My role: design lead, cooperate with one product manager, one designer, multiple developers, one test engineer.

Design time period: 2020.2.21- 2020.4.21 (during the panic of coronavirus)

Usability test time period: 2020.9.9-2020.9.11

The background of smart classroom solution

The smart classroom solution, which contains interactive screens, educational software, interior design, is for universities’ new pedagogies. By now, over 700 universities use our smart classroom solution.

http://www.ruijie.com.cn/cp/zhjs/

The background of this project : multiple-windows control for group’s screen

Students can project or Airplay their computers’ or phones’ screens to the screens for each group in the smart classroom(we call it “group screen”). These group screens are interactive. If the software system of students’ computers is windows, students can control their computers on the group screen. This product makes students’ group discussions more convenient and more efficient.

After the group discussion, the teacher may want to comment on one of the groups by broadcasting one of the screens to the whole class (which means every screen will present the group’s screen). The teacher can compare two groups by broadcasting two of the groups’ screens to the whole class.

But now only one student can project their computer on this screen. Many universities ask us if the group’s screen can support more students’ projections. As the group’s screen is based on the Android system, how can we design the multiple-windows control for this scenario?

Other company’s designs

These two companies’ design solutions are very similar: when one student projects her computer on the group’s screen. The screen will appear both in the button (we call it “small window”) and in the big area of the screen (we call it the “middle window”). Then there will be a row of empty space at the bottom of the screen. If the student wants to see it on full-screen, she must click on the “full-screen” button.

From a cost-effective perspective, this design is very easy to implement. But from the user’s perspective, the most frequent scenario is to just project one computer on the group’s screen and then discuss it. If we put this product in the real usage scenario, firstly the student must click the “share” button on her screen, secondly stand up and walk to the right side of the group’s screen, thirdly click on the full-screen button.

The other downside of this design is every time only one student’s screen can be shown on the middle window. If the group wants to compare two students’ results or achievements, this product cannot meet this need.

The design process

1. User Analysis

The design demands are very simple – easy to use.

2. User’s Business Analysis

To make the product simple and easy-to-use, we must clearly know how will users use our products. By a workshop with a product manager, key developers, test engineers, we made a consensus on the users’ key business path.

What functions need to stand out? What functions need to be hidden in the user interfaces? We did a deeper analysis of the “user’s task domain”. What’s more important is the priority of each task.

3. Design Discipline and Design Guidelines

We also considered the physical environment of the product and defined the controllable area of the group screen.

4. The design phase

We have multiple designs throughout the design phase. Every review and discussion will produce more design solutions. After we have a comparable complete design, we did several remote (because of the coronavirus) user interviews, then we had the final design.

5. The usability tests (after development)

Usability test time period: 2020.9.9-2020.9.11

After the development, we did the usability tests with four college teachers and one colleague. This is the first time ever for the team to do a usability test. We found it was extremely helpful and efficient.

Before the tests, we carefully designed the tasks and use-cases.

During the tests, we have set up three steps: the first step is to understand how do the teachers use the smart classroom right now; the second step is to give the teachers tasks and see their behavior; the third step is to ask their overall experience and some specific questions.

After the usability tests, just in two hours, we made a consensus on solutions for the problems we found in the usability tests- what are the problems we will solve in this version, and what are the problems we will solve in the next version.

The Product

 

User’s response

 

The Patents