Idea 8 - UX Audit Nokia

SJOERD FAESEN UX- & GRAPHIC DESIGNER

UX DESIGN P A T H & I M P L E M E N T A T I O N

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INTRODUCTION As of the recent acquisition by NOKIA, MyPLE will go on as NOKIA EDU. A transition will happen from the old to the new, a change which will hopefully welcome acceptance towards a new UI. This visual portal to the experience of NOKIA will be presented to you in this document. As the process goes on, this document will adapt to it. The general idea is teamwork here. A good UI will only be realised when the whole company can have a say in it.

As time is a big factor here, we will first take on the front-end part ( being a learner centered platform ) to meet the modern learner requirements and create an engaging experience for them. Any comments, ideas or questions are welcome!

Feel free to contact me at sjoerd.faesen@alcatel-lucent.com or hop on to the 10th floor and look for this specimen;

user experience Syllabification: us·er ex·pe·ri·ence

noun The overall experience of a person using a product such as a website or computer application, especially in terms of how easy or pleasing it is to use.

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CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................... 2 PROCESS ................................................................................................................................................ 4 THE STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS ............................................................................................................. 5 RESEARCH .............................................................................................................................................. 6 Current state of the platform ......................................................................................................... 8

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PROCESS A short visual representation of the User Experience design process.

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THE STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS At first research has to be done to understand the flow of MyPLE in order to know what has to actually change. Research includes past documentation ( white paper / past UX work / past surveys / outline of the platform ), current usage, user research and market research. While this is a lot, changes have been made to the platform over the years, and not all changes have been documented. Therefore excuse me when I don’t fully capture certain features, we’ll learn as we go.

The second step will be to take all of this research and translate it into a program of demands and wishes. This program will represent all of the hard demands the new UI has to meet, and possible new implementations that may happen in the future.

Again, this program is adaptable and open for suggestions at any time!

With this list of demands, the personas will be created in order to fully look at the platform in the eyes of the users. We will devide the front end redesign into the following user personas; 1. Employee Learner ( loads of content ) , 2.

Customer/Contractor Leaner ( limited content ).

After we have the insight of the actual learners from these personas we will step over to the storyboards and mood boards. This will involve representations and stories of the estimated intended usage of the platform, together with a feel of the new UI mood. The previous research will be of great use here! As this will mostly define the usage of the platform, all the feedback we can get will be of great importance. An

option here is to get feedback from current learners and non-learners about the personas and storyboards here.

Flowcharts are essential now, these redesign are needed to create a feasible path of the platform for the learner ( when do you see what, step-by-step ). To not get stuck with a million ideas, but to select only the minimal parts for the complete experience!

This will require a lot of logic and an overview of the platform. This will probably be redesigned a couple times as the project goes on.

The free forming phase will be entered now and a LOT of sketches will be made for creating mock-ups for the new UI. Again, teameffort will highlight the essential features and elements that are key in brainstorming sessions and meetings. If you have cool ideas, don’t hesitate and speak up!

With this Frankenstein of sketches and flowcharts, the real deal has to be made.

Looking at the program of demands (this might have changed a lot by now), we will test all of the good stuff from the team ideas and sketches. Passed features and elements will now have their spot in the new UI Mock-up. A lot of shuffling will be done here in order to create the final Mock-Up of the new UI. Reaching this phase, we could focus on the home page first and create the entity of the platform based on the design of this page.

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RESEARCH For general research about the current state of the platform I refer to the White paper and the Bible Powerpoint file, these include the initial concept of the platform. The platform has gone through many updates and new features since it was founded a while ago. The build I’m currently documenting is 3.4. We’re working towards build 3.5 somewhere mid 2016.

At first, the community-based way of learning of the current build is explained visually.

After this, I will try to give a quick overview of the current UI and features, explained to me by developers and managers. I’m not here to give you an exact representation of the current User Experience, but the essentials are needed to clarify evaluations and room for improvement.

And to have a better understanding of the early stage of gamification, parts of the old persona and gamification documents pass by.

Then some data of user surveys will be analyzed. Making us understand the past troubles.

To be up-to-date with developments in the online learning worldwide, some market research has to be done. Reflecting the current platform to the leading consumer learning platforms out there on the web.

With all this data in our back pocket we will then see some Q&A in combination with brainstorming sessions.

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Current state of the platform Reason of being - Problems with the intrinsically elitist nature of corporate training where companies can only afford to offer development to the already well developed.

Frustrations about the enormous cost and ecological footprint of learning with all its flying and time away from home. And finally problems with the one-size-fits-all nature of training and its inability to go beyond mere compliance - to allow learners to build new areas of excellence. My Personal Learning Experience (My PLE) was built to address real-life problems and frustrations Platform based – Not bound to a school or institution, but bound only by the time the learner wants to spend in the platform. There are exceptions to this; Courses being given in a specific location.

Learner centric - The user, from this point on called “learner” is the central part of NOKIA EDU. School is coming to the learner, being any form of school; primary school, high school, college, university, professional accreditation or adult learning program.

Low entry, high quality – Ease of use is very important. The platform is required to be as simple as possible to use, read intuitive. It has to be a simple, pleasant entry combined with a learner-centric route to expertise.

Community based – Membership of a community will give you access to the content. ( For example math basics will give you membership to adding and subtracting ). Considers your

personality to be a composite of growing identities, each associated with a social group or a community. Each community has subcultures and it is important to recognize that while they form a whole, they also allow differentiation.

Devices – Devices currently supported are desktop computers ( Linux, Windows, Mac etc. ) and tablets on a responsive website. ( ranging from all of the popular tablets ). Mobile phone support is absent.

Content responsibility – NOKIA EDA Dev team is not managing content. This is being done by content and community managers.

Learning service, not a predetermined path – Putting learners in control instead of forcing them down a specific path. A little help along the way is there when the leaner needs it.

Learning is about aspiring to excel and being recognized for what you know.

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Use (short) - Students log in and see their personal learning dashboard consisting of the communities they aspire to join and the progress they have made in each. People like games, particularly those in which they can only win or make progress, and the personal learning dashboard is like a game board on which each student can track their achievements and plan their next moves. The basic prize is to be recognized as part of a community (badges, ribbons, progression to the next proficiency level, etc.) and be able to shape their own future as well as that of their communities. Students will become teachers of sorts creating their own lesson plan and contributing to that of the community. Once in the dashboard students can do two things: explore a community or search for other communities.

Membership – Being a part of a community.

Community – A hub of levels concerning related information in a certain field where the members can learn and test their knowledge. The Community Manager together with te members can keep this community alive by learning, discussing on the discussion board and testing/showing off their knowledge. This is the keystone to access the content you, as a learner, are interested in. (See picture of a community overview below, as seen from catalog)

Figure 1 - Community page in Catalog

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Community manager - In the so-called back-end of My PLE, community managers or spokespersons will determine what specifics define a community. They will be allowed to define proficiency levels within that community because learning and being part of a community is not black and white. You have people who speak the basics (e.g. mathematics) and those who are experts that make the language live and invent new concepts.

Figure 2 - Back-End

Levels – A group of Learning Objectives that form a testable and related collection of knowledge. You start at the first level and work your way up to the top. The standard level structure is as follows (from start to ending); Aware, Informed, Professional and Expert. A level can contain either Learning Objects or Tests.

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There is the option to change these names of the levels per community as Community Manager.

A level can be located in multiple different communities, because there is information overlap in different fields of expertise/job/enterprise.

Figure 3 - Level page NOKIAEDU

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Learning Object (LO) – A piece of information in a level. This can be either a video, a text file or a course you need to complete. An

LO can consist of multiple aggregated LO’s as well. This group will form an aggregated LO. An LO can be located in multiple levels of different communities, because there is information overlap in different fields of expertise/job/enterprise.

Figure 4 - Learning Object pop-up

Progress – ( In this build shown as percentage based per community and levels ) In a true community nobody cares how you arrived there, as long as you have proven worthy to be there. It is not enough only to be concerned with one’s individual standing. It is to co decide what is relevant for the group and what are the up-to-date expectations the community has of its members. This is not static, not even for a couple of years. You contribute to the development of the learning track as an example. As part of the community, you are the expert. The progress bars on the home page are shown on the next page.

Competence - Once proficiency levels are defined, a community manager will be able to express the key items students need to prove in order to make progress in the community.

These become proofs of competence defined to capture the (language) expectations of the community. If students prove their competence then they are a recognized part of the community and can progress to higher proficiency levels of that community. As they progress through levels, they will be recognized as one of the few experts.

Proof of competence – The ability to prove yourself whether you “got it” and to decide whether more in-depth study is needed. Take quizzes and test to prove yourself! Score is

based on test percentage, not on content read/viewed!

Figure 5 - Prove it PoC NOKIAEDU

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Figure 6 - Home Page, main categories

Main categories – Communities can overlap in these categories, but to get a genereral division and to easily keep track of progress in these main fields My PLE has these main categories; - My Organization – Category for all communities based on your company.

- My Job – Category for all communities based on your job.

- My Expertise – Category for all communities based on all expertise based communities.

Progress counter – When you click the progress counter (The percentage bars in the middle of the screen as shown on this page) it expands into a set of topics that the community deems relevant to know or requires its members to prove competence in. You’ll see what’s relevant in this community and see your progress in these levels.

Taxonomy of learners – The total of learners are divided in groups. Take for example employees. These have access to most of the communities, for free. But they don’t have access to completely irrelevant communities to them. Another group could be a Channeled Partner group that wants to learn about a specific server. The communities linked to that are then pushed by a CP Manager or looked up by the learners in the catalog/search. Only this specific content is paid for and therefore accessible by these CP learners. New learner groups can always be made in de Back-End, and existing groups can be altered.

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Start-up – The first time you log in to My PLE you can get a tour via videos.

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As an employee; It then pushes communities to you that can be assigned by a community manager or someone else with authority. This info is gathered from your profile and job in the company. You will see the three counters; Organization, Job and Expertise. (Organization and Job already has some standard communities in there that are predefined in your learner group). You are free to join other communities, even not related to you job.

As others; same story but the organization part is not there. You only see the Job and Expertise part. Usually the home screen meters will be empty or there will be some communities visible that have been pushed from the back-end by a Community Manager/Channeled Partner Manager. You don’t have access to everything in My PLE, only the content that has been paid for.

Figure 7 - Guided tour

Catalog – The learner can look up and access all of the content within My PLE via the catalog viewer located in the home screen. This is a Back-End feature implemented in de front-end to make it easier to look for content. A lot of clicks were needed in search and not a lot of information was visible.

Figure 8 - Catalog viewer

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Discussion board – Place for the learner in a community to speak to each other, either being bad or good comments/questions. The picture below shows one of the more popular communities. As seen, discussion board is empty.

Figure 9 - Discussion board

My learning path – You can add communities / levels / LO’s to your learning path, this learning path is only visible in the home screen. When you sign up for a community/level/LO

it is not added to your learning path automatically.

Figure 10 - My Learning Path

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Comment & Rating – You comment on and rate every object (community / level / LO) in the My PLE platform. The comments are accessed in the interface by clicking on the comments link, opening in a pop-up. The rating is being done with a star-system. 1 to 5 (bad to good) rating system.

Figure 11 - Comment and rate

Sharing – Sharing your accomplishments in the platform can be done only by manually selecting to share content. There is the option to share via MyPLE Sharing, E-mail or download your progress to print for example. You cannot post anything to Facebook / LinkedIn etc.

Privacy is very high in the platform. There is no way to actually see any activity of other users unless they manually choose to do so.

Figure 12 - Sharing accomplishments

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Search – You can search the entire platform (community/level/LO) for information. This search can be filtered and additional info can be shown in a pop-up by clicking “More actions”. The standard information given in the main search window is limited.

Figure 13 - Search page

Profile – The profile page can be accessed from the top right menu (when clicking on your name) and has multiple tabs. On the top you can change your own avatar image. The tabs consist of; -

My activities, were you can see recent activities in the platform going from communities and results.

About me, where you can see your own general information.

Completed learning, showing the levels / LO’s you’ve completed.

Settings, the place for some minor tweaks and options for the platform on the learner side.

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Communication – Instant messages are absent, the only way to communicate to other leaners directly is via e-mail if you look up the person in the company. General communication is being done either on the discussion board per community or in the comment system. The current standard for communication within the My PLE platform is external, named Engage.

Engage – The external social platform standard for Alcatel-Lucent. People are “used to it”, but not fond of it. When there is need of communication in a group, the My PLE platform refers to topics within Engage.

Store – Another external addition to the My PLE platform. This one uses a more visual and easy representation of the catalog. This is generally used as the starting point for the platform, instead of its own homepage.

HR (Human Resources) – There is no direct link of the HR company profiles to the My PLE profiles. HR can push (via CM’s) content to employees (new to the platform).

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CP (Channel Partner) – An external intermediate between the My PLE platform and other customers/learners. This could be either a big enterprise to a service provider. They will funnel new learners to the platform. For example; Belgacom needs their engineers trained in new tech > send them to My PLE via the CPM (Channel Partner Manager).

CPM (Channel Partner Manager) – The manager that guides these new learners from the Channel Partner side in the My PLE platform.

CPL (Channel Partner Learner) – The learners that are coming from a Channel Partner as explained previously.

GCPM (Global Channel Partner Manager) – The global manager of a collection of CPM’s.

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