Oppia User persona Project

Keywords: User Persona, In-Depth Interview, Content Strategy

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Context

Oppia is a non-profit focused on providing quality education to those who lack access to it. The organization is prioritizing its projects in Palestine and India. The social media team of Oppia is searching for ways to improving its content on Facebook so that more parents can learn about Oppia’s online lessons. 

Team

Another UX researcher and I worked together to deliver this project. We worked closely with Oppia’s Social Media team and a team of volunteers in Palestine and India, who would moderate the study sessions in the local language.  

Research Questions

Per the discussion with the social media team, the key research questions we set out to address in this project are: 

1) What are the major pain points in current school systems in Palestine and India?

2) What are parents’ attitudes on online education in the two geographical locations?

3) What are parents’ social media habits? 

Research Method

We chose to conduct in-depth interviews (IDIs) with parents who have used Oppia in the past to gain a better understanding of the context of online education in the two geographical locations. After we finalized on the interview protocols, I went over the scripts with the three local interviewers, who recruited and conducted the interview sessions in late April and early March. They also provided help with transcribing and translating the interview notes and transcripts to English. In this initial phase of the project, we conducted 4 interviews in Palestine and 5 interviews in India.

Participant Recruitment

The target audience for the social media team at Oppia are parents of young kids. The participants were contacted and recruited by the local interviewers/ volunteers. 

Data Analysis  

I have relied on Miro for data analysis. The link to the Miro board can be found in the Appendix to this document. I have grouped the interview notes across major themes such as parents’ attitudes toward school, teachers, online education, their use of alternative resources, etc. But for the creation of persona, I have relied on two main spectra or attributes for differentiating or grouping the participants. They are parent’s attitudes toward online education and parents’ social media usage or habits. I chose these two spectra because they are most relevant to the research questions that are proposed in the initial stage of the research.

Findings

Palestine

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Based on the interview data, I have found that parents who spent more time on social media are also those who have used social media such as Facebook and YouTube to look for educational content for their kids online. I named this type of user with the persona “Malik, the Info-Seeker.”

I named the other type of user with the persona “Ezra, the Skeptic.” Ezra uses social media less frequently than Malik, and has harbored more suspicion towards the effectiveness of online education and thinks online education is wasteful and not easy to use. There is also concern about problems of distraction and the potential impacts of online education to children’s eyesight. 

What is common among the personas (and among the Palestine parents interviewed) is that they are all unsatisfied with the current e-learning system in Palestine. Kids have not been going to school for a long time and teachers seemed to be slacking off in their duties. 

India

The landscape in India is very different. Phone usage or social media usage is less prevalent among parents. This is captured in the persona “Isha, with Many Duties.” Isha is a busy working mother who barely knows about the details of her kids’ education and does not own a phone (let alone any social media accounts). She is not literate and therefore cannot read. She is not aware of online educational resources at all. 

The other persona “Maria, Happy with School,” owns a phone but describes herself as someone who is not comfortable with smartphones and occasionally uses social media such as WhatsApp and YouTube. Maria, like Isha, is also not aware of online educational resources like Oppia, until she was introduced by volunteers. 

Compared to the Palestine parents, parents in India seem to be more content and have more trust with teachers. There is no negative feedback about schools but more instances of parents like “Isha”, who does not know much about her kids’ schools. 

In both locations, the personas seem to primarily rely on phones for website browsing or social media applications.

Next Steps and Recommendations

Content Strategies in Palestine

Malik falls into Oppia’s target users nicely. I would recommend focusing on creating social media messages tailored to Malik in Palestine. It would be great to be able to facilitate Arabic educational learning content (if these are not already available). Malik speaks English but it will be helpful to provide both Arabic and English marketing content on social media to reach more Palestine parents who are already active social media users. 

On top of Facebook, both Malik and Ezra also relied on WhatsApp. If Oppia can also find a way to market its e-learning courses on WhatsApp, that will maximize the likelihood that parents in Palestine can check out the resources provided by Oppia.

As for Ezra, who is suspicious of online learning, although Oppia can create messages to address her concern such as creating messages that demonstrate the effectiveness of online education and highlight Oppia is free of cost, I doubt this would be effective because 1) Ezra has never used social media to look for education-related information in the past so it is probably unlikely that Ezra will come across Oppia’s message on social media if she is not already looking for education related stuff on social media; 2) to challenge Ezra’s assumptions about online education, it would be helpful to include some testimonials of other Palestine parents as proof of Oppia’s effectiveness on Oppia’s Facebook page, for instance.

Content Strategies in India  

Since phone and social media usage is less prevalent among Indian parents, it is probably less effective to use social media to spread awareness of Oppia’s educational content in India. Most parents seemed to be satisfied with teachers. It might be helpful to conduct the next round of research with teachers in India and to find out if schools would be a good place to spread awareness of Oppia. 

Next Steps  

  • Palestine: Create Arabic learning resources and marketing content on Facebook and WhatsApp for Palestine parents to maximize the likelihood of reaching target population (i.e. Malik).

  • India: Explore other stakeholders in India such as teachers, older siblings (who had influence over younger kids) with interviews and/or surveys to examine what other channels can possibly be used to spread awareness of Oppia

Reflection 

This project, because of the remote nature and the language differences (as well as time zone differences), is mostly carried out by individual contributors rather than through close collaboration with other key stakeholders in the research process. For future research studies, I would recommend getting more involvement from other team members such as inviting them to observe interviews and to analyze interview data. That way, the whole team can be on the same page of the research process and progress. This will also help with discussing content strategies since everyone will be involved in data collection and analysis and that discussions can be based on data rather than opinions, etc.