Advancing Site Usability through Bug Reporting System Development and UX Strategy

PROBLEM

When I began working at AOEU, the professors communicated all site usability issues on our LMS to our department through a shared Google spreadsheet. This document was highly inefficient: when professors experienced an issue when accessing the LMS, they would report it in the spreadsheet, which did not notify our department. Consequently, my teammates would often take three to ten days to fix a problem. Additionally, the spreadsheet offered no ability to archive reported issues without creating multiple systems, establish patterns for them, or assign and share specific ones with different AOEU departments.

AOEU is a fast-paced, innovative startup, producing a wide range of learning experiences in short periods of time. Compared to the release rate of courses and other art media, this hotfix system was downright sluggish. Because usability errors most commonly prevent access to academic material, both professors and students reported extreme unhappiness at how long they took to fix, and, as the number of reports piled up, so did my teammates. Moreover, the lack of effective data collection made it impossible to identify common issues, and target them in future course designs and builds.

FIRST Solution

To get a better insight into how faculty used the original system, I surveyed over 300 reported issues. Next, I categorized the most commonly submitted tickets in order of urgency, then calculated the average time each type of issue would take. That data gave me the foundation for a better system design.

I used Airtable, a low-code platform for building collaborative apps, to build the system. Through Airtable, I developed a highly accessible course feedback form professors could use to report site usability issues and other feedback, which integrated with Slack. Whenever a professor submitted an issue, I received an automatic notification via Slack channel with a link to it. The time it took to solve issues dropped from three to ten days to 24 to 72 hours.

However, there were still some lingering problems. In Airtable, cross-board communication is limited, and it was difficult to share problems with other departments in the system without using another platform. In addition, the tagging system made it hard to search for specific categories.

Second Solution

At the beginning of 2021, AOEU transitioned from Airtable to ClickUp for project management. During this transition, I was asked to create a new bug reporting system in ClickUp, as well as transfer all data from Airtable and populate it there.

Because ClickUp is a highly intuitive platform, programming a new bug reporting system was straightforward – it took me a total of two days to design, build, and automate, in addition to managing a data transfer. The new system provided easy communication across departments, a better tagging and categorization system, the ability to set due dates and urgency scores, and record how long specific tickets take to solve.

Transforming Field Knowledge and Expertise into High-Level Courses

background

As an LxD, I worked with subject matter experts (SMEs) to translate learning outcomes into high-impact learning designs across multiple modalities, which includes the integration of Bloom’s taxonomy, industry standards, and best practices. Across a twelve-week-long lifecycle, I managed the entire curriculum development and review process, working closely with SMEs to produce courses.

Some of my favorite projects are linked below.

• Studio: Graphic Design

• Studio: Drawing

• Studio: Ceramics

• Studio: Fibers

• Technology in the 21st-Century Art Room

• Social-Emotional Learning in the Visual Arts

To hear more about my collaboration style and instructional design processes, you can listen to the podcast Introducing AOEU’s Graphic Design Course (Ep. 171) (Haugen and Hahn, 2020). An excerpt about my work processes has been included below. Permission for testimonial was given by Nic Hahn and Theresa Haugen.

Theresa: Actually, I was contacted by Paige Harriman, who is our instructional designer and she… Initially, I guess, when I agreed to write this class, I was kind of thinking it was just sort of all going to be in my lap, and I was going to take this class over. But she really just sort of was this breath of fresh air, and she kind of breathed this energy in. She knows a lot about design thinking and had some really great ideas. So I feel like I just sort of jumped on that excitement bandwagon, and we just took off.

Then, of course, we have the head of instruction, Heather, was looking at it as well and really helping us define it, and tweak it, and make sure that it fits everything we need, that it is a class that has a lot of depth, but, yet, is a doable class within the constraints of our eight weeks. The video crew helped us make videos. There was a lot. I mean, it’s definitely a team effort. But I felt like Paige and I really had a lot of kind of open space to make this class what we wanted to do with it, which was really awesome.

Nic: Yeah. That’s interesting. I recently worked with Paige as well, and that’s exactly how I described… She is so passionate for her projects, and then Heather is that person who just makes sure it meets all the standards. I love how AOE really hires so many different people who can run the best role for each of them. It sounds like you really were able to work with Paige and create something that you, I assume, are very proud of because I’m sure it was a labor of love, wasn’t it?

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