ROLE: Branding, UX & UI, Web Design, App Design
Oowli was a startup from the Netherlands interested in launching an Online Course App for college professors. The business model was that students would pay a subscription of €10.00 a month to have unlimited access to their college books on their e-Reader. Teachers on the other hand, would able to build their own course online with the App and then get students to engage with it as a community.
I personally truly believed in this project, and although it generated quite a bit of momentum in surveys conducted with college professors, it didn't really attract the attention of book publishers who were the owners to the rights of these books. This case study will only focus in the process and ideas behind envisioning this brand.
1. DEFINING THE BRAND
The client itself had gathered quite a bit of information by making surveys across different colleges in the Netherlands. The results revealed that the students were willing to engage with the app and were very positive about the idea of getting all their books online while teachers in general were quite uncertain about the app's level of difficulty, especially when making and managing the course online themselves.
My main challenge was to come up with a brand that could be appealing to both parties: teachers and students. The name itself 'Oowli' helped as a starting point. The owl icon wearing a graduation cap could help personify the brand and talk as an expert to both types of users.
I also proposed to work on the tone of voice by making use of quotes and blog articles that could help students feel inspired in the learning process. At the end of the day, Oowli was aiming to understand student's needs for learning better.
The key deliverables at this stage were:
• Logotype, tag line and secondary elements.
• Identity manual with additional resources
• Best practices in generating content for Blogging & Social Media
• Samples on how to use the brand across different applications.
2. DEFINING THE UX
When thinking of the product's landing page we agreed on a couple of goals for the site. Because the web-app was running on a Beta version, we needed to get people to sign up to their newsletter so they could be notified when the service was actually available. Second, it was important to explain how the app worked with a minute long video and then highlight the product's key benefits.
Once users had registered with Oowli, they had access to the 'Student' or 'Teacher' interface, depending on what they had pre-selected.
If you were a 'Student', you could find a course with the 'Search' tool by typing in the Course Title, Course Number or even just the Teacher's name. You were also able to bookmark your book's pages, highlight its content and even type in personal comments underneath each paragraph.
Additionally, students could engage with their classmates inside an online community, upload their assignments, answer test quizzes and ask feedback from their teachers.
If you were a 'Teacher', you could build your own course online by using excerpts from the book, uploading video content and finally grading each student as the course progressed throughout the semester. They could also make their own course available to other colleges across the world and get paid a royalty for each new student signing up to their course.
3. DESIGN & IMPLEMENTATION
After the client approved the branding and wireframes, I then proceeded to design the website and web app almost simultaneously. For the web app there was a total of 5 iterations with small tweaks in UX and design but overall the client was very satisfied with the high quality and features added to their product.
CLIENT FEEDBACK
"Melissa did an amazing job in making all the designs for Oowli. She is not just a designer but really thinks about how the user should ideally engage with the app, and what has to be done to make it happen. We always consulted her when we were thinking about new features because of her knowledge in UX." Nick Appel, Co-founder at Oowli.
