UX Case Study of Unacademy
A deep interest in the idea and happiness with the implementation as a user made me move ahead with this case study. After a detailed review on what’s working best for Unacademy in terms of user retention, this article is on the next round of changes Unacademy is waiting for.
This is part II of the multipart series, please do read part I to get a better context.
I have been enrolled in Unacademy as a Plus student for 1+ years now. Before enrolling, I did detailed research on all the available options and I found out Unacademy was the best option. After using it for a while, I believe it is way better than the available opinions on the internet. My brother also enrolled in the goal of his interests and since then we have had continuous discussions. I choose Unacademy as the topic for researching for Software Engineering and Object-Oriented Analysis and Design for my college.
The Problem
With the Pandemic, the rise of e-learning is enormous and many students enroll in only one platform. During a research, it was revealed that many regular users feel that while there are many options to study users tend to get lost and seek the help of an educator which disturbs the class along with the experience.
Overview
The journey of preparing for the examination is long and consumes completely both mind and body. Moreover, in India examination industry runs parallel to the basic education system and since both have their fors and againsts, Individuals need to be prepared for both.
One out of every four children in India is dependent on training institutes more than their school while 17 percent of the posts of teachers are lying vacant in government schools in India.
Unacademy emerged as the time saver option where the student has the option to choose the educator, these two fixes a lot of problems.
Target audience
Since Unacademy starts its services from class 6 and serves in the competitive exams where the maximum age would be 35 so the target audience would be 12-35 age.
Assumptions
When searching for options for myself, I had lots of things in my mind. In past, I have attended a physical coaching institute to prepare for JEE, I knew what happens there and I had few preferences in my mind.
Research and Analysis
As a learner who is into the field of Design, I could decipher few factors from the Unacademy website, and after researching this with about 80+ other learners, I present the case study. I am sharing the little stats from all I could gather from my connections as Unacademy has a wider range than the people I could rope in and as per their answers, what could Unacademy change.
It took me a week to get this number of feedbacks meanwhile, I did competitive research. I thought about all the factors which could affect the user through design only and after banging my head with many platforms, I decided to move ahead with these two and, here are my stats.
In the meantime, people responded and the demographics were:
The major demographics represent people doing either educator or job along with studies so course timings could be planned accordingly. Also since the housewives are also on Unacademy, many of which might be mothers, it is highly important to make design a little soothing and refreshing.
A huge population uses mobile as well as laptop both for learning, it is must make sure design suits their needs.
Unacademy has good content as the word of mouth i.e., friends and family together comprise 31%. I was satisfied and I made two people register on Unacademy due to their content. On Youtube where it has many channels with humungous subscribers, Unacademy should invest more in increasing the user experience as they are already higher than the advertisement on which Unacademy spends a lot, I find Unacademy everywhere I surf. Also, since Unacademy has a huge database, it can ask its users are about their experience. Being a designer, I wanted the application I use daily to be improved so it gets real 1–1 feedback from users about what they want.
About 18% of people found it difficult to use, which looks okayish with 8.2 points from the 10, Unacademy having such a great team, so for that, I have carried this research, besides that is about ease to use.
For example, Windows OS is easy to use but not very design updated as per the generation, it still holds its roots 10 years back, so as per me, Unacademy could use some of its design and improve.
Synthesize
After floating this google form, I carried out open-ended research with five user interviews to verify whether the points of my findings are important or not. I added few personas to explain the personalities.
After deeply analyzing their statements and remarks, I chose to put few important ones collectively at a single location for further analysis. It turned out that both of them had someone who referred them and hence they could narrate more stories too.
This made me realize that assumptions aren’t accurate and need to be updated. Some were the aspirants wishing to try the services out while others were the end users of Unacademy.
Transition
There were a lot of things that struck my mind when I started thinking about what would have improved my experience when I use the product. After revisiting them, I have stumbled upon few issues which I have felt to be the most important.
— Search
When a new person visits Unacademy, they might not be very sure of what they want, but they must have keywords due to which they have paid a visit to the website and first logging in and then search or first choosing the goal (which also does not have search bar) then finally getting the search button is tiresome and lots of steps which could be minimized by just placing the search bar on the front.
— Filters
They can give you options to decide the time, subject, educator, test, class, book source(eg. NCERT summary, Laxmikant, etc.,), and whatnot in the search bar itself. There you go, finally the best range to select the perfect one for you.
— Animations
Its design exists in the very simplest form. Their color palette is basic to bring consistency but with the new features like Combat, live quiz, etc. They have to systematically change the listed features, so it is a single statement that further takes you to the detailed pages.
Starting from the coins, hovering over the courses, selecting the educator, hovering buttons, etc. little animation could be added everywhere, and who doesn’t love it?
It will make the design a more precise summit website.
— Color Coding the background
For the same subject, different educators must use the same background. The principle of similarity states that items that share a visual characteristic are perceived as more related than dissimilar items. The human eye tends to perceive similar elements in a design as a complete picture, shape, or group, even if those elements are separated.
There is no fixed color for any course, an educator takes up the course whatever they wish to, and hence as a learner, I have to look for the text, not the color, there is no use of color then, but as the color speaks louder than the text, a color-coding must be done.
— Dividing mains and prelims on basic of design
As stated earlier, visual images impact higher on the mind, so proper color coding could be done or the design might be changed a bit for tests, mains and prelims.
— Toggle dark mode
Removing one extra step to find the dark mode can be removed by placing the toggle button which most websites use to make it easier, quicker, and familiar.
— Proper Tagging
Many times, courses are not tagged properly either due to the educator’s inability or wish to appear everywhere, hence the team should review tagging the course.
— Split Screen working
The site is not responsive for split-screen sharing but as per the current scenario which even Roman Saini Sir advocated, many students use virtual note-making websites which makes this a necessary factor.
— Improving feedback
The feedbacks should vary with the type of class, whether it is a batch course or quick MCQ test, or Mains Answer writing session, everything needs a different set of feedbacks. Suppose it is a Batch course, then there exists no need for the poll as the wrong results can create negative ratings or no ratings, which in turn impact the mind of educators and hence degrade the course.
— Full Screen
The space left outside the screen is negative, if I want full screen it should be full screen as we see on Youtube, and adjusting bar should be placed above the slides which reappear on moving the cursor, leaving empty spaces all around doesn’t help at all, if I still have to stress my eyes a little more when there is an option to escape it.
— Fixing tiny bugs
I have added a screenshot below to show the non-uniformity, there are a few such things that happen sometimes so these could be taken care of.
Things beyond design but in the experience
Unacademy could start its written content as well, in some categories they have started magazine too but that wasn’t continued besides that they can publish their articles or a series of articles on all the topic so other as well as it’s own users don’t have to scroll outside and stay in Unacademy Umbrella when using the web.
Unacademy spends a lot of energy on its youtube channels and multiples the number of channels, they can minimize it by keeping at max 2–3 channels in every category with the best content, so they are on the top of their game and this would be beneficial as all the subscription will turn into less number of pages, enhancing the likes and comments and views which eventually leads them into the Youtube Matrix.
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Hoping for someone at Unacademy HQ, Unacademy.in Blog, Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, Hardik Pandya reads this. Besides if you have reached till here, please do let me know about your opinions in the comments or connect with me through Portfolio Dribbble Behance LinkedIn
