Challenge

I am part of the product team at an educational publishing company in India that produces course books for school students. These books are developed according to the state-prescribed curriculum and purchased by the schools, which in turn distribute these to the students. Educational technology disrupted the industry, challenging us to think of new ways of delivering course material beyond the print format. Even previously the course books were accompanied by digital learning material. These however served only as free add-ons and never as independent revenue-generating products. We came up with a plan to invert the system by developing digital online courses and making the course book the optional component. The team was now faced with the task of selling this idea to schools and teachers. We also had to figure out whether this behavioural change was possible at all, and if possible, what the schools expected from such a product. Then there was the major question how this would help learners and the learning process.

Selection

The design tool we selected was the learning launch: identify a school that would use our online course, record their experience and share how the product helped the instructional process and outcomes. We wanted to know what works by placing “small bets in the marketplace”, and to “fail fast” if we have to. We aimed to find out the following:

1. Does the online course enrich the classroom experience for the learner?

2. Is making digital the primary source of learning and the course book secondary too radical a step?

3. How easy or difficult is it for the teachers and students to adapt?

4. How does the classroom scenario change with this model?

5. Is dependence on the classroom whiteboard and projector a shortcoming?

6. Is the internet connectivity requirements for accessing the online course a pain point?

7. How effective was the accompanying home learning app?

Application

A school in the state of Kerala was identified for the learning launch. We gave them access to the course “General Knowledge”. The course consisted of three components: a website, a mobile app and a companion book. The teacher accounts were set up. Student account credentials were shared with the school.

The process encountered several hurdles.

1. Activating the student accounts required a unique email id or phone number to be associated with each account. This was assumed to be the parent’s mobile number or email id. The school did not want to hassle parents with the trouble of signing up. So they demanded that all student accounts be set up with a master email id provided by the school. This conflicted with the system logic we had put in place.

2. The school wanted to restrict the content accessed by the students within the course. This provision was unavailable and all course content was available by default.

3. The teachers found the uninterrupted connectivity requirement inconvenient.

4. Some parents found the mobile app effective in helping children learn at home. Some others did not wish kids to use a mobile device.

We had to wind up the learning launch much before the estimated time.

Insight

The learning launch revealed a number of “disconfirming facts” that proved our assumptions wrong. There were many reasons why the customers would not buy the product. We had assumed that the transition from book-based learning to digital courses would be natural and smooth. This was far from reality. The transition had to be effected in many graduated steps with all imitations at the customer’s end in mind. The attachment to books is almost organic and books are very important in the classroom context. From the trial, it emerged that a hybrid model which includes both the conventional offline methods and digital items is a better option. In other words, the product could be different, but not so different as to be seen as impractical to use.

Approach

We decided to repeat the same design tool after modifying the product based on the knowledge gained from the learning launch. The same tool was chosen because the designing of a product like this is an iterative process, and each customer pain point needs to be addressed. The pain points could be known only from the experience of actual customers. The design thinking principles of customer-centric approach, possibilities-based planning, and always staying in the question to improve the product were brought to light by the learning launch.

