Shiksha Development Process

Shiksha Development Process

A 9-step product lifecycle was followed for the ideation and development of Shiksha modules with user-centricity at its core.

The first three stages established the foundation of the project by conducting intensive qualitative and quantitative user research.

1. Preliminary Research:

The first step in the user research was to conduct preliminary research to identify different actors in the education ecosystem and understand their user personas and pain points. We laid down the following questions to come up with the appropriate resolutions:

• User Personas:
  • Who are they?
  • What are they supposed to do?
  • What else do they wish to do?
  • What are the main barriers for them in doing these activities?
• Lifecycle:
  • What are their primary tasks?
  • What is the frequency of each task?
  • What is their emotion while doing each task?
• Pain Points & Resolutions:
  • What are the macro problems they face throughout the lifecycle?
  • Which value proposition can be mapped against these identified issues?

2. Qualitative Research:

As a next step, getting the identified value propositions validated from the ground to gather feedback and add corner cases was essential. This step involved conducting focus group discussions with six teachers from two states that focused on each proposition's need, macro use cases and usability.

3. Quantitative Research:

To supplement our qualitative research from the ground, we surveyed 2500+ teachers on the prioritized value propositions. The survey involved questions on the current state, their challenges, and the validity of user propositions based on the mock-ups.

4. On-ground MVPs:

Post user research, some use cases were selected to conduct MVP experiments with a few teachers on the ground to give a real product-like experience and figure out the features they wanted to use. This stage involved two steps:

• Design: The MVP was designed based on behavioural and tech hypotheses and was developed using micro-tech products such as Typeform, google form. Additionally, the user flows, user stories and Key performance indicators of the MVPs were also listed.

• Execution: Seven teachers were chosen to perform the most preferred use case from the survey.

Detailed persona-wise user research and MVP design and implementation collaterals: Teacher | Mentor | Monitor

Based on the preliminary findings, the following modules were identified with macro use cases that need to be enabled:

The product design process began after comprehensive user research and MVP testing. This process involved five steps, as laid down below.

5. Information Architecture

An information architecture covering the user persona, nouns & verbs and structuring of the module/application was prepared for each user, i.e. teacher, mentor and monitor, based on the user research. Information architecture of teacher is given below:

Persona-wise Information Architecture: Teacher | Mentor | Monitor

6. PRD Detailing:

A detailed PRD covering user stories, corner cases, admin configurations and other relevant details was created for each module to understand the functionalities. Module-wise detailed PRDs can be accessed here.

7. Interaction Design:

Based on the detailed PRD, interaction designs were built for all user stories. These designs covered the flow-wise engagement and information to be shown on each screen.

8. Visual Design:

The team reviewed the interaction designs developed in the last stage, and then visual designs were created. A well-documented visual design system was put into place to ensure that each visual design component was reusable.

9. Live on Sandbox:

After the whole process, the final visual designs and user stories were shared with the development team, which worked on developing the modules. These modules were deployed on the sandbox, and a demo was showcased to the internal team. These demos covered a working version of the visual design, integrated APIs and backend. Sandbox link: https://sandbox.shikshaplatform.io/