Code for Canada
Helping adults in Ontario navigate adult education programs
ontario.ca redesign
Project goal
Code for Canada is a Canadian nonprofit that enables Federal and Provincial governments to deliver better digital services and empowers communities to solve civic challenges. I joined Code for Canada as a UX Designer fellow for a 10-month fellowship within the Ministry of Advanced Education and Development Skills (MAESD).
Despite the number of programs available to adults in Ontario, individuals wishing to upgrade their skills struggled to find timely information to support their needs due to a lack of awareness about the programs, misinformation and siloed support services. The project aimed to develop a learner-focused solution for adults in Ontario.
Role
As a UX Designer, I led user research, created wireframes, conducted user testing and redesigned the Adult Education landing page.
Discovery
Adult learning defined by MAESD included 7 education programs managed by 3 ministries, the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development (MAESD), the Ministry of Education (EDU) and the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration (MCI).
The ministries created and funded programs, however the programs were delivered by service providers such as school boards, community agencies, or colleges.
our challenge
Talking to learners uncovered that they struggled to find timely information due to:
Lack of awareness of adult education programs in Ontario.
Lack of awareness of the education system in Ontario.
Research difficulties including misinformation.
Siloed support services.
Ideation
Based on the research findings, we categorized adult learners across ‘Touch’ and ‘Goal Awareness’, which allowed us to identify our target users and scope our solution.
situation segmentation
We determined our solution to be a program matcher. The tool would capture the user’s education needs and goals in order to suggest the best program to pursue and enrol with confidence.
Exploration
Finding the appropriate program
I started by established the matching tool logic to recommend suitable programs to users based on programs eligibility requirements. Following, I created a users flow for visualization of the logic.
prototype 1.1 user flow
User flow with wireframes
Based on the user flow, I designed a prototype for user testing on mobile. Given that our target audience has low literacy level or was not fluent in English, the tool had to be simple to understand and use.
prototype 1.1 programs wireframes
Prototype 1.1:
The challenge in designing the prototype was allowing users to compare 2 programs on mobile.
I decided to present programs through tabs, so each program had its own section and users could toggle between tabs to compare programs.
prototype 1.2 chat screen
Prototype 1.2:
Research suggested that learners value personalized guidance through conversations with service providers.
As such, we considered a chatbot as another method to present the matching tool.
User testing
Testing validated that Prototype 1.1 was the best interface to build due to users’ literacy or English level. With prototype 1.2, most participants had difficulties explaining and writing their needs, which presented a higher risk of abandonment.
Iterations
Since users spent time researching online at home, at the library, or with a counsellor, a solution designed for desktop was the best.
rounds of iteration
The authoritative source of information
Given the abundance of misinformation, we refined our vision for our solution to become the authoritative source of information.
Our vision would be achieved by redesigning the adult learning section of the Ontario.ca website to provide learners with clear and detailed information about programs.
overall solution user flow
The landing page
The adult learning landing page on Ontario.ca is the official source of information about adult upgrading programs in Ontario. However, the page required an update to present useful and relevant information to learners.
Instead of presenting all the programs in an inconsistent manner, we wanted the Adult Learning landing page to direct to program pages. The program pages would all look the same and provide the same type of information for each program such as program goal, eligibility criteria, cost and how to register.
iterations on the landing page
Program pages
I designed a template page for the program pages and underwent 3 rounds of content revisions with stakeholders.
design tools & page design
Results
The key outputs of the project were:
The program matching tool
Adult learning page redesign
Individual program pages.
We passed on the deliverables to our Ministry partner who launch them in 2019.
Working on this project allowed me to sharpen my user research and communications skills, and refine my design process.