CISCO had launched an app-centric cloud-based service called Spark and their goal was to introduce the app in the education sector, producing plugins for specific user/target groups. Our brief was to design a plugin that offers a contemporary educational experience, in the field of Veterinary medicine.
The App was available on Mobile, Desktop as well as on the SPARK Device – available as a 55-inch, 70-inch and 85-inch display.
Image on the left showcases the SPARK Mobile app being introduced to the team during kickoff at CISCO’s office in Milano.
Data from Secondary Research
User Research and Analysis
Due to the diverse origins of the team, we got the opportunity to conduct interviews and surveys across countries, studying day to day journey of students and teachers of veterinary science. This gave us deep insights not just about the education system in the field of veterinary science but also about how humans as a species perceive and register complex information. Some of the key insights were:
Challenges
Opportunity areas identified were
Our Challenge
During the research phase, we discovered that the veterinary science curriculum is comprised of 60% theory and 40% practical lessons. We chose to focus our design intervention on the Theory part of the curriculum as that is what the students struggled with the most.
Simplify Content + Introduce Interactive Visual Tools + Experiential Learning
HMW create an immersive learning experience, to help students of veterinary medicine understand and retain complex theoretical topics.
User Personas
While our primary user was Students of Veterinary Medicine, we also looked at the journey of the Teachers as the secondary user.
Introducing Vertuality
Vertuality is an integrated cloud based platform, built on the concept of learning by doing. It is an interactive and collaborative tool that will aid in understanding and retaining complex information, using visual and experiential learning. Our proposed solution bridges the gap between theoretical learning and it’s practical application, giving future veterinarians an insight into real case scenarios.
With the Vertuality mobile app we aimed at Gamifiying the learning experience with an Integrated, interactive platform based on Augmented Reality.
Using Vertuality students can learn application of theory in real case scenario using AR.
The Product System Consisted of:
- A mobile application for students to learn anywhere, anytime.
- A Plugin for the CISCO SPARK board, for classroom lessons.
- Cloud based database for the curriculum and progress to be accessed anywhere on across devices.
- A virtual meet up space for students to collaborate and learn through gamification
The platform caters to both students and teachers, however the mobile application is designed predominantly for students to learn anytime, anywhere. ‘Vertuality’ is based on simplifying the theoretical content by redefining the way the curriculum is arranged. Students will be introduced to one subject at a time, to be studied across all species, in a module based system.
And a sneak peak of the prototype we designed for CISCO
Client / CISCO in collaboration with DOMUS Academy
Team / Andrea Botia, Mandy Shen, Monica Aguilar, Ramsha Qamar