Abstract

E-learning systems are very popular means to support the teaching process today. These systems are mainly used by universities as well as by commercial training centres. We analysed several popular e-learning platforms used in Polish universities and find them very unfriendly for the users. For this reason, the authors began the work on the creation of a new system that would be not only useful, but also usable for students, teachers and system administrators. This paper presents a case study of e-learning platform design process. We applied Design Thinking (DT) approach which puts a strong emphasis on the participation of end-users throughout the design process. Such an approach makes final product more user-friendly and better suited to end-users needs. An interdisciplinary team of designers implemented the design process in five stages: Empathizing - a thorough analysis of the problem and its context; Defining - synthesis of information obtained in the previous step and identifying user needs and insights; Ideating - generating solutions; Prototyping and Testing solutions proposed in the Ideating phase. During the design process the team used many additional methods, such as Empathy map, Stakeholders map, Value preposition canvas, personas, brainstorming, Card sorting and many more. As the result of design process we obtain an interactive prototype of designed e-learning platform. The prototype was tested by end-users and the feedback from the testers was collected. It confirmed that the use of the DT approach in design process allows to better fit designed product to the users’ needs. The next step will be the implementation of tested and approved solutions to the real system what is planned in the nearest future.

Citations

Authors (4)