Advocating for Equity in Our Education
American public schools flipped upside down during 2020 because of the abrupt transition to online learning. Whether they had the latest Macbook or their dad's 1980's Macintosh, every student was expected to learn completely online. Notesology is a year long volunteer initiative made to help bring the equitable educational experience back to every student. The program partnered with students across the nation to create a volunteer task force that could create learning resources for smaller school districts and lower-income areas.
The design of Notesology brings back the comfort of learning while embracing the online platform which it has to happen through. The logo mark creates a calming effect with its rounded letterforms and emphasizes the idea of note-taking by adding an underline under the logo. The web design focuses on ease of use through minimal design and sufficient user feedback. The web layout also caters to a diverse range of people by offering a responsive display for almost any screen. TLDR, with Notesology, online learning just got a whole lot easier.
Client
+ Notesology
Scope
+ UI/UX
+ User Research
+ Web
+ Interaction
+ Style Guide
+ Branding
Duration
2020-2021 (1 year)
Establishing Brand & Style
I started by defining the visual treatment — The brand needed to feel comforting and trusting while also feeling highly usable. I knew I was packing a lot of functionality into one website, and didn't want users to feel too distracted. Knowing this, I decided to organize the colors into a visual hierarchy that emphasized key visual elements.
The Problem
The unequal funding behind public schools made access to online learning inequitable. While equity in American education has remained an ongoing issue, the virtual schooling crisis in 2020 pushed the situation to intolerable heights. In such an uncertain time as the Covid-19 pandemic, students across the nation expressed their inexplicable lack of motivation towards online school. Whether some students lacked the resources necessary or some students just missed the connection of being with their classmates, education was severely disrupted like never before.
The Goals
The equity crisis in American public schools is deeply connected to state policy, meaning that change and reform will be a slow process that is not equipped to deal with virtual school accommodations. Notesology aims to tackle the situation by:
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Providing students with a community of peers to help them in subjects their struggling in
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Provide students with the chance to learn on their own time with access to resources
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Create enough engagement for volunteers to want to participate
Keep Learning Responsive
The web design behind Notesology goes beyond just the visual design. Wanting to make sure we were reaching as many students from as many students as possible, the Notesology we page was built to be responsive for 1920x1800, 1366x768, 360x640, 414x819, 1536x864 px wide screens along with mobile phones. Asides from responsive design, the website also takes into account the need for easy use with fast-loading minimalist design, sufficient user feedback, and basic error prevention techniques.
Summative Evaluation:
Post-Launch Research
Two months after the soft launch of Notesology, I started working to grow the social media presence of the brand and also conduct more research on what changes early users would like to see. As most interfaces go through, I started working on creating some alternative options to the website based off of how the students and volunteers interacted with the site. Some of the most common problems included:
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Volunteers would sign up to be a volunteer on the volunteer sign-up form, but less than half of them would actually volunteer.
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Students would discover the student platform, but not join the Slack team.
Simplifying the Information Architecture
After conducting more interviews with students and volunteers who interacted with the site, I learned that the main issue with the initial site was its lack of efficiency. Volunteers felt that the sign up process was redundant and lengthy, so the volunteer form was condensed to include signing up along with submitting their notes all in one form instead of depending on volunteers to come back after their initial sign up.
Students faced a slightly similar problem. While keeping all the learning resources on Slack simplified the user flow of the website, the experience of having to download another app was tedious for the user- especially those who are already experiencing a lack of technology access. The students page experienced a major renovation with courses now directly accessible through the website.
Check out the updated Student Portal
A Team Effort
Notesology could not have been made possible without the amazing community of volunteers and individuals committed to getting this project off the ground. from helping make learning resources for almost every high school course to eagerly participating in user interviews and surveys, the dedication of these volunteers through this initiative was the true driving force behind Notesology' s success. Special thanks to the Literacy Volunteers of Laredo, HOPE tutoring, Jolin Qin, Deborah Imeh, and all the other volunteers across the country that joined us in advocating for equity in our education.
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