OVERVIEW
In Spring 2024, I worked in collaboration with a SWE to research, design, and build a digital learning platform that combats the negative effects of short-form content on social media. I was responsible for researching & designing the user experience from beginning to end.
TEAM
Ben Ng - UX, Ani Avadhani - SWE
ROLE
Lead UX Designer
SKILLS
UX, Visual, Usability Testing, Research
TIMEFRAME
Spring 2024
PROBLEM DISCOVERY
The rise of short-form content
The dominance of short form media from platforms such as TikTok and Youtube Shorts has sparked a generational wave of consumers demanding more digestable content. Statistics show that 74% of customers prefer to watch a short-form video about a product or service and many more media sites are implementing these features within their own platforms.
News and education on social media is growing
A study from the Pew Research Center highlights how digital news has become an important part of American's news media diets, with social media playing a crucial role in informational consumption. Today, 69% of U.S. adults consume educational and informational content in some capacity on social media.
Short-form platforms such as Instagram and TikTok have seen a rise in informational consumption from 2021 to 2023 with a 22% increase in user consumption.
The next generation relies heavily on social media
While less than 20% of users age 50 and up use social media to regularly consume news, upwards of 44% of users age 18-29 regularly consume informational content on platforms such as TikTok, X, and Instagram.
The negatives of short-form media
The rise of short-form social media platforms coincides with an increase in rates of depression, anxiety, and attention difficulties, especially among teens and young adults.
Promotes Unproductive Content
Short-form social media's focus on quick attention grabs can lead to fleeting trends and shallow content, while algorithms can create hours of unproductive information.
Rampant Misinformation
Short videos often lack context or nuance, making it easy to spread misleading information. Additionally, echo chambers and confirmation bias from algorithms can make it hard for users to encounter truthful corrections.
Addictive Immediate Gratification
Short-form social media hits our dopamine receptors with quick likes, comments, and easily digestible content, creating a cycle of needing that instant gratification fix. This keep users scrolling, even when it replaces more productive activities.
Diminishing Attention Spans
In short-form social media, a constant stream of content trains our brains to expect instant stimulation. This makes it harder to focus on complex tasks that require sustained attention.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
How can short-form media be more productive?
The prevalence of short-form media in news and education raises concerns about its detrimental effects on attention spans and susceptibility to misinformation.
RESEARCH
Researching competitors
Short-form educational content is still relatively fresh with only a few platforms offering micro-learning courses. I analyzed other supplementary educational platforms to identify their strong suits and weaknesses.
Our platform stands out
No other platform offers a quick, interactive and engaging way to learn about specialized topics in a community-like environment.
Survey & interviews
We conducted a survey with 50 adult respondents between the age of 18-65 to gauge how beneficial they felt their social media consumption was. The demographic all consisted of individuals who use social media at least 2 hours a week.
KEY FINDINGS
Users are aware of the danger
A significant amount of participants acknowledged that their exposure to short-form media platforms has nurtured an expectation for immediate gratification and hurts their long-term development.
Users want to learn
While users express a desire for more meaningful content, short-form social media platforms prioritize mindless engagement over value, making it difficult for users to find any beneficial information.
PROBLEM ANALYSIS
Identifing pain points
From user interviews, market research and target user research, we uncovered key reasons why users struggle to consume content that aligns with their desire for valuable information.
PAIN POINT 001
Difficulty finding engaging educational content
PAIN POINT 002
Learning content is time consuming and overwhelming
PAIN POINT 003
Existing learning platforms lack topic variety
INITIAL SOLUTION
Replacing doomscrolling with microlearning
A crowdsourced microlearning platform that fosters focused learning by offering engaging, concise, and educational content.
Time Efficiency
Microlearning delivers content in small, digestible chunks, making it easier for users to fit learning into their busy schedules.
User Flexibility
Learners have the flexibility to access microlearning modules anytime, anywhere, using various devices such as smartphones, tablets, or computers.
Increasing Retention
By focusing on short, targeted lessons, microlearning helps learners retain information better compared to long-form learning methods.
Cost-Effectiveness
Creating microlearning content is often more cost-effective, as it requires fewer resources and can be produced more quickly.
Just in Time Learning
Microlearning provides immediate access to specific information or skills when needed, enabling learners to address immediate challenges or tasks.
LOW FIDELITY PROTOTYPES
Mapping out main navigation and course flow
We prioritized the discoverability and the educational flows based on the pain points we identified during the discovery phase. Focusing on these key flows was extremely important for tackling the main pain points.
SOLVING PAIN POINTS
PAIN POINT 001
Maximizing engagement
PAIN POINT 002
Solving learning pains
PAIN POINT 003
Offering content variety
INITIAL USABILITY TESTING
Testing with users & making changes
I conducted multiple usability sessions with 10 different users to measure user engagement, user retention, and ensure my designs were aligning with user interests.
USABILITY FINDING 001
User engagement increases with larger cards
We conducted A/B testing on two home page variations to understand which one provided a more engaging user experience.
Variation A
Variation B
80% of users prefered Variation B with the larger cards due to the greater amount of information and a video preview of the content.
Users liked having the content given to them instead of having to browse categories themselves.
USABILITY FINDING 002
Navigation efficiency increases with filters and details
In pursuit of a more user-friendly bookmarked page, we compared two design variations and assessed which one enhanced user navigation efficiency and findabilty.
Variation A
Variation B
90% of users prefered Variation B due to easier scrolling with the vertical list, increased information of saved courses, and the option to unbookmark their courses quickly.
Users responded positvely towards being able to filter by topic especially when having a large amount of saved courses.
USABILITY FINDING 003
Users desire to jump back in to their recent course
Usability testing revealed a critical navigation issue: users frequently exited microlearning courses without bookmarking, leading them to lose track of their progress while scrolling through other content.
Original
Updated
Users responded positively to a minimized view, which allowed them to easily jump back into their current course or bookmark without having to find the original card.
COMBATING MISINFORMATION
Making ByteSize a legitimate source for information
In order to make ByteSize a legitimate source for information, we've included a few features to enforce the verifiability and authenticity of content.
Expert Badge
Expert badges are awarded to users who are certified in their field or interest. Experts are certified based on verified credentials such as relevant career background experience and achievements that are reviewed by the ByteSize team.
Proficency Badge
Proficency badges are given to hobbyists who have a significant amount of positive feedback from their community. Users are awarded a proficiency badge based on high follower count, positive course ratings and a low report rating.
Community Moderation
A report button is located on relevant course pages, allowing users to flag content to prompt a further investigation from community moderators.
FINALIZED SOLUTION
A knowledge sharing community for bite-sized learning
FINAL DESIGN
Home Page
Based on our usability testing sessions, users enjoy having their content delivered to them effortlessly.
Infinite scrolling reduces the friction for new content and a video preview allows for the content to catch user's attention.
Star ratings allows for the community to self-moderate the quality of the content with tags based on interest and difficulty.
FINAL DESIGN
Explore Page
From our usability testings, users still wanted an option to search and browse by genre.
The explore page shows featured content from experts in their field, along with tiles for their personalized interests and topics that may interest them.
FINAL DESIGN
Bookmarks
Courses that are bookmarked are displayed in a list with high level information and progress tracking.
Based on our research and usability testing, progress tracking encourages completion and provides added transparency for the user.
FINAL DESIGN
Course Flow
The lightbulb button allows users to save information cards to their profile and can be referenced independently from the course.
In order to adapt to multiple learning styles, we added interactive cards, where users can place additional information over visuals. Based on our testing, users who interacted with the images were able to score better on quizzes and retain knowledge for longer.
Quizzes can be placed at checkpoints by the course instructor, in order to ensure users a retaining high-level information.
In order to enforce verifiability and accuracy of information, the completion page includes a rating and question section to ask information directly to the creator.
MEASURING IMPACT
Second usability testing
We conducted a second usability test to measure impact and evaluate metrics such as course engagement, knowledge retention, and user satisfaction to assess the effectiveness of ByteSize.
22% Greater retention of content
We measured a 22% increase in knowledge retention quiz scores compared to a control group that studied a document with identical information.
35% Increased engagement
Users displayed a 35% growth in average time spent interacting with the learning content compared to a baseline measurement from eLearning retention rate statistics.
40% Enhanced user motivation
Users have self-reported a 40% rise in motivation to apply the learned skills after completing the microlearning course.
REFLECTION
Key Takeaways
1. Understanding user habits is pivotal in measuring engagement. All of the details from the height of the cards to the CTA's and the information surfaced, is important in maintaining the users attention and understanding what will peak their interest and keep them learning.
2. Collaboration with the engineer is extremely important in understanding what is within scope. Making sure all of my designs were feasible when building required a lot of communication with my other team member and learning about app development on my part.
What's Next?
My team and I are currently developing the main navigation and course flow on mobile. We plan to also add a profile page and course creator flow to fully flesh out ByteSize's experience.
