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Ivet Dyulgerova
FlickThink is an innovative e-learning platform in the EdTech sector, devoted to equipping educators with an array of teaching materials and comprehensive online courses. The core emphasis lay in fostering critical thinking through the engaging medium of films. The platform is feature-rich, providing range of ready-to-use resources, an online course, and seamless access to our informative newsletter for continual professional development.
Scope
5 months
My Role:
UX Designer & working with one more Designer / Project Manager
Year:
2023
Service Provided:
Research, Website Design, Development & Branding
The Challenge
The client has discovered interest within teachers in higher education for learning about and applying critical thinking & film education in their teachings. There are no existing solutions that provide sufficient resources (e.g. courses, materials, discussions, events) in one unified platform. The challenge was not only to create this e-learning environment that can serve as multi-purpose educator, but have our hypothesis and design decisions verified by the users to ensure a problem-focused solutions that are also approved by the users.
The Solution
The final solution (MVP) was creating an e-learning platform focused on providing teaching materials and online courses as well as inspiring knowledge sharing between the founders and the users. The target user group was education professionals focused on critical thinking and film in future-proof HBO business education. This solution was developed mainly because of the Lean UX methodology, and was based on assumption validation processes. The final deliverables were a fully functioning e-learning platform, branding and brand guidelines, email marketing plan and templates, and social media templates.
Design approach & project planning
Faced with the wide-open nature of our initial design challenge, we decided to go with a more flexible, agile approach - Lean UX. This gave us the room to breathe and adapt our design process, helping us reach our end goal through series of experiments. We rolled up our sleeves and dived into our work, breaking it down into four distinct phases. Each phase was made up of cycles where we put our product hypothesis to the test.
Research
Our research was strongly focused on assumption validations for which we used Assumption mapping. The Assumption mapping was conducted on the project kick-off meeting. Firstly, we laid down all possible hypothesis and assumptions we had about the product, then we converge them by positioning them on the matrix based on importance and available information/ evidence supporting the hypothesis. Our research we focused on the top right corner where the hypothesis are important but lack evidence. Those hypothesis we turned into concrete research goals.
This initial research phase aimed to set the stage for the rest of the project. Thus we dedicated the first two cycles (Cycle A & B) of the project on the research. With the experiments we conducted, we get a better understanding why and for whom we are tailoring the solution. Below you can see an overview of the research techniques we used.
Cycle C
In Cycle C was focused on creating a branding that represents the product values and visions. At the same time we also focused on the hypothesis that :
“We believe that users are resistant to signing up/providing info like email for our platform” and “We believe that users are interested in our offerings”.
In order to test and validate this, we crated a simple landing page that presents the e-leaning platform, it’s features and most importantly with a CTA to collect emails for the upcoming newsletter campaign.
In order to develop the landing page and later on the platform, we made research and decided to work with a LMS (learning- management system), more specifically Podia. Therefore the project was also ‘developed’ by us - the designers.
Branding
Based on the research and creative session with the client we created a branding concepts and direction to base our designs on. The concept’s and the brand goal was to develop a vibrant and fun branding image that would still reflect trust and professionalism. With the brand personality in mind (Contemporary/ Playful/ Professional/ Challenging), we produced an identity that's bold, fun, and modern.
Cycle D
Cycle D was all about crafting the first MVP and putting it through the test of the users. The MVP included a Home page, About page, and pages that present the platform's offerings like online courses and teaching materials. Once we had the MVP, we conducted user trial sessions. These sessions gave us rich insight into the first impressions of the target audience.
Final E-Learning platform
The FlickThink e-learning platform was released in July 2023. The launch involved social media announcements, an email marketing campaign, and a dedicated website tailored to the target audience, shaped by their continual feedback. Check out the platform from the link bellow.
The platform is fully operational. Since its launch, both the project's concept and the platform itself have been nominated for and won several awards, including the NRO Onderwijspremie and the Olive Award.
