session, which helped to set up the structure of the app.
Using the insights gained from card sorting, I crafted a sitemap for the app. This sitemap acted as my guide, illustrating the connections between all the elements of the app and setting a clear route for my design journey.
After setting up our sitemap, I turned to user and task flows. These became the guiding force for the wireframes, ensuring my app's design would match the real-world journey and tasks of our users.
Based on user and task flows, I started crafting low-fidelity wireframes. This is where our app started to take on a visual form, as the wireframes laid out the initial design and structure of our application.
As I reached this stage, I was able to add more detail and get closer to the final application's appearance.
I tested the virtual field trip designs and got good feedback. Users found it simple to use, showing the designs are on track!
I explored VR's educational potential through this project, facing challenges but finding ways to solve them. Positive feedback on my test version highlighted its potential. Through this, I learned the importance of creative research when not reaching target users, and how essential user-friendliness and intuitiveness are in VR for education.
If given more time, I would have delved deeper into VR interaction design, sought more feedback from educators and students, and enhanced the app's interface design.
Back up!