In the platform Ans, there’s a feature called "flow groups" that allows users to order, randomise, and shuffle exercises within an assignment. However, the current user experience with flow groups is repetitive and frustrating, primarily due to the extensive drag-and-drop actions required. My role in this project is to enhance the user experience, reducing time consuming tasks and making flow groups more efficient to use.
The flow groups feature in Ans was designed to simplify the process of ordering, shuffling, and grouping exercises for teachers and institutions. However, it ended up requiring more effort for users to properly organise their exercises. When exercises were imported, they were automatically placed into individual flow groups. This meant that users had to manually drag-and-drop each exercise into one flow group before they could reorder or shuffle them. Besides that, the empty flow groups would not be cleared until the page had been refreshed, which caused even more scrolling. This whole process became particularly tedious when dealing with a large number of exercises.
To improve this feature, users need a quick and easy way to organise exercises within assignments, minimising repetitive drag-and-drop actions and simplifying exercise management. The removal of empty flow groups is essential to maintain enough space for drag-and-drop functionalities. New users also need proper labelling to easily locate and use the flow group functionalities. Overall, users need a clear and efficient way to organise the exercises in their assignments.
With user needs in mind I started looking for inspiration. I found myself looking for ways to move around and order multiple items. Starting with common practices in design such as: bulk importing, moving and ordering exercises. I created multiple wireframes with different approaches for this goal.Once finished I started choosing some concepts to work with, eliminating them one by one using user stories and a pro’s & con’s list. This way i could see which design would help solve the users’ problems in the best way.
To determine if the flow groups feature aligns with user needs and functions as needed, I’ve had multiple users test the prototype. By assigning them multiple tasks, I could identify which aspects were clear and which ones posed difficulties. With help of an UX researcher I’ve managed to create tasks based on assumptions. This way we could easily check if said assumptions were correct and which areas of the design could be improved.
After user testing, I improved my design based on the feedback I received from the users. That way I could make sure that the new design actually improved the user experience and simplified the process of ordering, shuffling and grouping exercises.
