I created a media literacy web application this past fall semester at Teachers College, Columbia University. The graduate course, ORLD 5050  – Mobile Learning Design for Professional Growth, challenges students to develop a prototype of a mobile learning activity and rapidly conduct user-testing through out the semester.  By the end of the semester, I learned many valuable take-aways from this mobile learning design challenge:

1. Define your audience, goals, objectives, hypothesis, and threats/pitfalls
2. Develop a low-fidelity prototype (like using paper) to assist with rapid user-testing and iterations to validate your ideas from #1
3. Develop qualitative and quantitative research methods like online surveys and structured interviews
4. Be empathetic, listen to users, and make changes
5. Feedback from users helps inform various iterations of a product

The most important lesson I learned is that designing a digital product is a process. From paper prototyping to low-fidelity digital designs, I iterated on various learning activities and went through many design updates. How? I used qualitative and quantitative research methods to gather user data. This user-data fueled the dramatic changes and updates of my mobile learning product. Check out my mobile learning activity ‘Fake Me Out’ below! Review the slide deck which includes a video walk-through of the web app. To learn more about my user-testing process, read User-Testing Process: Fake Me Out.