Online exams platform. Create, manage and grade online exams has never been easier. Take online exams on campus or at home using your own PC or Laptop. Create, edit, share, control, collaborate, manage, publish, invigilate and mark online exams using TomaE-Test. With it’s clever integration into the institution’s existing systems.
The Etest product is essentially a platform for conducting online exams for students. The users of the product were the students, but the customer was the universities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for the product was enormous. However, when I received the initial product, it was confusing, unclear, and received many complaints.
The first thing we needed to do was to figure out how to collect people's experience. We decided to categorize the content into objectives. To each objective multiple people could add their perspective on how to achieve the objective. We quickly created a prototype and started to collect data from user testing and research. We used online user-testing platforms, conducted one-on-one meetings and focus groups. During the research phase we created several iterations until we discovered the best way to collect user generated content.
The first challenge was to establish organized test stages, where each stage would be clear to the user in terms of where they are and where they are heading.
Creating a user persona is indeed a challenging task. With so many different students, each one unique in their own way, it would require interviewing a large number of students either through direct interviews, surveys, or observing them during exams. This would need to be done across different colleges, departments, and courses. After gathering the data, it would be necessary to distill it into two distinct personas. This way, you could make better decisions for the users once you have gotten to know them.
The new TomaEtest was divided into three main steps:
The process of Check-In is the initial process that the examinee needs to complete before the start of the exam. Within the Check-In, there are four stages:
1. Disclaimer: The examinee is required to read and acknowledge a disclaimer for legal reasons on behalf of the university.
2. The examinee needs to test their computer's functionality to ensure that the institution can capture and record them during the exam, in order to prevent any suspicion of copying.
3. In the third stage, the examinee undergoes personal verification and is required to upload a photo of themselves along with their identification document.
4. Summary of Exam Details and the "Start Exam" button.
During the exam stage, the examinee is required to answer all the exam questions. Based on user interviews, there was a clear sense of pressure and anxiety during the exam. To address this, I have organize the screen in the clearest way possible to minimize confusion.
At the top section, there is a top bar where the exam name is displayed. Users can navigate to the resources area. They can also see the remaining time for the exam and access the messaging feature. The messaging feature includes different types of messages: messages to the instructor, where users can ask academic questions or seek clarification, and messages to the proctor, where users can inquire about breaks, technical issues, or request new passwords.
On the left-hand side, there is the navigation bar for the exam questions. Users can see the structure of the exam, types of questions, which questions they have answered, and which ones they have not. It also indicates the current question they are on, providing a visual indication of their progress during the exam.
In the central part of the screen, you will find the exam questions. The examinee needs to provide their answers to these questions. You can see the different types of questions, such as multiple-choice questions, open-ended questions, question groups, and sub-question questions. Users can switch between different viewing modes for optimal convenience, toggling between a display of all questions together or viewing each question individually. They can navigate between questions and even expand the screen to full view for better visibility and focus.
During the submission stage, the examinee uploads drawings or sketches from their exam notebook by taking photos of them using the Etest mobile application.
