[FAST] GROW Educational Platform Design Challenge

Welcome to the "[FAST] GROW Educational Platform Design Challenge". In this challenge we are looking to get your awesome ideas for 3 screens for a potential, US based leading educational publisher client’s existing educational platform, GROW. Let’s show them what Topcoder design can do in this fast challenge!

Read the challenge specification carefully and watch the forums for any questions or feedback concerning this challenge. Let us know if you have any questions in the challenge forum!

We would like to inform you that we have just been upgraded to Marvel 3, which means that project assigning might take slightly longer. Please, don't leave your Marvel requests to the last minute as you might miss the deadlines! Thanks.

Challenge Objectives

• Provide the best, frictionless user experience. 
• 3 screens only with a modern UI.
• Desktop designs in 1366px width

Round 1

For Round 1 please provide all 3 screens for feedback along with hotspots on your prototype.

• 1. Instructor - My Courses Page
• 2. Instructor - Course Section Home Page
• 3. Student - Course Section Home Page

Round 2

For Round 2 please provide all 3 screens along with hotspots on your prototype.

• 1. Instructor - My Courses Page
• 2. Instructor - Course Section Home Page
• 3. Student - Course Section Home Page

Project Background

• Our US based client is one of the largest educational publishers on the market who also offer services on the same field. Thanks to the rapid technological evolution and to be able to keep up, our client continuously researches and develops adaptive learning technologies.
• Adaptive learning offers students personalised learning experiences based on their skills and uses data to determine how they can progress most effectively. With the help of these tools the student-teacher interaction becomes more engaged and effective. 
• GROW has been introduced 10 years ago and since then it has helped millions of students to grow faster and easier so as their teachers to convey the material in a more engaging way. 

 
User Roles
The system has two types of users. In this challenge both are in scope.

• Instructor: In GROW a teacher can create courses (e.g. Psychology 101) and course sections (e.g. 2020 Spring) under the subjects he teaches. For each course section he can upload his syllabus, choose the textbook he wants to use from the client’s database, create assignments and tests and view the performance of his students
• Student: A student can sign up to the teacher’s courses through a link, then he gets access to the course material with all the assignments along with a calendar where he can see deadlines for those. He can also see his results and progress in GROW

Design Considerations

• We would like you to think about the two user personas and design accordingly. Though it is just 3 screens it is important to understand that goals and aims are different for the two user types.
• We shared a couple of current screens. You don’t have to follow any of those, they are only shared to make you see the numerous functions offered in the web app.
• We would like you to come up with a modern UI. Please think of what actionable elements are needed on these screens, and how to organise them to better serve the user.
• This is a profit oriented organization, so here and there there are links to offer printed copies of the books for students or additional tools to use for teachers.

Screen/Function Requirements
Please prepare the following screens for your submission.

• Course names
• Course section names
• What subject does the course belongs to
• Main textbook (with or without cover)
• Additional books
• Additional smart learning services included 
• Student registration deadline
• Link to the student roster 
• Various other actions: refer to the screenshots to study these in order to be able to decide if you would bring them forward.
• A link to create a new course

• Assignments list
• Textbook(s) used
• Additional tools used
• Link to the syllabus (or to upload it)
• Student performance chart (note, that there is a whole page concerning this, so only a small representation would be OK).
• The teacher’s recorded lectures
• Bookmarks for the students
• A link to the student view of the section page

• Course and section name
• Navigation: currently the student can navigate to: his profile (along with messages, notifications), to his calendar, to his courses, and to his results. Also you should provide logout and support features.
• Assignments: these are links to the assignments the teacher created for the students.
• Instructor name
• Course materials:
• Books/reading
• Printed offers
• Tutoring
• Resources: these are links to other tools from the client

Challenge Assets
We provide you assets in the forums.

• Color codes of the brand are given.
• Existing screens are also shared on the forum.

Branding Guidelines
Please consider the below guidelines during your design process:

• Only color codes to be used will be shared with you, otherwise you are free to choose fonts. Please use a placeholder logo and don’t refer to the client in any way, other than written here.
• Stock photos and stock icons are allowed from the approved sources, as long as you declare them.

Target Audience

• Higher education teachers and students.

Judging Criteria
Your submission will be judged on the following criteria:

• How well you plan the user experience and capture your ideas visually.
• Overall idea and execution of concepts.
• How well you implement the challenge requirements.
• Creativity and ease-of-use is key to success as it must be engaging to users.
• Cleanliness of screen design and user flow.
• Out of the Box Thinking

Final Deliverables

• All original source files.
• Files should be created in Adobe Photoshop and saved as a layered PSD file, Adobe Illustrator, Sketch or Adobe XD
• Marvel prototype

Marvel Prototype
We need you to upload your screens to Marvelapp.

• Please send your marvel app request to pere.viktoria@gmail.com
• To be able to showcase your design to the client please provide hotspots on your prototype.
• You MUST include your Marvel app URL in your declarations.txt (in your marvel app prototype, click on share and then copy the link).

Submission & Source Files
Final Deliverables
For submission you have to upload a zip file that contains the following 4 files:
 

• Source.zip – All original source files.

• Submission.zip – PNG/JPG files

• preview.png – Your preview image

• declarations.txt – All your declarations and notes