Odeto: organizing online design classes
Organisation
IDC SChool of Design
Industry
ed-tech / project management
Year
1 month, mar 2020
Role
Student designer
Background
🎥 WATCH THE VIDEO OR READ THROUGH
note
This project was presented at 'IndiaHCI 2020', a conference for Human-Computer Interaction.
What was wrong?
Design education has traditionally relied on studio-based, hands-on, synchronous learning. The sudden pivot to online modes during the COVID-19 pandemic fractured these dynamics.
Students and faculty lacked common expectations for behaviour, timing, feedback mechanisms, and informal collaboration. There was a vacuum in managing class culture and interaction.
ROOT CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM
The absence of shared behavioural norms in online classrooms leads to confusion, anxiety, and disengagement. Traditional codes of conduct were never redefined for the digital context, especially in hands-on fields like design.
from a professor
“The time it takes to conduct an online test is almost double compared to doing it in a physical classroom.”
from a student
“No one asked us what tools work best. Professors just picked whatever they liked, and we had to adjust.”
from a student
“Simply mimicking campus life online is exhausting. There's no clear way to separate class from home life.”
Size of global ed-tech market
$100B in 2020
yet few tools address in-class behavioral dynamics or shared expectation setting
no. of design schools in india
+100
all rapidly digitizing post-COVID, presenting an urgent need for tools that support digital pedagogy
Validating
the problem
Methods used to validate the problem
Key findings
Students didn't want a top-down approach; they wanted to collaborate with professors and instructors to set expectations
Online education was challenging during COVID, and was confusing for both professors & students
Time and energy were often wasted on aligning tools and schedules, leading to disappointment at times
While professors wanted to preserve traditional roles such as a class representative, new class roles (e.g., mental health representative) were asked by students
tech & Logistical challenges
We had to use a tool that was commonly available and familiar to both students and teachers, instead of creating a platform from scratch.
How might we…
…enable design educators and students to co-create mutually agreed conduct norms that improve clarity, engagement, and collaboration in online classrooms?
Ideation
method used to ideate
Goals of ideation
Goal 1:
Identify friction points in online classrooms
Goal 2:
Define behavioural categories
Goal 3:
Deliver a low-tech but high-impact toolkit that fosters class ownership
OUtcomes of the workshop
While discussing, we noticed a tension between rigidity and flexibility in educational norms
Debate over tool form: app vs spreadsheet vs cards.
We decided to use Google Sheets to prototype our solution as it encouraged quicker adoption and ease of use
Designing
target persona
Design challenges
Creating a solution that's adaptable across design disciplines
Balancing prescriptive rules with democratic inputs
Key design decisions
We used an editable spreadsheet as final medium to develop the solution
Defining three-tier framework that the class would have to agree upon on:
Protocols (mandatory),
Guidelines (advisable), and
Best Practices (optional)
Introducing classroom-specific roles to mimic offline classroom hierarchy and emotional support
The toolkit covers everything from assigning class roles to setting pre-module expectations
Each section is split into protocols,
guidelines and best-practices
Instructor info & course metadata section
Role-assignment section (note-taker, moderator, class representative etc.)
Some sections are pre-filled to expedite the process
Evaluation
& Impact
method used to evaluate
key findings
Co-creating on Odeto led to greater class harmony - as students & professors both felt heard
This increased buy-in and ownership from both faculty and students
Printable and editable format of Google Sheets made it easy to adopt
unexpected findings
Students suggested adding mental health roles—highlighting emotional toll of online education
Faculty wanted to reuse Odeto across courses, indicating cross-course scalability
learnings
Co-creation is more effective than enforcement
Accessible formats (like spreadsheets) are underutilized in UX interventions
Designing for pedagogy needs to account for emotional, spatial, and social contexts- not just tools