Next World
UX Designathon Top 10 Finalist
Bridging education to a digital realm for a brighter future.
Created for a week-long designathon, I teamed up with a partner to create a supplementary virtual school in hopes to provide students an accessible and engaging learning environment. The designathon was held virtually across North America and Europe, with 218 teams competing. Out of those, our team placed in the top 10, making it to the finalists.
Role
3D Art Direction
UX Design
User Research
Tools
Adobe XD
Adobe Dimension
Notion
Team
2 Designers
Duration
1 week
Background
Next World was inspired by the voices of students who continue to experience educational inequity, with a mission to offer equal access to quality education and opportunities for every student. By connecting digital and real-worlds, it aims to create an engaging learning environment free from financial barriers and discrimination, offering a step toward a more just and inclusive future.
Design Challenge
“How might we intentionally create a better world through immersive technologies?”
Process
Time was tight from the get-go…
Having always dreamt of joining a large scale competition and collaborating in a fast-paced environment, I wanted to partake in this designathon despite having a packed schedule. I finally took the leap thinking, "What could go wrong?". I ended up working with another designer who was in the same boat, so making sure we had our project management down was a huge deal!
Problem
The current education system fails to provide an equitable opportunity to learn, resulting in an achievement gap from an early age.
How Might We
How might we leverage immersive technology to provide an educational environment that encourages students to continue learning?
Personal Challenge
Time and project management were by far my biggest challenges. We were juggling school assignments, full-time job projects, and the designathon all at once. At one point, we weren’t even sure we’d be able to submit at all.
Two heads, two separate roles for effective collaboration.
While I focused on UX tasks such as primary research and user flows, my partner worked on front facing designs. Due to the time crunch, we divided roles based on each person's strengths. We set up a Notion page to keep track of tasks and maintained close communication to ensure our work was aligned.
Pinpointing the problem and users' needs through research
Teachers
Students
Parents
Through white paper and primary research, we identified key stakeholders, who were teachers, students and parents. We familiarized ourselves with their pain points, and thought about what we could do to impact their needs. This designathon was a great opportunity for us to approach the problem space following the full double diamond framework.
Delivering engagement through different methods
When tasked with crafting a solution using immersive technologies, we had one major concern: accessibility. While the XR industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 32.9% from 2024 to 2030, we aim to offer equitable education for all. To ensure educational equity, Next World services are offered cross-platform. Additionally, its interactive content ensures multimodal learning by stimulating various sensory channels and accommodating different learning styles.
Breaking educational barriers through universal access to a free, secure, and interactive virtual learning platform.
From a long list of desired features, we identified and implemented the 3 MVPs that would be necessary for Next World's functionality and impact.
Classes are run by AI teachers for consistency.
Users are assigned to classes based on their level which are labelled by figurative words. In Next World, there are no grades or numerical measures visible to other users.
Tutors are human buddies.
Tutors are available to help students outside of class. Students can ask questions from their virtual class or day school. As human mentors, they also provide emotional support.
XP & Currency Points run the economy.
Students earn XP points by attending classes and currency points by taking quizzes and participation. XP points unlock tier advancements, while currency points redeem tutoring services. Most importantly, points cannot be bought with cash.
Achieving tangible outcomes.
The 1 week sprint had gone by so fast; once we were done with crafting the final pieces and recording our presentation, the last step was to standby and wait for the results (nervously)!
Top 10
Placed in the Top 10 out of 218 teams total
Recognition
Personal acknowledgement from Head of Design @ Meta
Adapting and thriving under pressure.
This 1-week sprint was unique; we were a team of 2 and used 3D tools, which wasn't common among other contestants. The complexity of working with 3D elements made this sprint particularly time intensive.
Learning effective collaboration and communication were key aspects of this designathon. Everyone has different working styles, and luckily for us, our working styles were quite similar. However, the real challenge was how we could work together as fast as possible. While I had experience with sprints, they were in larger, more diverse teams, so this experience taught me how to balance the full UX process from discovery to prototyping between 2 designers.
Looking back, the complexity of our project may have been a factor in not reaching the top 3. While we didn't receive specific feedback, the concept of 3D virtual learning may not have been as appealing as we hoped to the judges, who might have had less familiarity with immersive media. Our targets were Gen Alpha and younger Gen Z, so we believed the concept of immersive education would be attractive to them.
If I get another chance to participate in another designathon or hackathon, I will focus on developing a solution that is innovative yet easily understood by a wider audience. While it's impossible to create something for everyone, I will aim to prioritize clear communication and feasibility.
