Amy
Cai




UI designer in Seattle, WA



Email:
acai@uw.edu

Instagram:
@acai.des

a.cai • açaí • amy cai • 




amy cai

Interaction Design Student
Located in Seattle, WA




Projects:

Ripple
Bone Appétit!
Makeup Mate AR
Suko App


Graphic Designs





    
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Ripple



Project Overview

Ripple is an AI powered group discussion facilitator app that aims to encourage balanced conversations through timely and intentional interventions that facilitate new ideas and discussions.
Role:

Team:


Tools:

Timeline:
UX Designer

Collaborated with Stephanie Chou and Kenneth Tran

Protopie, Figma

1 month in Spring 2024






Problem: 

Modern students struggle with feeling engaged with educational material. With the emergence of AI, there are new tools that can be used for learning but they also have many weaknesses.





Research


We conducted three autoethnographies and four interviews, focusing on positive/negative learning experiences and personal encounters with educational based AI.

Participants

College students who do a lot of learning outside of the classroom.
Scope

On the search for methods of high-quality learning
Objects

Laptop, iPad, Notepad, Canvas, Chat GPT, Goodnotes




Autoethnographies


Each member of the group observed themselves for 6 days, noting down when they felt like they were experiencing the highest quality of learning.

“I’ve noticed that my learning style is very burst-y. I find motivation sporadically.” - Amy
“I prefer taking notes online, but I like learning through activities and applying content to the real world.” - Kenneth
“I like to learn through practical application (personal/class projects, step-by-step guides)” - Stephanie





Contextual Inquiry


Four college students were interviewed by our team, each experiencing unique learning experiences. Our interview questions consisted of semi-structured questions that were largely open ended, aiming to allow participants to tell personal stories and think deeply about the ways they find educational motivation and stay engaged.

“I feel like I don’t learn that much from lectures, I understand much better after trying the content out myself.” - Pebble (Junior, CS major)
“I get bored with videos and I stop paying attention... I like audio stuff [because] I can do other stuff while I’m listening to it and I don’t lose focus.” - Indigo (Sophomore, ESRM + Intended LSJ)
“I often ask ChatGPT about things that I couldn’t understand in lecture” - Isaac (Senior, Math major)
“I like self-paced learning because everyone has different strength and weakness and different style of learning.” - Day (Senior, Design Major)






Competitive Analysis:


Insights

1.  There is a need for an engaging and interactive way to learn new  concepts, not just an answer machine.
2.  Tangibility: learning through practice, discussing, and doing.



3.  AI based education-related programs require a lot of proactivity and self motivation to be useful.
4. Existing products serve as a quick fix instead of a solution aimed to helping students improve long term.





Design Question:

How might we facilitate group discussion dynamics for students and create an environment conducive to learning and collaboration?




Ideation


Crazy 8’s Method



Each person on our team created 8 ideas within 8 minutes! We sketched them out and wrote short descriptions before shorting them by what types/modaltiies the ideas could be described as.


Criteria





From our research, we created these 5 key criteria to asses our ideas by in order to find the ideas that align with our design goals the best.

Narrowing Down

We used this table to rate each idea on a simple scale of 1-3 on how well they encapsulated each of our criteria, this method helped us narrow our idea selection down.




Final Picks



These three ideas were rated the highest on our design values scale, so the final deciding factors were:

1. Realistic to make for our project timeline
2. Unique and creates room for a ton of exploration!


Introducing Ripple!






Getting Started

Everyone puts their phones, with Ripple open, together at the middle of the table and join a “study group.









Special Features

AI proactively suggests various activities that aid the discussion through balancing or supporting the conversation.












Tactile Interactions

Shaking and formation instructions make for unique interactions. This increases the engagement and fun-levels!



What makes this product stand out?



Appropriate + Timely Interventions

  • Phones become a tool for learning rather than a possible distraction
  • Ripple proactively intervenes at the right moment to offer assistance
  • Multi-phone, multi-modal interface introduces a new way of using UI as a tool for education and collaboration


Adaptable + Subtle

  • Can adapt to different education levels
  • Only makes suggestions on what the group needs and what the group is talking about
  • Naturally includes everyone in the discussion without being a disruption to the conversation

Approachable + Fun + Interactive

  • Easy-to-learn, gamified, and team-based activitie
  • Continual engagement throughout group discussion and decision-making
  • Encourages groups to work through challenges, instead of giving answers




Next Steps



User testing - Feedback
Because we had a limited time for this project, we were not able to perform user testing sessions to move to the next step of iteration.
Considering how users could join mid session + Accounting for larger groups

Ripple has the potential to be more versatile and inclusive!
Integrating activity requests

More direct interactions with the AI could be an added layer of engagement
More activities. More fun.

There are so many possible scenarios!





24–09–2024