Client: Cisco U UX team
Project Duration: 4 months
Designated Role: Discussion Facilitation, UX Research, and UX Design
Skills: User interviews, sketching, journey mapping, wireframing, concept testing
Tools Used: Figma and Miro
Cisco U is a personalized online learning platform intended to prepare people to have the knowledge they need to acquire new certifications. Our focus on this project was to take the desktop learning platform and adapt it for a mobile platform while also adding new features that specifically cater to the mobile learning experience.
The user group that our team chose to target was a person that had been developed by Cisco: “The Rising Professional.” While conducting interviews, we found that most of our users, particularly the ones we wanted to target, aligned the most with this person.
We also found that the Rising Professional persona integrates well into the idea of Cisco U mobile since these people are employed and commuting to work, they have a bit of downtime during their commute that could be leveraged in our ideas for mobile learning.
In order to best tackle our project’s problem space, we centered our work around three different pillars of Cisco U. For each of these pillars, our team utilized several research and design methods to eventually create our final designs.
Goal: To develop a more personalized experience for users that is tailored to their needs as a learner
Methods Used: Secondary Research, Interviews, Ideation, Wireframing, User Testing
Goal: To support users in enriching their learning through clearer access to supplemental materials.
Methods Used: Interviews, Ideation, Wireframing, User Testing
Goal: To provide opportunities for users to aid each other in their learning.
Methods Used: Competitive Analysis, Interviews, Ideation
To understand how Cisco U currently incorporates guidance into its design, we looked into the existing feature set and tried to map out a journey for any areas that could serve as a foundation for opportunities to enhance the journey in a mobile experience. Our main focus was looking at features that incorporated personalization and provided users with a clear blueprint for their learning.
To better understand the use of personalization and guidance within a learning app such as Cisco U, we conducted interviews with users who had experience in learning for and completing online certifications.
Our original idea (as shown on the left) was that users would complete a questionnaire to make a custom study plan. The app would generate a plan based on their answers and the study plan would then be integrated with a calendar on the app.
This form also allowed users to indicate whether or not they wanted to be paired with a mentor since many interviewees indicated that they liked having a study buddy to hold them accountable.
Since our definition of depth involves both information retention as well as allowing users to go into more detail within the subject matter that the users were already learning about using Cisco U, we wanted to explore the features that were already available to them and evaluate how effectively they were doing so
The main activities we performed to get a better understanding of depth in Cisco U were:
Based on the initial research our team did on depth in Cisco U, we realized that there were already quite a lot of useful learning tools, such as supplemental material (podcasts, webinars, articles) that the learners had access to but the presentation of the learning material made it harder to access or be aware of. Using this, we ideated and sketched based on the following key insights:
This is the prototype of the supplemental content. We have it organized by content. It will be found under the course. We brainstormed on where to put it, and we want the user to see what content they have based on the module they are in. If they are struggling, of course then they can see all the supplemental content they can watch.
To understand how Cisco U currently approaches community, we analyzed the platform and held some interviews with members of our user group. Additionally, we want to understand how we could create new opportunities for a community on Cisco U to enhance users' learning and networking experience. Our main focus of this part of our project was to understand how we could integrate elements of community into the existing framework of Cisco U.
While studying in a course, users can access a Q/A feature in the form of a popup, which they drag from the bottom of their screen. Here, they can ask questions if they need support in understanding the course content. Also, by highlighting text in the transcript or course readings, they can ask a question about that specific content. Peers can respond to these questions, and the user can scroll to see previous questions others may have had while working through the course.
Once we had ideated and sketched out concepts for the major pillars we had initially identified, we set out to create a cohesive user journey that could consolidate these concepts into an easy to use and intuitive interface.
The Home Page is where the user could look over their daily goals, access highlighted content, and return to their studies from the desktop version of Cisco U. The Course Home page is where the user can access their different courses within each learning path module.
When a user opens up a learning path for the first time on mobile, they are provided the opportunity to make a goal setting plan. These goals can be used to send push notifications to users based on their allocated study times.
Users have a clear layout of their lessons as well as the progress they have made. The flashcard functionality enables them to create and revise notes that they find the most relevant and important. Other supplemental material including podcasts is also readily available with each module
While working through course content, such as reading articles or video transcripts, users can highlight text, resulting in a small menu pop-up and take actions such as highlight text or ask specific questions.
With the notes feature in Cisco U, users can conveniently take and organize notes without leaving the platform. They have the ability to sort their notes by content and directly transfer information from the module to their notes, along with the option to include their own comments and annotations.
Our design is for mobile software, so we had to design around mobile constraints, creating additional limitations.
For this project, our team was more focused on exploring new ideas and experiences for mobile instead of refined high-fidelity wireframes. Our focus was on how features would be integrated into supplemental learning rather than focusing on the visual design. Instead of design, we focused more on user interaction with specific learning features, and how those features would transfer to a mobile experience. Some areas for future improvement that we found have been listed below: