Designing an AI writing tool with Newsela
Context:
Newsela wanted to launch a transparent AI-powered Google Docs writing experience that provides immediate guidance and feedback on students' writing facilitating occurrence and saving teachers time, while motivating students to write.
A series of generative and formative quantitative studies, including competitive analysis with the main competitors and in-depth interviews and tasked-based usability studies on different ideas to understand user experience with competitors, to understand user needs and pain points in order to provide recommendations to the design process.
The graphs and data presented are either part of the original UXR reports or created to present the project and key information is blocked to protect the confidentiality of the research.
Objectives:
The product and design team wanted to identify user current experiences, motivations, and behaviors from teachers to inform the tool design.
My Role:
Impact:
Lead UXR research studies while coordinating cross-functional teams to understand user experience and provide recommendations for product and design teams to create solutions
The research led to several successful outcomes. Some of them are:
User Satisfaction: Teachers expressed high satisfaction with the product, particularly praising its usability. Their positive feedback highlights the effectiveness of the user-centered design approach.
Feedback Loop: The iterative feedback collected during the beta phase is invaluable for refining the product, ensuring that it meets the evolving needs of educators and maintains high user satisfaction.
*For additional findings and learning, please contact svarchmalena@gmail.com
Key Learnings:
Clarity of Instructions: The most important finding was the critical role of clear and concise instructions.
Feature Importance: Identified key features that users valued the most, informing the prioritization of product development.
Usability Challenges: Uncovered usability challenges and areas for improvement, allowing us to refine the product before launch. Issues such as complex navigation paths and unclear interface elements were addressed based on user feedback.