Sage

PERSONALIZED SKILL LEARNING

⸻

A powerful website that matches you to skills & resources based on your personality, cutting out the guesswork.

ROLE

User Research
Visual Design
User Accessibility & Experience

TOOLS

Figma + FigJam
OptimalWorkshop
Zoom

DURATION

14 weeks
(2022-2023)

⸻ Problem

Individuals find that choosing a new skill to learn is overwhelming.

When it comes to skill improvement, there are so many options and learning platforms to choose from.

Whenever I would begin my journey of self-improvement, I found myself easy discouraged and overwhelmed by the process. Without guidance, I soon would lose interest and wind up back to square one. I asked myself whether others found themselves in the same situation as me.

So I set out to find an effective solution on how I can help individuals remain motivated and succeed in their skill learning journey.

⸻ Solution

Introducing Sage.

What is your personality type?

Take a personality quiz or input your personality type to get started. This quiz will help you determine your strengths and weaknesses and provide you with the necessary guidance & confidence on your skill learning journey.

What skills are best suited for you?

Based on your personality, Sage will match you with skills best suited for you. Sage takes into consideration your strengths and weaknesses and suggests skills you are most likely to succeed at learning and staying motivated for.

What would you like to learn?

Not only does Sage match you with skills, it provides you with the information necessary for you to make a well-informed decision. Sage gives you a peek into what the skill consists of & the resources you will need to begin learning.

CLICK TO VIEW PROTOTYPE

⸻ Research Overview

We want to know why users struggle finding a skill to learn so that we can find an effective solution to make their experience easier.

METHODOLOGIES:
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1. User Interviews
2. Competitive Analysis

PARTICIPANTS:

✦ I’d like to explore ways to help individuals choose a skill based on their personality traits because they struggle with choosing a skill that provides value to their current lifestyles.

✦ I’d like to explore ways to help individuals study a skill based on their personality traits because individuals may become easily frustrated and impatient when given the freedom to set goals for themselves.

✦ I’d like to explore ways to help overwhelmed individuals choose a new skill to learn using a personality test because many would feel more confident in continuing their progress if the skill they were learning was suggested to them and backed by psychological findings.

CLICK TO VIEW FULL RESEARCH PLAN

⸻ Competitive Analysis

Current skill learning platforms do not offer tailored guidance/recommendations.

By analyzing personality strengths and weaknesses based on a personality quiz and suggesting skills for users based on their personality type, users may experience higher satisfaction and success in their skill learning.

UDEMY

"Udemy is an online learning and teaching marketplace with over 100,000 video courses created by experts."

TRUITY

"Free 15-minute career test measures key personality factors to show you the exact careers that suit your strengths."

16PERSONALITIES

"Only 10 minutes to get a “freakishly accurate” description of who you are and why you do things the way you do."

After competitive analysis, we saw that 16personalities was most similar to our product. They give analysis and insight into your strengths and weaknesses and gives career suggestions based on your personality.

Personality quiz platforms such as 16personalities make individuals feel understood & supported.

CLICK TO VIEW FULL COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

⸻ Project Goals

‍Organizing user and business goals to set the foundation for a successful product.

By analyzing personality strengths and weaknesses based on a personality quiz and suggesting skills for users based on their personality type, users may experience higher satisfaction and success in their skill learning.

By organizing both business and user goals we see the alignment between customer satisfaction, product success, having an accessible product, and ultimately successful skill learning for the users.

⸻ User Research

Users struggle choosing a skill to learn and maintaining motivation in their learning.

To test my hypothesis and build a better understanding surrounding the problems that individuals face when choosing a skill, I conducted user interviews on 5 different participants.

I synthesized my user interview findings on an affinity map and narrowed down my focus.

Affinity Map:

FINDINGS:
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✦ Most people struggle with maintaining motivation.
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✦ Individuals choose skills to learn based on environment.
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✦ Individuals enjoy taking personality quizzes and believe they have merit.
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✦ Many set unrealistic expectations for themselves leading to disappointment and a sense of failure.
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✦ Most individuals feel the need to improve themselves.
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✦ Individuals choose skills to learn that they can show-off as an accomplishment socially.

By organizing both business and user goals we see the alignment between customer satisfaction, product success, having an accessible product, and ultimately successful skill learning for the users.

⸻ Personas

Target audience are individuals looking to find a skill to learn & the resources to learn it.

Let's meet Xander. He wants to learn new skills independently and as a means of self-improvement so that he can connect with others over shared skills.

Let's meet Aryon. He desires to learn new skills with instruction and as a means of self-improvement so that he can impress others with his knowledge.

⸻ Ideate

How do we make choosing a skill easier for users?

✦ Personality test that suggests skills to users based on their personality type.

✦ Sourcing skill platforms and suggesting only the tried & true.

✦ Making users feel understood and supported through personal skill learning.

Information Architecture

Taking in all the research I gathered, I set out to design the information architecture of sage. I created a sitemap to organize the pages of the site and then came up with 3 user flows that highlighted the main feature of the site.

Sitemap:

Task Flows:

User Flows:

⸻ Wireframes

I started with 5 key screens; a sign up screen, log in screen, home screen, personality test screen, and a profile screen.

With a solid foundation set for my site design, I moved on to creating my wireframes. I first started with my lo-fi wireframes which will set the outline for my hi-fi wireframes that I will finalize after.

I took my lo-fi wireframes and flows and created my hi-fi wireframes.

⸻ Prototyping

Once my design is finalized, it is now time to prototype my flows so that I can conduct usability testing and make adjustments as necessary.

CLICK TO VIEW PROTOTYPE

⸻ Usability Testing

I conducted timed usability tests with 5 participants who were asked to complete 3 task flows.

TASK FLOWS:

✦ Create an account using personality type.
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✦ Sign into an existing account and view profile overview.
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✦ Explore suggested skills and add one to skill favorites.

RESULTS:

Prioritizing feedback is crucial, especially since we cannot apply all iterations.

Using the information I gathered from usability testing, I created a matrix to organize the feedback.

I made notes for what worked, what should be changed, ideas for future iterations, and any questions my users may have had.

⸻ Iterations

5 major iterations were made after receiving user feedback.

✦ Login button was added to top right navigation bar.

✦ Landing page was redesigned with clear titles and subtitles.

✦ Cards were changed from 60% black fill to 60% white fill with text changed from medium white to semibold black to give a “lighter look” and match the top of the landing page.

✦ “view all skills” button was changed to “view more”

✦ heart “like” icon was added to the top right of skill cards

✦ Landing page title of logged in homescreen was changed to be more clear. This maintains consistent styling of logged out homescreen.

✦ Avatar was removed so that page is not mixed up with profile overview.

✦ Skill page redesigned utilizing an image and having a clear title.

✦ Heart “like” icon added to top right corner of skill card.

⸻ Final Design

Guidelines for accessible & consistent UI design throughout platform.

Design systems are necessary for a consistent and accessible user experience. By creating components and a style tile for the platform, users can focus on their tasks rather than trying to figure out the platform design.

Below are some of the components utilized throughout sage.

⸻ Learnings

Learning my limitations.

When I first started this project, I had so many ideas of what to incorporate and design for. Soon, I realized that it would be impossible to execute a final design within a certain time frame if I did not place constraints on myself. There is always room for iteration and improvement as time goes on, but it is important to prioritize vital features before making any additions.

User feedback and iterations are what makes great design.

With each case study, I take the knowledge I gave gained and bring that into my next project. Designing sage taught me immensely about research and user feedback. It is important as designers to master our skills and utilize them effectively when conducting user interviews and user testing so that we can extract as much information as possible as we continue in our design process.

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