As the student and faculty demographics continue to change, how can we create accessible and effective purpose-built classrooms?

My role: As a design researcher in a team of five, I collected, transcribed, analysed, visualised qualitative data to inform the classroom redesign.

Client: UT Academic + Campus Events

Skills developed: User interviews, ethnographic observation, research activities planning, empathy maps, personas, data visualisation

 

Research methods

To understand the highly complex classroom experiences, four research methods were used to collect a combination of qualitative and quantitative, attitudinal and behavioural data.

  1. Interviews: 24 interviews with both instructors and students to gain an in-depth understanding of their experiences and perspectives

  2. A/V staff shadowing: observations of A/V staff’s day-to-day work in order to identify problems in integrating classroom technology

  3. Classroom observations: ethnographic observations of how instructors and students use and interact within the classrooms in order to better understand the structure and flow of classes in different areas at the University.

  4. Research events: 7 interactive research events that helped us collect almost 2000 user responses.

    1. What makes a classroom great? Six pop-up events happened in five different buildings at the U of T, encouraging both students and instructors to engage in three research activities, which are furniture review, question boards and picture boards.

    2. Myhal 150: Bring us your Vision, Make it a Reality. A drop-in event was designed for current and incoming instructors who teach courses in Myhal 150, a highly innovative space conducive to two-way engagement and spontaneous interaction.

ACE Director, Steven Bailey (left one) is interacting with participants. Photos of four classroom types and participant responses (post-it notes) are on the boards.

ACE Director, Steven Bailey (left one) is interacting with participants. Photos of four classroom types and participant responses (post-it notes) are on the boards.

Students are trying out classroom furniture.

Students are trying out classroom furniture.

 

Data analysis

For interview and observation data, we first transcribed them and identified some topics mentioned in each transcript, as you can see in the Excel sheet below. I coded 6 transcripts (4 instructors, and 2 students). After this, we created an affinity diagram to re-cluster all the topics to identify the main themes.

For responses we got from the research events, we simply calculated them and visualized the top responses in word clouds (shown below) as well as bar charts.

Each transcript was coded with a unique ID, tagged with topics mentioned by the participant as well as corresponding quotes.

Each transcript was coded with a unique ID, tagged with topics mentioned by the participant as well as corresponding quotes.

Word clouds for the answers to the questions, “most important feature of a classroom“ (left) and “favourite classrooms/buildings“ (right)

Word clouds for the answers to the questions, “most important feature of a classroom“ (left) and “favourite classrooms/buildings“ (right)

 

Research findings

Three ways we adopted to communicate the research findings with the client were as below:

Graphic representation of the five themes

Graphic representation of the five themes

Design principles for U of T classrooms

Design principles for U of T classrooms

An example of items in the checklist

An example of items in the checklist

Themes and insights

We identified 5 primary themes and mapped out the interdependent relations in the graphics. The main idea is that, interpersonal, physical, and virtual connections are influenced by classroom accessibility and an acknowledgment of emotional stakes; as a result, truly inclusive and integrated learning requires all five connections working in tandem rather than being mutually exclusive. For each theme, we broke it down into key insights. For instance, we talked about 1) furniture, 2) spatial arrangement, and 3) the atmosphere of classrooms to accommodate a range of bodies and pedagogies under the theme of physical connections.

User stories and journey mapping

In order to foster empathy among our client towards students and professors, we translated raw data into user stories and class journey map to bring in human narratives.

The class journey map (right) shows the emotional ups and downs for both students and instructors in the classroom and illustrates the complexity of the design challenges when thinking about classroom design.


Design principles and checklist

To move from high-level knowledge about user needs towards actionable insights, we brainstormed a list of design principles for space managers and architects. This offers a unified set of criteria established through the research process and with the contributions of staff in Accessibility Services and Academic and Campus Events Classroom Technology Support. It aims to help them prioritize design features.

A drafted design checklist was also delivered to open up conversations around human-centered design for space managers, architects, tech support staff, accessibility services officers as well as pedagogical support staff.