Projects
01 Research Projects
Digital learning experience design and research of a self-paced online course for risk-based inspection of food imports
Course Designer/ UX researcher
Background
The growth in the trade of food across international borders requires authorities to be trained to promote food safety and risk-based inspection. Online training for risk-based food import controls is a promising approach.
Goal
The goal of this project was to design an online course for risk-based inspection of food imports.
Methods
As a course designer, I participated in scoping the course, designed the lecture and interactive games, and created assessments. See course at:
https://risk-based-s-school.thinkific.com/courses/your-first-course
The methods used to evaluate the user experience of the digital course included heuristics evaluations and a user experience study (task-based, interview, scales). In order to understand users’ learning performance, we conducted a learner experience study with statistically significant pre/posttests and a total of 56 participants, mostly from the United States.
Results
The result indicated that the course was useable and participants’ knowledge about food imports was increased.
Result was published in the journal Food Control.
Screenshot for the Course Main Page
The decrease in guessing rates after the course
Click the screenshot below to see the full picture
02 Research Projects
Engineering Faculty Learning Community
Research Assistant/Data Analyst
Background
This learning community is part of an NSF-RIEF-funded study and evaluated the effect of changes in teaching practices on student social cognitions. Faculty members attended the trainings which introduced teaching strategies to affect student social cognitions.
Goal
The goal of this project was to increase the participation of women in engineering through enhanced social cognitions which have been linked to career outcomes; to create a learning community comprised of engineering faculty to learn about social cognition based on teaching practices; to support faculty in designing and implementing these teaching practices; to assess the effectiveness of social cognition based teaching practices on engineering students’ self-efficacy and outcome expectations.
Methods
CFA and EFA approaches were used to design scale surveys.
I analyzed the differences between pre and post-survey by t-tests, and differences across control and treatment groups where teaching strategies were adopted.
In addition, I analyze the relationship among various variables (e.g., self-efficacy, persistence, expectations, and performance) by regression and structure equation model.
Besides the quantitative data, I did coding work for the qualitative data (open-ended survey, interview, in-class observation) based on certain theories.
Results
The results helped researchers understand students’ social cognitions during online learning and showed evidence that improving teaching strategies will help students learn materials.
Also, the results explained the reasons why faculty members used certain strategies.
Results were published in the ASEE conference 2021 & 2022
Yu, F., Milord, J., Orton, S., Marra, R., Flores, L., (2022). The Concerns and Perceived Challenges that Students Faced When Traditional In-person Engineering Courses Suddenly Transitioned to Remote Learning. ASEE Annual Conference 2022, Accepted
03 UX Projects
TigerAware Mobile App Usability Test
Principal Investigator & UX Researcher
Background
TigerAware (tigeraware.com) is a serverless, cloud, cross‐platform survey solution used by 2500+ research participants in 6+ federally funded studies examining substance abuse, drinking and driving, and racial discrimination.
This developer team created the original interface of the mobile app that allows users (survey participants) to fill out surveys. However, no research was completed to evaluate the user experience. Thus, I joined their team and scoped out the usability test.
Goal
The goal of this project was to analyze the users’ experiences when interacting with the interface of the TigerAware mobile application and to detect potential usability issues.
Methods
I completed the IRB application and designed the usability study.
The following methods were used in this project: introduction, task-based usability test, Single Ease Question (SEQ), System Usability Scale (SUS), and follow-up interview.
Results
After giving the clients (developer team) a presentation to report the usability issues which were found in the usability test, the clients thought the design recommendations were useful and helpful. “Before seeing the usability test results, we have never known some buttons, such as ‘cancel’, are confused for users” from one professor in the developer team.
Example:
The design problem identified in this project revolves around users finding it difficult to understand the features of 'suspend.' The term itself is not straightforward enough and lacks clarity for the intended audience
...
04 Course Project
Prototype Design
UX Designer / UX researcher
In the course, Instructional System Design, my team member and I redesigned the course registration platform – myZou, for the University of Missouri.
We conducted a problem analysis by a task-based usability test. Then we designed the specific features on each page, the visual aesthetics, interaction types, inclusivity and cultural decision, information needs. After this, we came up with a high-level architecture blueprint.
The next step, we drew a low-fidelity prototype presenting the information flow and six mockups that explained our design idea specifically.
Later, we designed the high-fidelity prototype by the software Figma.
Once we had the high-fidelity prototype, we conducted an evaluation to analyze the user’s experience when interacting with the interface prototype of new myZou which was designed by our team, and to detect potential usability issues.
Projects Output:
Click to see the Report
Click to see high-fidelity prototype in Figma
Game Core Dynamic
05 Course Project
Course Project: Game Design
Game Designer/Developer
In the course Advanced Designing Games for Learning, our team designed a 3D desktop game that demonstrates examples of architecture and artifacts from various history periods. Each period is housed on an island that contains buildings, decorations, and plant life unique to that period. Each island is inhabited by a mentor that will guide the learner on their quest. The mentors are based on influential, colored full real-life persons famous for that period. The extravagant Baroque period, for example, is embodied in Borromini, an architect is famous for his flamboyant disputes with his colleague Bernini. The purpose of this educational game design is to help students distinguish between periods by creating an immersive learning environment that will explain the details and influences of each period.
Islands in Time Demonstration
Islands in Time is an open-world, browser-based, 3D game aimed at educating undergraduate-level students in an Architectural History class.
The game aims to enable students not only to accumulate architectural & historical knowledge but also apply their learning in an interactive learning environment.
