A new way to learn.

All Access Academics

  • The Product

    All Access Academics is an accessible website created for students to access and read textbooks from different devices. This website serves as a solution for providing free textbooks by working with school districts and curating personalized libraries.

  • The Problem

    Not all students are able to afford their own textbooks and aren’t able to annotate in rented books. There are also limited accessible options with paper copy textbooks that a digital one could provide such as assisted reading and language translators.

  • Skills

    Stakeholder Interviews, Visual Design, User Experience, User Research, Analysis on User Testings, Adobe XD, Service Design, Field Research.

    Duration: 6 months

Understanding the User

User interviews were conducted at the Jefferson middle school that had turned into empathy maps to address the needs of the target audience. With the primary user group being students, they were looking to have features beyond online textbook access such as annotations, audio readers, translators, and more to accommodate for every type of student. 

It was also important to make the site simple and easy to use so that if the platform expands, students from every grade can use it. Therefore, each school has a set number of textbooks only necessary for that district equipt with which class is associated with which book.

Site Map

Wireframes

User testing was done on wireframes initially.

Elements included are

  • Add textbooks to "Favorites" for quick access.

  • Class schedules on the student "Profile" list each subject and textbook needed for those classes.

  • The “Read View” incorporated elements for students to take notes on the digital website page, language translators for common languages spoken at Jefferson Middle School, an audio reader for visually impaired students, and an automatic scroller.

Low-fidelity prototypes:

https://xd.adobe.com/view/435a25a5-1be6-49b6-bcec-9fb4ddf9545f-1609/

https://xd.adobe.com/view/d53baa79-191b-4392-8474-9549239beef2-8068/

Accessibility Considerations

  • Language translator on textbooks for four of the most common languages spoken other than English at Jefferson Middle School.

  • An automatic scroll and audio reader for visual and hearing impaired students.

  • Using colors with high contrast so shape and text can be detected by all visual students.

Usability Study

6 users — user research combined with usability testing

Tried to cover different types of students from different grades and learning levels. Started with testing digital wireframes.

Length: 20 minutes

Study type: Unmoderated usability study

User Journey

“I can even read and take notes on the phone when my mom is working on the computer.”

— User

HIGH-FIDELITY MOCKUP

HIGH-FIDELITY MOCKUP

Hight-fidelity prototypes:

https://xd.adobe.com/view/8b5bf4f1-bc8c-4905-b1a7-7f5803353a18-de08/

https://xd.adobe.com/view/010b95a2-711f-4c2b-b9ea-eaee482e2789-5458/

Takeaways

Although this was a big project to take on, I decided to tackle the issue of making education more accessible to students. I tried to make the design straightforward, without adding unnecessary elements that take away from the goal of the website (such as a donation tab) so students of all ages are able to learn how to navigate the site.

Next Steps

  1. Conduct more usability studies as the app improves.

  2. Adding more accessible components to the “Read Mode”.

  3. Finding more ways to personalize the app to the student.