e-learning system design

In the spring of 2024, in my MS HCI program at DePaul University, I took a course entitled “Learner-Centered Design”, with Professor Peter Hastings. For this class I proposed an e learner system that can teach textured hair persons, with hair types 2c-4c how to style their hair into braids. Many Black, African and Afro-Latinx persons, enjoy the creativity that comes with braiding their hair and love finding new ways to express themselves. Additionally, many opt to braid their hair in efforts to avoid damage and save money from expensive salon visits. However, this trade has yet to be fully taught within a comprehensive application, leaving many to disjointedly source guides and tips from multiple blogs and YouTube videos. This e-learning guide, will completely unpack a core style, that is the root of many braiding patterns--the iconic box braid.

take the e-learner guide below...all the figures displayed are customed designed!

for the pre-test & post-test be sure to click through all the hints to progress!

Create objectives that match specific verbiage, codes and guidelines within Bloom’s Taxonomy, which is a set of three hierarchical models used for classification of educational learning objectives into levels of complexity and specificity.

Create a lesson plan that fully meets each objective yet will only take 15-30 minutes for learners to view

Get into the learner’s mind, figure out which E-learning principles learners will value the most & then incorporate them into the verbiage, graphics, and overall composition of the learning system.

project Design goals

click to view creation process...

research results

For the e-learner system I used Mind Smith, an online e-learner system program, in which users can create and customize lessons. Please note, while Mindsmith does allow the usage of AI to supplement lessons, I did not use said feature. I created all Figures in Canva.com using screen shots of various online resources and various graphics in the editor. In addition, I referenced these sources and personal knowledge to create each brief.

Overall, I tested a total of 13 participants. 12 out of 13 completed both the pre test and post tests, however 8 out 12 forgot to press the submit button, as such was located on the Reference page, which many did not view. In hind sight, I should have remedied a solution for such conundrum. Luckily though, MindSmith’s Analytics UI I was still able to record the results of the 8 users.

After conducting a paired samples T-test the p value was less than 0.005, thus the participants performed statistically significantly better, on average, after completing the Post Test. Results indicated a Total Effect size of 1.57, which is significantly large, indicating overall improvement in scores.

next time around

Though my lesson was deemed effective through statistical testing, I ponder if my results were skewed positively due to my participant base. The majority of participants had some knowledge of African braiding techniques and hair care. I imagine they used such reservoirs to complete the tests, as one participant, for example, scored a 5/6 on the pre-test. In addition, the majority of participants completed the lesson in roughly 8-12 minutes, when I designed the lesson to take about 30 minutes to fully digest. In the future, I would take extra steps to ensure participants are new to African Braiding, in efforts to get better understand of how to cater lessons to this demographic of “newbies”.

Secondly, I would utilize preliminary research and conduct User Interviews of Hair Care Technicians to accurately determine proper techniques of teaching; while making the lesson I began to question if Box Braiding was the best style to teach first, at times it seemed overly complex. Along the same note, I also wonder if I followed the Coherence Principle, as Graphic Designer it was important to me to create colorful and captivating figures. In hind sight I wonder if the E-Learner suffered from too much color and undid my efforts to incorporate the Signaling principle. If given the chance, I would conduct a post interview with participants and investigate which aspects they found helpful or distracting.

Overall, I learned that designers do in fact match learning principles to the content that they are teaching. Before this course, I initially thought there was a general hierarchy of principles that designers apply to all learning systems. However, as the saying goes, “What works for Bill, does not for Will”—systems should be designed individually and creatively with careful consideration regarding what learners will value most, given the context.