Solutions
The main causes of Rampant Strategy's lack of usability are their misleading button signifiers, confusing site navigation, and poor site mapping. To improve the site, we propose that the button on the side nav-bar should be replaced with a drop-down on the top nav-bar. This would allow users to swap from one site function to another from any page, reducing the need to transfer to an entirely new page before choosing. The label for this dropdown can be changed to ‘PeerApps’, keeping the name simple but giving the signifier a stronger correlation to the actual function names. Another significant issue is the affordance of both saving and submitting assignments. To address this, we propose to take the functionality of the current submit button and split it into two ‘Save’ and ‘Submit’ buttons. The Save button would allow users to save partially finished work without submitting it, while the Submit button would take the current work, save it, and submit it for grading.
How we measure Success
The three steps: perceive, interpret, and compare, which were discussed earlier in Seven Stages of Action, pertain to the process of evaluation. We will follow these steps to make empirical and heuristic evaluations based on criteria recommended by guidelines and principles. Thus, the new design should demonstrate significant improvement in UI such as if it bridges the gap in Gulf of Execution and Gulf of Evaluation– meaning there is no significant difference between what the user accepts to be able to accomplish the interface and what they are actually able to do. Our changes should improve student collaboration, accessibility and communication. The goal of our design is to make students empowered learners.
Conculsion
In conclusion, Rampant Strategy fails to facilitate effective communication between students and instructors due to its unclear signifiers and on-screen alerts. To improve this educational technology tool, we propose a more intuitive interface that would benefit all parties involved. The proposed changes to Rampant Strategy, such as replacing the button on the side nav-bar with a drop-down on the top nav-bar and splitting the current submit button into Save and Submit buttons, would help to address the confusion and improve the usability of the platform. These changes could significantly enhance the learning experience for students and improve the efficiency of instructors and teaching assistants in conducting classes and grading assignments.