The document describes a design challenge to develop a digital solution to improve self-study efficiency during the COVID-19 pandemic. The author conducted research including interviews and surveys with students to identify problems like an overwhelming syllabus, lack of motivation, and difficulty asking peers questions. Based on this, the author proposed an app called "Lets Learn" that would allow students to track topic progress, request study meetings with peers, view daily reports and leaderboards to gamify learning and stay motivated. High fidelity prototypes were created to demonstrate features like setting study times and blocking distractions, requesting help from friends, and comparing progress to improve self-study.

1. MICROSOFT
DESIGN
CHALLENGE
Shebin Joseph
MVJ College of Engineering

2. Problem Statement
The challenge was to identify a problem
from any of the following domain
Education and learning
Public health and healthcare
Transportation
and find a solution that uses digital
technology to solve the identified problem:
The problem which I decided to work is
How to make self-study more efficient
in COVID-19 pandemic ?

3. Identified Problem
More than 1 Billion students have started
learning online which made self study
mandatory due to COVID-19.
By survey taken by World economic
forum, 47 percentage of students feel
Online class is not as efficient as offline
Class
This implies that students are having
Hurdles in self study during COVID-19
pandemic

4. Self Study
Self-studying is a learning method where
students direct their own studying outside
the classroom and without direct
supervision.
Since students are able to take control of
what (and how) they are learning,
self-study can be a very valuable way for
many students to learn.
Self Study with occasional study with ‘study
group’ has proved to be very efficient

5. User Research
To get more insights about the difficulties
faced by students in self study during the
pandemic, I did my primary Research on
the undergraduate students of MVJ College
of Engineering, Bangalore
Age of Target User: 18-25 years
Location: Bengaluru
Interviews: One to one Interview was taken
Inorder to understand the pain points and
motivation of users
Questionnaire: Conducted a Survey in MVJ
College of Engineering and collected 70+
user datas

6. Interview
The in-depth conversion with the users
gave me more information about their pain
points and requirements of students doing
Self study in COVID-19 pandemic
Whenever I find
topics difficult
to understand, I
call my friends
to learn them
“ “
I split Huge
chapters into
smaller sections
for the ease of
tracking

7. Survey
Conducted Survey using Google forms and circulated among class groups to get student’s
response
The survey got 70+ responses
Most of students are not motived
enough to learn online

8. Survey
82% students are not able to track
their studies efficiently because of
huge workload
More than 80% students understand
better if they are taught by their
friends as they feel more comfortable

9. Survey
90% students are interested to teach
their friends. Teaching another friend
can help themselves revise the topics
More than 90% students believe
friendly competition will motivate
themselves to learn more

10. Survey
Around 80% students prefer having
short breaks while they are studying
Most people prefer listening to music
For relaxing

11. User Persona
With respect to insights from survey
and Questionnaire, I have created a
User Persona which can help in
understanding the User need hence
giving good user experience
Age: 21
User Persona
Sruthi Singh
Occupation:
Student
Location:
Bengaluru
Degree:
Btech
Hobbies:
Listening to
Music
About
Sruthi Singh is a 3rd
year student from MVJ College of
Engineering, Bengaluru. She is an above average
students who always give her best to learn and organise
her work to attain full potential
Wants and needs
She want to make the best use of her time
She wants to organise and track her studies
She likes to clear her doubts with her peers
Frustations
Not able to track her studies while self-studying
She is not motivated to learn online as the syllabus
seems overwhelming
Not able to get help from friends due to pandemic

12. Problems identified
Unable able to track their studies
-Online classes made the syllabus looks overwhelming
Are not motivated enough
-They are not able to understand their progress
Difficulties in asking doubts to their peers
-Have to ask to all friends to know who studied the topics
Unable to compare themselves with their friends
-Don’t know the progress of the friends which would motivate them to study further
Lack of time management
- Are not able to make the best of time because of distractions like social media

13. Envisaged Solution
To address the problem found through UX Research.
I decided to come up with a digital solution in the form of a mobile app : Lets Learn
Features of the app are listed below
Subject-wise tracking of topics studied in each chapter
Subject Splits into chapters and chapter further splits into topics.
This remove the sense of overwhelming syllabus from student’s mind
Gamification of learning
Students will get different badges when they complete more topics in the apps which can motivate them to
study more
Can request ‘study meet’ with friends who have learnt the topics
This feature allows the students to request meeting with friends who have studied the topics which can help
the student revise the topics and teach other friends too

14. Envisaged Solution
Daily report of student to improve themself
These reports will help students understand them and to work on their weak subjects
Fixed 25 mins time chunk for studying with No Disturb mode
No Disturb mode will block all third party apps notifications accompanied by nature’s sound like rain, flowing
river to help the them concentrate better
LeaderBoard of friends to know how well you are prepared
LeaderBoards can help students to know their progress with respect to friends which can help them plan
their studies better

15. Login
Home
Subjects
Chapter
Topics
25 min
Learn
Break
Progess
Ranking Meetings Notifications Profile
Doubt
Information Architecture

16. Wireframe
A glimpse of the brainstorming
and ideation done for the solution

17. High Fidelity Prototypes
Access to Subjects,
Daily report and current
Badge will be present in
Home Screen
Chapter section show
the chapters added by
user and their progress
Adding new Chapter.
User can request Topics
from his friends which
can ease the process
Each Topics divided into
Completed and
Remaining for tracking

18. High Fidelity Prototypes
Learn section where user
can learn topic wise with
No Disturb Mode On
User can ask help from
friends who completed
the topic
Notification section:
Show the meeting
accepts message and
daily progress
Once friend accept
‘short meeting’ request,
it will be present in
meeting section

19. High Fidelity Prototypes
Ranking Section gives you
an idea of how well you
are performing compared
to your friends
Profile Section will have
the Badges you got till
then

20. Conclusion
Lets Learn can be the student’s companion in their Self
Study which can help them in:
1. Study better
2. Track their Progress
3. Getting help from friends
4. Compare their progress with their friends
A complete package which can Boost students
efficiency in Self Learning during the pandemic