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SmartRCIC
SmartRCIC is an exam prep mobile application for aspiring Registered Canadian Immigration Consultants, trying to study for their EPE, the Entry to Practice Exam, which is the final exam they need to pass to become an RCIC.
Duration
The sprint lasted a total of 3 weeks. 2 were UX focused and the final week was UI Design focused
My Role
UX research, design and testing.
My Team
This project was in collaboration with two other UX Designers, Catherine Widjaja & Chris Carvajal and three UI Designers, Mark Bishop, Isaiah Clemente & Percy Lau.
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Problem
The Entry to Practice Exam has a 50% pass rate, and the current study method is costly & impractical.
The majority of aspiring immigration consultants are busy professionals who often find it hard to make time to prepare for the exam. It is also difficult and expensive for them to get all of the study materials they need to study properly.
Time management during the exam itself is a concern for examinees since the exam itself is 3 hours long and has 140 text-heavy multiple-choice questions.
Goals
SmartRCIC’s goal is to help alleviate exam stressors for people who aspire to become immigration consultants in Canada by providing an easy and convenient way to study for their entry to practice exam.
Business Goals
Fill the gap in the market since there is no study aid app for people taking the EPE.
Daily usage.
Gain investors to support their company.
User Goals
Provide users a convenient way to practice anytime & anywhere.
Help users improve their time management skills while preparing for their EPE.
Help users keep track of learning progress.
Show areas that they need to improve on.
Research & Planning Methods
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Key Findings
The majority of people taking the EPE are immigrants themselves.
They have full-time jobs, so they have a hard time finding the time to study and prepare well for the exam.
Exam takers feel nervous and overwhelmed when they’re taking the exam and preparing for it.
They tend to be cautious because of how much the exam costs.
Time management is one of their biggest concerns when preparing for the exam.
Almost 90% of survey takers said that they like tracking their progress on learning apps. Progress bars are their preferred way of visualizing it.
Design & User Testing
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Design Changes
The biggest change was to our dashboard. We decided to give users an entry point to the quiz right from the home screen rather than having to go to a different section in our app. This means that our user can easily start practicing right as they enter the app.
We also changed the look of the top half of the dashboard. We decided to forego the graph and give users an overview on how long they have until their exam, the sessions they’ve completed and days they’ve practiced. Users can still view their progress in the statistic page.
Mid-Fidelity Screens and Testing
Once our user tests were complete, error corrections and design changes were implemented, we digitized our prototype using Sketch. We made one last change by adding a button that would let users practice all topics available as well as being to select the specific topics that they would want to review.
Once our mid fidelity screens were completed we linked and tested our prototype. Our users completed the task, signing up and completing their first quiz, quickly and easily with an 100% success rate and took them less than 3 minutes to complete it all.
With all the testing done we compiled all of the files and handed them over to our UI team so they could implement their vision.
Design Features
Personalized Dashboard
We kept the dashboard personal and informative. It keeps track of the number of days left until the user’s exam, and the number of times they’ve practiced. They can also keep track of how they’re doing on each topic of the exam.
The dashboard is also the entry point for quizzing/practicing. They can choose to practice all topics or they can select a topic card to practice one area of the exam.
Custom Timer & Topics
Through our research, we learned that our target audience has different preferences when it comes to studying. Some like to study for shorter amounts of time consistently, some like longer periods, so we decided that having a custom timer along with the recommended 20-minute session.
The user also has the option of choosing the topics they want to study rather than studying all of them at once.
Timed Questions
Due to the nature of the EPE, examinees only have about 1 minute and 25 seconds to answer each question. To help our users keep track of the time we added a receding thin bar at the top of each question. This way they can see if they’re answering questions at the optimal time.
The user, however, will still be able to answer the question if the bar goes all to zero because since there’s always a variation in how quickly people answer each question, and it would be adding unnecessary stress.
Progress Tracker
This feature is to help users keep track of their progress and show areas they need improvement on. It also gives the user the capability of comparing different practice quizzes.
Being able to visually see areas in which they’re ready and areas where they need improvement can help reduce stressors future RCIC could have leading up to the exam.