Project insights
My Role
UX research and analysis
Product design
Design system
The Team
1 designer, 1 product manager and 2 developers
Results
The Problem
When I first met Aifer, it was like watching a talented student buried under too many textbooks. The app had great content but suffered from "kitchen sink" syndrome - every new feature request got added without strategy.
Key issues
🥱 High course drop-offs
Support and marketing teams were overwhelmed by a growing volume of student WhatsApp messages.
🎧 Fragmented support
Critical support (motivational content, mentorship) was scattered across WhatsApp, telephone and YouTube.
📉 Low conversion (<10%)
Students lacked confidence in course quality and instructor credibility.
🖥 Inconsistent UI
Legacy tech stack led to poor usability and inconsistent user experience.
Overview of the redesigned experience
The Process
With no budget for traditional studies, we became UX detectives: Relying on alternative methods that were both swift and budget-friendly. I found these approaches particularly effective:
☕ Coffee cup interviews
Spending time with Marketing, Support and Academic team to understand recurring complaints and needs.
🏎️ Competitor benchmarking
Selected six industry leading EdTech platform offering similar courses and studied why they succeeded.
⚙️ Stakeholder Workshops
Collaborated with sales, academic and support team to align features with pedagogical goals.
Design process
Key takeaways
💰 Payment-stage drop-off
Significant lead drop-offs at payment indicated friction in the conversion flow.
😕 Low trust in content
Students focused on free previews, signaling doubts about content quality.
⛓️💥 Disjointed learning experience
Learning and support were spread across multiple external channels.
📉 Declining motivation over time
Motivation dropped as exam dates approached, leading to disengagement.
😖 High cognitive load
Competitive exams like UGC NET felt overwhelming, increasing mental fatigue.
👥 Peer learning preference
Students valued peer interactions for motivation and accountability.
Design goals
🧭 Simplify
Reduce cognitive load through guided workflows.
❤️ Empathize
Integrate emotional support into every interaction.
👏 Motivate
Encourage consistent engagement.
📏 Scale
Build a design system for future courses and features.
Final outcome : Highlights
We envisioned the first impressions like a perfect first date – welcoming but not overwhelming. The communication should be relevant to the user and also confidence giving.
'First date' Onboarding
Design Goal
Simple
User Scenario
Users need relevant content quickly without feeling overwhelmed.
Solution
✅ Guest login allows users to explore courses without commitment.
✅Minimal Q&A (exam goal, name, dob and state) gathers essential information to display personalized course recommendations.
User onboarding flow with minimal questions.
Displaying only content relevant to the selected course.
How to increase conversions?
During interviews with Aifer employees, it became clear that students were very keen on offers but often unaware of them. Additionally, high prices were causing most drop-offs, as the target audience was uncomfortable paying the average course price of Rs. 20,000.
Highlighting offers
Design Goal
Motivate
User Scenario
Students hesitated to purchase courses with high cart value
Solution
✅Dynamic banners for festival discounts, referral bonuses, and demography-specific offers with countdown timers.
✅Algorithmic prioritization based on user behavior (e.g., frequent cart abandoners see installment plans).
Fragmentized payment option with clear benefits.
Fragmentizing Payments: Solving the ₹20,000 Problem
Design Goal
Empathize, Motivate
User Scenario
High cart values caused drop-offs.
Solution
✅Installment Plans: Split payments into 3-6 months to bypass high cart value.
✅Selling test & materials at lower price (partial conversion aiming potential full conversion in the future)
Free Classes and Tests: Boosting confidence
Design Goal
Motivate
User Scenario
Students hesitated to purchase courses without sampling content.
Solution
✅Free Previews: Part of every course accessible without login.
✅Promoted free classes within the app using existing YouTube content.
✅Free trial of value offerings
Trust Surgery Through Transparency
Design Goal
Empathize, Motivate
User Scenario
Students questioned instructor credibility, course quality before enrolling.
Solution
✅Course X-Ray: Upfront syllabus + sample videos + Course intro videos + FAQs along with description.
✅Professor Spotlight: Teacher intros with "PhD in Economics, Lecturer at MGR University" badges.
✅Success Story Testimonials: Success stories of students were added along with course description.
Learning journey better than ever
Earlier course structure was like videos, tests, and materials being placed separately, leaving the learning sequence up to students or requiring guidance from academic coordinators.
Structured Learning Path
Design Goal
Simplify, Empathize, Scale
User Scenario
Students skipped theory to binge-watch videos. Dropped off without accessing many siloed contents.
Solution
✅Structured learning: Designed a logical lesson sequence for holistic engagement.
✅Seamless Navigation Between Lessons: Added Next/Previous buttons for easy transitions. This reduces friction and ensures a smooth learning experience.
Easy navigation between course content
Course content in interactive way
Examination overlay
Examinations
Examinations: Engagement and Insightful Reviews
Design Goal
Simplify, Motivate
User Scenario
Students lost momentum without rewards.
Solution
✅Easy Question Navigation: Facilitate seamless movement between questions.
✅Comprehensive Review Metrics: Provide detailed insights into performance trends, strengths, and weaknesses.
✅ Re-Attempt Mode: Offer a "re-attempt" mode without displaying correct answers, encouraging deeper learning.
Re-attempt mode
Easy navigation
Comprehensive review
Clear direction
User control
Personalized home
Chat Support: Direct Mentor Access
Design Goal
Simplify, Empathize
User Scenario
Students switched to WhatsApp for doubt resolution and felt isolated and needed immediate support.
Solution
✅Integrate an in-app chat for seamless communication with mentors.
✅Offer real-time doubt resolution, eliminating the need to switch to external apps.
Chat with course mentor anytime
Direct chat option from course content
Accessing notes anytime and modifying
Direct note taking from course contents
Integrated Note-Taking
Design Goal
Simplify, Empathize
User Scenario
Students struggled to recall key lesson points without a structured system.
Solution
✅Allow students to take notes directly within the app while watching videos or reading materials.
✅Offer easy organization and revision by keeping all notes within the same environment.
Progress Tracking
Design Goal
Motivate, Simplify
User Scenario
Students couldn’t measure improvement.
Solution
✅The Exam Analysis : provides detailed insights into test scores and performance trends.
✅Overall Progress Tracking gives a broader view of course completion and learning consistency.
Tracking course progression
Specific exam analysis
User onboarding flow with minimal questions.
User onboarding flow with minimal questions.
Game On: Turning Grind into Glory
Design Goal
Motivate
User Scenario
Students lost momentum without rewards.
Solution
✅Leaderboard: The leaderboard allows students to compare their progress with peers, encouraging competition.
✅Study Streak-Rewarding Consistency
✅ Learning Badges for completing tasks
Learning badges
Leaderboards
Study streaks
Clear direction
User control
Personalized home
Hive : Social Learning with Study Buddies & Silent Cheers
Students have diverse learning styles—some thrive in peer-based study environments, while others prefer independent learning.
From user interviews, it was evident that peer engagement played a crucial role in motivation and curiosity. Seeing others’ progress pushed students to stay consistent, while discussions with fellow learners helped in knowledge retention.
Social learning
Design Goal
Empathize, Motivate
User Scenario
Peer interaction was limited to external google meets or whatsapp communities.
Solution
✅Sharing learning progress: Students can share their learning status to track and celebrate progress, encouraging consistency and motivation.
✅Poll question for interactive learning: Polls encourage peer-driven knowledge testing and engagement.
✅Learning Stories: Quick Study Updates: Polls encourage peer-driven knowledge testing and engagement.
User onboarding flow with minimal questions.
Displaying only content relevant to the selected course.
Study stories
Question polls
Study streaks
Clear direction
User control
Personalized home
Articles to help students
Videos to help students
Emotional and Psycological Support
Design Goal
Simplify, Motivate
User Scenario
Students lost momentum without rewards.
Solution
✅Easy Question Navigation: Facilitate seamless movement between questions.
✅Comprehensive Review Metrics: Provide detailed insights into performance trends, strengths, and weaknesses.
✅ Re-Attempt Mode: Offer a "re-attempt" mode without displaying correct answers, encouraging deeper learning.
Design system development
Another key deliverable of this effort was to create comprehensive design system so that developers and designers from first and third party partner teams who wish to enhance or scale the system can do so with ease.
Excerpts from design system
What is next?
I need to validate my design decisions with based on the key metrics such as conversions, user engagements, retention rates and average time spent.
A/B Testing for Engagement Features – We plan to experiment with different engagement strategies and UI variations to identify what drives the highest user retention and satisfaction
Enhancing the Dashboard for Learning Insights – Improving the dashboard will offer clearer, more actionable insights into user behavior, helping stakeholders make data-driven decisions to optimize content strategies.
Establishing an Analytical Framework – Implementing Firebase Analytics will allow us to track user interactions more precisely, measure feature effectiveness to optimize future strategies.
The biggest learning from this project is the tradeoff between quality and cost. Obviously nothing is ever "done" because there is always another idea. However, designers have to learn to balance between time, cost and quality constraints.
Redesigning 'Aifer Learning App' has been an incredible learning opportunity for me. And am really grateful that Aifer has given me full control over design decision though i was not at the luxury of time and budget. They were open to changes and always listened to me.
