Laila Case Study

My role

Start to finish, one designer

As the sole designer on this project, I handled everything in the process from beginning to end. I helped the founder clarify their concept; sketched, designed, and prototyped every phase; conducted the user research and usability testing; iterated on the final design; and presented all deliverables.

The summary

Engaged learning

Laila’s main goal was to create supplemental learning materials for teachers that would hold students’ attention, encourage them to practice what they understood, and ultimately raise their test scores.

A Laila mini-lesson video taught by an athlete, shown on a laptop — A mini-lesson taught by an athlete

The plan was to build a platform hosting mini-lesson videos taught by culturally responsive figures, like athletes and celebrities, in the hope that content would be more engaging coming from inspirational people. The platform also needed quizzes to gauge understanding, and engagement exercises called Challenges.

Mini-lessons

Public figures teaching short lessons hold students’ attention and make content relatable. Hearing a concept explained a new way raises the chance it lands.

Quizzes

Comprehension checks are built into the interactive lessons. Practicing right after the lesson helps students retain the information.

Challenges

Competitions where students make videos explaining what they learned. The winner may get a shout-out from their favorite athlete.

The approach

Learn. Absorb. Create.

The product would focus on three main concepts, each framed as a question.

Learn

How might I give students lessons that hold their attention and offer different perspectives on what they are learning?

Absorb

How can I give teachers an intuitive way to run practice, so students retain the information and see where they still need clarity?

Create

How can the design help solidify understanding? Students needed a way to explain the material in their own words.

Discovery phase

User who?

In the initial discovery phase we focused on our main user, the teacher. Students would likely use Laila through their teacher’s assignments, so we considered them our secondary user. The business planned to sell content to teachers through a membership or individual purchases.

What we discovered was that teachers were wildly overwhelmed. Nationwide, teachers face immense pressure for their students to perform well on standardized tests.

Testing is not teaching. Test preparation is not learning.

Teachers told us they felt like they were chasing test scores instead of spending valuable time teaching. They spend their own time and money finding solutions for the classroom, and they find new technology frustrating; it often makes their day harder.

We started to wonder: is offering yet another tool to a teacher already short on time, resources, and bandwidth going to solve anything?

If we could get Laila into the hands of more students and give them a new way to study outside the classroom, we could help without adding to the load on overburdened educators.

We believed pivoting our main user to the learner would have higher impact, and would be the best move for the business.

The pivot

New user. New needs.

With the focus shifted from teachers to students, we stepped back to reconsider their needs. Students are also very stressed about testing and feel like everyone at school is on edge. They want to do well, and they worry about letting their teachers down.

So we broadened the scope and moved away from standardized testing, toward resources outside the classroom that help students truly understand what they’re learning in class. Better test scores follow understanding.

We found that students need:

Variety

To hear concepts explained in new and different ways.

Access

Easy access to supplemental learning materials.

Practice

Ways to practice skills that help them absorb the material.

Engagement

Engaging, interactive content that keeps their attention.

New user. Same goals.

Although our main persona had changed, our goals had not. The principles of Laila still held and would guide design decisions and features. A new concept was born: a version of Laila that used social engagement to support students.

The new concept

Laila Education

An educational platform that uses the influence of culturally responsive figures, peer-to-peer instruction, and user-created content to offer supplemental learning outside the classroom.

Lo-fi to mid-fi

Clarifying features

At this stage I focused on making Laila’s features and functions clear to users. I was careful not to reinvent the perfectly smooth wheel of social interactions and content libraries. Even with familiar features, I worried users wouldn’t know how to navigate this new landscape.

How the overall concept would work was still under construction, and it showed in my first drafts.

Familiar functions. Unfamiliar landscape.

Low-fidelity Laila wireframe on a desktop monitor — Low-fidelity wireframe

NavigationOrganized into four sections
Social interactionsStudy groups, messaging, and the ability to see who is online

Testing & refinement

Simplicity is key

Easier than Google Classroom

The good

Users accomplished tasks easily and grasped the general idea. They liked the concept and were excited to use the platform. There was still room to improve clarity and simplicity.