Integrating User Experience and Instructional DesignOpen Education 2011

Bill Jerome

Renee Fisher

Exploring how we in the OER community can improve the relationship between user experience and instructional design.

Our Discussion

Agenda

• Introduction to OLI • Who we are• Overview of the OLI course design process

• Overview User Experience• Examples of a collaboration in action• Lessons Learned and Future Plans• Questions

Open Learning Initiative (OLI)

• OLI is a research and development project based at Carnegie Mellon University.

• Our goal is to creatively and scientifically apply the best of what is understood about how students learn and what they need to learn to create learning environments and tools that improve teaching and learning within higher education.

Open Learning Initiative (OLI)

• Our environments collect data on all student interactions within the system.

• This data is then analyzed and used to feed four powerful feedback loops.

Designing for Alignment

Learning Objective

s

Assessments

Instructional Activities

OLI Learning

Environment

Course Development Team

User Experience

User Experience (UX)

• ISO definition : a person's perceptions and responses that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service.

• Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience#Definitions

User Experience (UX)

• ISO definition : a person's perceptions and responses that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service.

• Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience#Definitions

• We incorporate usability study into the design, development, and evaluation of user experience

Motivation for UX in Course Design

“It is an honest question: how smart are your users? The answer may surprise you: it doesn’t matter. They can be geniuses or morons, but if you don’t engage their intelligence, you can’t depend on their brain power.”

From: “Are your users S.T.U.P.I.D? How good design can make users effective” Stephen Turbek on 2011/04/20http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/are-your-users-s-t-u

Motivation for UX in Course Design

Motivation for UX in Course Design

• In short, learning and instruction are complex tasks that tax the users in ways very unlike a round of Fruit Ninja

Motivation for UX in Course Design

• In short, learning and instruction are complex tasks that tax the users in ways very unlike a round of Fruit Ninja

• That said, even game developers pay a lot of attention to UX - so too should we

Motivation for UX in Course Design

• Consistency is one of the most powerful usability principles: when things always behave the same, users don’t have to worry about what will happen. Instead, they know what will happen based on earlier experience.

— Jakob Nielsen

UX at OLI

• Previously, in-depth studies of very specific, thorny issues

• Essentially HCI as triage

• Now, integrating heavily into software development right from the start

• Started work and integrating into course development process.

• How?

Bringing UX Into Course Development

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Bringing UX Into Course Development

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Needs Assessment

New ActivityTypes

User Studies

Ongoing User Studies and

consultation on emerging design and

technology issues

As needed

A Course Specific Example

• Crossword Puzzle Activity

A Course Specific Example

• Crossword Puzzle Activity• UX Problems

• Communicating length requirements without requiring box-by-box input

• Conflict resolution

• Not unresolvable, but get in the way for someone interested more in answers and correctness than puzzles

Broader UX

• User Testing• Across courses at once to bundle testing of smaller

interfaces (crossword example)• Testing of elements common across multiple

courses (navigation, quiz delivery)

Broader UX

• Accessibility• Section 508 and WCAG• Going beyond requirements

• CAST (www.cast.org)• Bringing UDL into the course development process• TAACCCT (OPEN)

Broader UX

• Authoring• How to support best practices in authoring tools• Too many tools focus on word processing – an

authoring tool should support the pedagogical process of generating interactive learning content centered on learning objectives

• Determining the needs of authors• Ensuring such tools support iterative development not

just creation

Looking Forward

• Refine points in process• Streamline communications among groups

• Evaluate process as a whole• As course development projects progress,

evaluate ways to adjust the points in the process• Iteratively improve