This episode features an interview with Alexie Harper and Ori Ratner. Alexie is the Chief Product Officer and Ori is the Chief Technology Officer at the Quantic School of Business and Technology. And they are also both Co-Founders. In this episode, Alexie and Ori talk about keys to designing an engaging UX, challenging learners with real-world scenarios, and how to leave students feeling like they’ve made meaningful progress in their studies.
This episode features an interview with Alexie Harper and Ori Ratner. Alexie is the Chief Product Officer and Ori is the Chief Technology Officer at the Quantic School of Business and Technology. And they are also both Co-Founders. In this episode, Alexie and Ori talk about keys to designing an engaging UX, challenging learners with real-world scenarios, and how to leave students feeling like they’ve made meaningful progress in their studies.
Quotes
*”At the time the buzzword was ‘The Attention Economy.’ When we were identifying what was missing in education, we quickly zeroed in on the fact that motivation is a big part of it. And to solve that motivation problem, you're competing with non-education products. In the early days, when folks would ask us about our competitors, we would joke that Facebook and Twitter were our primary competitors, not the schools. So we just recognized that mobile is where students were living at that point. And so we had to be there, too.” - Ori Ratner
*”When you're designing an [educational] experience, you have to get out of the learner's way as much as possible. And anything you do that adds a little bit of cognitive load or unnecessary cognitive load, the learners feel it, and you'll see that in the churn.” - Ori Ratner
*”We create standard learning lessons that walk the learners through the material. They're very interactive experiences, so every eight seconds, the students should be interacting with the software in some way. And then we quiz them on the material we want them to learn at the end. And the lessons are designed to be story-based, focusing on what does it really look like to be working as a data analyst or someone in finance?” - Alexie Harper
Time Stamps
*[0:08] The Case of the Move to Mobile
*[0:38] Introducing Alexie Harper and Ori Ratner, Chief Product Officer and Chief Technology Officer at the Quantic School of Business and Technology
*[8:53] Evidence #1: Format of material is outdated
*[20:40] Evidence #2: Visual design is clunky and cumbersome
*[27:05] Evidence #3: No incentive to motivate users
*[37:27] Debrief
*[38:30] HGS Pub
Bio
Alexie Harper is the Chief Product Officer and Ori Ratner is the Chief Technology Officer at the Quantic School of Business and Technology. They are also both Co-Founders. Alexie was previously Director of R&D and a senior researcher at Rosetta Stone, and a travel writer and editor for Let's Go Inc. And Ori was previously a director of software development and the software architect at Rosetta Stone.
Thank you to our friends
This podcast is brought to you by HGS. A global leader in optimizing the customer experience lifecycle, digital transformation, and business process management, HGS is helping its clients become more competitive every day. Learn more at hgs.cx.
Links:
Connect with Alexie on LinkedIn
Check out the Quantic School of Business and Technology
Connect with Lyssa on LinkedIn
Lyssa Myska Allen: Hi there! Come in, I’m glad you’re here. We’ve caught a case. A client just called asking for our help.
Client: Hi CXI Detectives, I wanted to ask for your advice. My company wants to take our training program and build it into a digital resource that employees can access and use on the go. I’m thinking it will probably shape up to be an app that works across devices, and I’d like to make it somewhat entertaining but still have employees take it seriously. It feels logistically pretty intense. What do you think?
Lyssa Myska Allen: I think we have a fun challenge on our hands. And I have not one, but two perfect people to join me as co-detectives: Alexie Harper and Ori Ratner. Alexie is the Chief Product and Academic Officer, and Ori is the Chief Technology Officer at Pedago. They started the company together and are also two of the co-founders for the Quantic School of Business and Technology. Quantic is an accredited mobile-first business school. And it’s actually where I got my Executive MBA, so I can attest to their expertise on creating an effective mobile educational platform. Today, Alexie, Ori and I are teaming up to crack the case of the move to mobile. Because we are CX Detectives. Real cases, solved. I’m Lyssa Myska Allen, VP and Global Head of Marketing at HGS. Let’s get started. Alexie, Ori. Thank you so much for joining me today. I can't wait to dive into how we got to where we are today and where you guys started. Well, so you guys all met at Rosetta Stone. How did you go from, um, Hey, like we already are teaching online courses to like, Hey, we should launch a school. So my, my part of the story is that I'd been at Rosetta stone for a while. Teaching language learning really. I felt like I had learned a lot, but was really interested in teaching something new, something that went beyond language learning and was pretty interested in this idea of getting together and creating a platform that could teach anything.
Alexie Harper: Um, so that's kind of how I entered into this whole equation.
Lyssa Myska Allen: And then how would you enter. I guess my spin on it is, the three of us were working at Rosetta Stone for a long time. Um, and so we we'd been there for me the better part of a decade, um, and had seen it go from. A tiny little company that was based out of a warehouse behind the jail and my hometown, um, to this, you know, publicly traded multinational company. Um, and it was very exciting to go through that process. But, um, after the better part of a decade teaching language and every sort of way you could think of, um, I think, you know, from my own part, ready to explore other facets. Uh, education. Um, and so I think that was also a big motivation was to have more freedom to explore, uh, education outside of the bounds of just language learning. Awesome. So y'all got together. You were like, Hey, let's do something bigger. Let's call it. Pedago.
Ori Ratner: That's right.
Alexie Harper: Yeah.
Ori Ratner: That's pretty much right. Yeah. Pedago short for pedagogy. often not pronounce correctly.
Lyssa Myska Allen: How did you decide to go or did you decide to go mobile first? How did you decide to kind of approach the product that you wanted to create in a different way, from what you'd been working on for the better part of the decade?
Alexie Harper: when we first started, we didn't really know at that point, what we wanted to create, we were really open. And so we kind of had this process of talking. Um, people who could be potential users, just trying to, to get a lay of the land of the current education landscape, um, and really figure out what what's missing. and at Rosetta stone, we had kind of experienced that our product at that time was mostly a desktop product, not, not really mobile friendly. Um, and so that was always in the background and I think. We were seeing a lot of things come together. Um, you know, people were using their phones quite a lot for, um, all sorts of entertainment, uh, like games and other types of apps. And we thought, what if we could create something that was that engaging, that made you want to just sit on your phone all the time. Um, but it was actually doing something productive for you. And so I think that was where the idea started to come together. I
Ori Ratner: I think to build on that, um, I think at the time the buzzword was the attention economy, and I know that, um, when we were sort of identifying what was. And education. Um, we, we quickly zeroed in on the fact that motivation is a big part of it. Um, and to solve that motivation problem you're necessarily competing with non-education products. So in a way, in the early days, when folks would ask us about our competitors, you know, we sometimes joke that, you know, Facebook and Twitter where our primary competitors, you know, not, not the schools. Um, so I think, you know, in a way we just recognize that mobile is where. You know, where they, where they lived at that point. And so we had to be there to
Lyssa Myska Allen: Well, so yeah, let's dive into, what do you know about your users? Who's the company's audience, like, tell us a little bit more about the company and, or kind of maybe explain the link to the listeners, um, between Pedago and Quantic the school. So our audience right now, um, we focus on. Masters of business administration and executive MBA students. Um, but that's not the full scope of who we would like to be teaching eventually. Um, so we have two master's programs, um, and we're working on an additional five, um, which is pretty exciting. Um, we've also, you know, we're, we're interested in, in other audiences as well. Um, so you know, students who are undergrad age, um, Dabbled in a few other projects. Um, for example, we've worked on a, um, philanthropic project for, um, middle school and high school students in Jordan, teaching them math and physics. Um, so we've, we've really tried, um, w we've addressed quite a few audiences. Um, but I would say right now, um, master's students are our, our main focus. But they didn't start that way. right. I mean, I think as we, as we dig into the case, we'll get to kind of that pivot that you got to. what do you like master students? What do you know about them? Are they traditionally younger because they're, you know, mobile geared or mobile, like a friendly tell us.
Ori Ratner: I would say that, um, our audience definitely skews, um, more tech focused in their careers than the average business. Um, so where many business schools would be much heavier on say finance as a background, uh, for us, you know, we're, we're quite popular with those in the tech crowd. Um, we also, you know, due to our method, our mobile first methodology, um, being so convenient, uh, I think we do a good job of bringing in non-traditional MBA students who might otherwise be unable to attend a traditional, uh, residential full-time MBA program. You know, folks who might be, uh, taking care of young children at home, uh, or perhaps who have, um, uh, intense jobs. And so therefore I have to fit this in and off hours and so forth. Um, so I think, you know, even the fact that, um, almost all of our students are, are in full-time jobs is I think, unique, uh, for an MBA program.
Alexie Harper: we have quite a global audience. Um, so students from all over the world, um, which is also really exciting, the remote aspect of, of the program means that you can get people together from basically everywhere working together. Um, and you know, there, there isn't one concentration of students, um, coming from one particular country because we really are dispersed everywhere.
Ori Ratner: Yeah, I think it's more, we've had students from more than a hundred or 120 unique countries at this point. Um, and I think each cohort averages. What is it? Alexa, 30 plus unique countries per cohort.
Lyssa Myska Allen: I can vouch for that personally as well. I was, uh, when I was a student, I was very impressed by the diversity of geography, career, age, gender, like all of the classes are very diverse and I think that's a really great learning environment to create and probably something that is, can only be done, um, in a super remote fashion. When you're talking about that breadth.
Alexie Harper: yeah.
Client: So right now we have a paper handbook and powerpoints that employees can scroll through. It’s definitely been a while since they’ve been updated. But I’d like to make something more engaging where it’s not just a bunch of reading. So employees feel like they’re making progress and actually learning something. Where there are incentives to keep going. Like if we can build this out into a true professional development tool and create avenues for employee promotion, that would be amazing.
Lyssa Myska Allen: Our client really wants to shoot for the stars with this app, I love it! I definitely think we can help him out with this challenge. Ori and Alexie, what are your thoughts on this? Where did you begin when you were creating the Quantic app?
Ori Ratner: Obviously a lot of it comes down to design, of course. So Alexie and I, we sort of acted as a co product designers on the product, much of the UI and the product was designed by us, uh, in the early days. Um, obviously with assistance from others too. and so, you know, we, we spent an enormous amount of energy, uh, on that user experience, a lot of internal testing and external testing, of course, and also just leaning on, I think our experience at Rosetta stone, uh, building learning products and, you know, learning the hard way, uh, how you lose learners, uh, in an experience. Um, because I think one thing that's unique about, uh, educational products is that the experience is quite taxing, even in the best case scenario, when you're attempting to learn a new subject, especially a subject that is not just for fun, but something that's challenging that has real value. Maybe it's statistics, it could be leadership, you know, something with real meat to it that taxes your brain. Uh, and so when you're designing an experience with that, you kind gotta get out of the learner's way, as much as possible. And any, anything you do that adds a little bit of cognitive load or unnecessary cognitive load the learners, feel it, and you'll see that in the churn. Um, so we were, we were very aware of that, and that was, I think, kind of at the forefront of how we designed the user experience, uh, as well as the teaching method. and then secondarily, I think it leads into technology choices and engineering. Making sure that the platform is a low latency, highly available. You don't want students to sign on discover that it's not available today because it's a maintenance window or something like that. even choosing technologies that are proven over ones that might be flashy, uh, because you really do want a base that you can count on that is reliable, that you are going to be productive. and that, you know, again, students can count on, it's just going to work. I think those are some of them, maybe the important points that come to mind.
Lyssa Myska Allen: So you're talking about when you lose learners and how you kind of have to get out of their own way. So let's take the examples of statistics. How does that look in the classroom journey or the lesson journey? So, we've divided our programs into different topic areas. And we create uh, full of courses that students go through that, um, start them right at the beginning of a topic area and then build on their knowledge until, at the end, we consider them to be experts in a particular area. and so when you're say starting statistics, you might start with something really, you know, pretty basic like one variable statistics. And, um, you click into the course, um, you'd begin the first lesson and our lessons. We we've, we create these sort of standard learning lessons that, um, walk the learners through, um, the material that they're learning. They're very interactive experiences. Um, so we say, you know, every eight seconds, the students should be interacting with the software in some way. Um, and then at the end, The, the material that we want them to learn, we quizzed them. I'm using what we call smart cases. And these are designed, um, well, everything really, um, all of our lessons are really designed to be kind of story-based um, focusing on, um, what does it really look like to be working as a, um, as someone who's maybe a data analyst or, um, who's in finance? what does that experience look like? As learners are kind of going through the experience, um, we're, we're serving them up storyline, um, that they're kind of like almost playing a character. Um, and then sort of finally at the end, when they're going through this, the smart case, Everything that they've learned up until that point in that topic area they're being asked to play through almost like a case study of what it's like to work in that industry. I think there's two, like big takeaways from that. one the story character. So you're really like, putting the, the learner into the shoes and also kind of empowering them in that way and showing them how it might be in the real world. Um, and then I have a question around, so they have to interact every eight seconds. I love that. Was that random. Was that researched? Was that like, how'd you come up with this eight second timeframe?
Alexie Harper: We didn't set out and say it has to be eight seconds. As we were constructing the lessons, um, we kind of naturally saw how much text, um, and how much interaction really made sense on a particular, what we call a slide. we did, a lot of testing, we got to a point where we felt like this is the amount of texts that a person should see. This is the type of imagery they should see on a slide. Um, this is how frequently there should be interaction slides within the lessons that they see. And it just so happened that it was basically every eight seconds that someone was doing some sort of interactive activity.
Ori Ratner: and I can provide a sort of technical, uh, note on that. this was a highly iterative process. and it's actually pretty fun. Like the very first prototype of this prototypes we built in a PowerPoint. Uh, to make, uh, animated mock-ups to sort of mock out what this interactive experience might feel like. Um, and in fact, I think Alexi's team even built out initial courses using those as a template in PowerPoint, just to really understand as quickly as possible would this work. but as we built out the technology platform to facilitate Alexi's team, to build content, in the early days, Alexi was sort of the sole arbiter of what a good luck. Was, and a lot of it, I think, you know, was going off of her instincts as a, as a, you know, an instructional designer and product designer and so forth. Um, but there was a really fascinating process where, essentially she was able to, codify, rules, around her intuition and that ended up eventually making it into the platform, uh, as actually an internal grading. So, um, it's actually an interesting quirk where when you're developing, uh, interactive, uh, course materials at Quantic internally, um, there's a button you push and you actually get a grade on your own lesson from, you know, from F minus to A-plus, with lists of reasons why you got the grade that you got based on these rules that were extracted from Alexie's brain. the same rules that, you know, ultimately I think led to this. Behavior of the every eight seconds interaction, uh, experience. Uh, so it's just sort of interesting how it went from sort of an empirical test and learn process. something very intuitive to something that could then be more mechanized.
Lyssa Myska Allen: Yeah. I love that. I love that you codified your intuition. Like that's amazing. And I think this is actually like a really great pivot point to talk about your pivot. So, let's get into, so you started on PowerPoint. Amazing. and how did you find your customers? How did you find what your customers wanted? who tested the PowerPoint and who ended up using the first product and who's using it now and like, Can you walk me through that customer journey?
Alexie Harper: Yeah. So, so going back to, when we first started out, we weren't sure that we wanted to work on a business education. We were thinking, you know, we could be working on anything. Um, I think early on we, um, we did mock ups of accounting, content and poetry, teaching people to write poetry, all, all sorts of things. Um, but we were really looking for an audience to test with. I was going to be very invested in whatever it was that we were creating. So there were some other topic areas that could have been a lot of fun, like writing poetry, but we didn't feel like that was like that there was going to be an audience out there that would give us a sort of like feedback that was, you know, I, I didn't get what I really needed out of this. that was part of how we ended up, angling towards business education. But we also wanted a topic area that was really, diverse. And so with, with an MBA, there are so many different topic areas there's quantitative and non quantitative, material that you're learning. And we felt like it was just a really good way to start off creating, uh, coursework in all these different topic areas. Um, and so we looked, for a company or a school or somebody that we could do a pilot project. And we were really lucky that, um, our third co-founder Tom had a connection to, um, a school in Seattle that we could actually do a pilot project with. And, um, we worked with our professors. we were looking to create some pre MBA materials to help students before they got into their MBA program. so we felt like we had a very successful experience with that. And we actually started, advertising that pre MBA content. Other students who are going to other business schools. Um, and at a certain point we were thinking, well, why does it have to be that we're preparing somebody for somebody else's program? What if we were to just create this and either make this available as a library or something along those lines. And we tried creating our own library of business materials. and this was about the time when we decided actually really, what we need to do is create our own degree program. So I think that that's kind of the journey that we went through to get to that point where we decided we have to create our own degree.
Lyssa Myska Allen: And were there any technology consideration? So was, was part of it like, Hey, a library's too cumbersome to uphold or was it all sort of customer focused? We think this is what the customer wants and the way to do it is lay out their learning journey in front of them?
Alexie Harper: I would say that it was very much customer focused. Um, And creating the degree was, um, technically more difficult than, um, the library. I feel like the library would have been a little simple from that perspective. Um, but we felt like this was the right decision because if you're trying to impact a person's career, um, being able to award that credential of a, of a degree that they've completed, it's just a lot more meaningful. Um, being able to provide a library no matter how good the courses are. we just felt like students would be a lot more motivated to complete a lot of the coursework. If there was this little degree, uh, at the end of it.
Lyssa Myska Allen: And you guys went a little bit rogue when you did that. I would say you may not agree with the word rogue, but, um, you kind of were like, Hey, we have a degree. I think we'll go get accredited. Right. So talk me through what happened there and kind of the decision making, um, to just go for it. which I deeply respect.
Alexie Harper: Yeah, so there were certain things that we understood about, um, the process of offering a degree and certain things that at the very beginning we didn't understand. Um, so I think with Rosetta stone, We never needed to be accredited because we weren't offering certificates or degrees or anything like that. and so when we decided that we were interested an offering a degree program, we knew we needed to become licensed. Um, so we did that piece, and we learned through that process that there was a timeline for, you know, if we wanted to offer this degree, um, to students in other states, you know, within the United States, that, that, that was something where we needed to actually pursue accreditation as well. I think we were very lucky in finding the accreditor that we have now. Um, the process was actually overall very positive because, um, there are a lot of things that when you're creating a school, you may not think about, and students may not be specifically asking for certain policies or things like that. But when you go through the accreditation, It's kind of a bootcamp for creating a degree program. And so they're able to give you a lot of, um, helpful material and advice, to make sure that scenarios that you haven't thought about that you're prepared for those in case they do happen. we started off not, not completely understanding that we were going to need to become accredited, but that through that process, um, eventually we understood that that was not only valuable to students, but it was really helpful for us.
Lyssa Myska Allen: That's such like an optimistic outlook on it.
Client: So I want it to look clean and use simple language. Our training book has big paragraphs of very small text that just feels too dense. It’s not something you would want to carry around and open up when you’re on the go. So I want the app to have digestible chunks of information that employees could open up when they’re waiting in line or on the subway. I want to make it as accessible and easy to use as possible. And maybe we can even come up with a catchy name for it too.
Lyssa Myska Allen: Oh yeah, this is good. I know you both spent a lot of time iterating on these points, and even had a dramatic name change. Will you share with us what you learned in that process?
Ori Ratner: yeah. So when we, started, uh, as Alexie mentioned, um, you know, we began with a concept that was more broad education. Um, we thought perhaps we wanted to be more of a casual learning experience, you know, perhaps through that library product that we started out with. Um, and so our original name was Smartly. with the address, smart dot L Y. and that, I believe that fit that product quite well. Um, but you know, when we decided to pivot to become a university, um, and, and, uh, initially, um, for various reasons, we, we tacked on Institute to the name. So we were Smartly institute. Um, it just doesn't carry the same gravitas that you might want, uh, in an accredited Institute of higher than. and so that, that ultimately led to the name pivot, um, to be Quantic where we are today.
Alexie Harper: And that was actually a good example of students asking for a change. Um, so we had many students write in and say, I love what you're doing. I love the degree program, but it's called Smartly. And I'm hesitant to put smartly on my resume because I'm not sure about how future employers or, you know, other schools are going to feel about a name that. So app like, um, and so that we listened, um, and we did, uh, an exploratory process to come up with a new name. So Quantic School of Business and Technology is the full name. and. I would say years, um, to, to get to the point where we could choose a new name because we wanted to make sure it was, it was perfect. Um, and you know, I'm quite happy with the name now. Um, but yeah, it was something where we wouldn't necessarily have even made that change if it hadn't been for our students telling us that that was something that was very important.
Lyssa Myska Allen: That's awesome. What other feedback has come from students in change. The app, the way that it works. Also, maybe we sidebar real quickly. Is there a desktop learning option or is it app only,
Ori Ratner: so it works equally well, um, as an app on phones and tablets, but also through the web browser on desktop devices or any device that has a fully functioning web browser for that matter.
Lyssa Myska Allen: which is a Testament to its technical design Ori.
Ori Ratner: Thank you.
Lyssa Myska Allen: Um, so was that an intentional.
Ori Ratner: Yes. Uh, from the very beginning, uh, we knew we wanted to be everywhere. The learner would be. Um, and so, um, yeah, in particular, the, the mobile first design was not just the buzzword. From day one, we were designing with mobile screens in mind first, and then growing on that functionality for the desktop. Um, cause we really wanted to make sure. Everything that could possibly be done on mobile, we supported. Um, and I think, you know, that's, that's really been kind of a, a north star, I think, for the product design for the.
Alexie Harper: And I will just add to that, that one of the features that we implemented to make that possible is as our content developers are constructing content, it's typically. The computer or laptop. Um, but we have, um, ways to preview what content will look like on both desktop and mobile. So, um, and you can do that simultaneously, so you can click preview and you're going to see the content as the students will see it, um, in both formats, at the same time. So I think that that's been really helpful and making sure that we're always creating something that's, um, the works really well. Um, and we've always been very thankful for the dev team for implementing that preview
Lyssa Myska Allen: Yeah. What other feedback did we get from learners? Students that helped shape the product and the way that they interact with it?
Alexie Harper: One thing that was really interesting is that we heard a lot about, uh, offline mode capabilities. Um, so students, Let's say that they're at the grocery store. Fine. Maybe it's possible for them to just be clicking around using the app. Um, but sometimes students will be on public transportation or there'll be on a plane and they want to keep learning and we've heard that a lot. And so that is something that, um, is actually currently in development now.
Ori Ratner: Yeah. They want to be able to, you know, get on a plane or go into a subway with poor internet and just be able to continue studying without interruption. Um, and so that's been a big project for us, uh, over the last year, uh, to add in seamless support for that. Um, we've had some experience, some of the devs on our team with building offline functionality in the past. Um, it's very easy to do poorly. Um, probably the biggest mistake that I see, uh, in offline experiences is, asking the learner to sort of predict the future about what they think they'll need to be offline later. Um, we're just, no, one's very good at thinking ahead that, oh, I'm going to be on a plane in two days and that means I'm going to be at this point in the curriculum. So I better make sure that I saved those for offline use that just, it doesn't work. in fact, we tried it at Rosetta Stone and it ultimately failed. So a lot of our focus has actually been on not just making it work offline, but actually creating an app that intelligence. Um, caches what we think you will need in the future at any given time. So that if you do decide on the spur of a moment to hop on a plane and you pull open the Quantic app, it should hopefully have all the content that you need. And you can just continue your studies where you.
Lyssa Myska Allen: That's amazing. It, it feels like you guys are very protected. The learner like you want to make sure you don't lose them. You want to get out of their way. You want to not put the onus on them. And I love that approach to customer experience. Um, what else have you. done to sort of like make their lives easier? Um, using the, the technology.
Ori Ratner: Hmm, gosh. Yeah, it permeates so much of what we do. Even small things like, it sounds silly to even say this, but font size. Um, we, we designed the product with larger font sizes at the time. Then I think most designers would have recommended for the web and mobile. Um, but that came from the experience of just knowing. Once again, when you're studying difficult material, uh, and you're, you're working on that in your brain. You don't want to have to also squint and to look at your phone to read that text, um, or even on a desktop. So, you know, trying to just create more breathing space in the UI, uh, through larger fonts and, and sort of, you know, I guess looser design and that sort of thing. Even that's something subtle that we thought about for the longer.
Lyssa Myska Allen: If I remember right, this was a bit of a bumpier experience for you, Alexie and Ori, is that right? You tried a few things that didn’t work, which is super valuable information as well. What did you learn from that experience?
Ori Ratner: So early on, we, um, we had this idea of collecting con. So, um, it was this thought that we could sort of overlay, um, you know, almost like collectible coins or something like these concepts that you would be studying in your courses. And as you, as you made your way through the courses, you would like sort of collect those concepts in some virtual area. And that'd be kind of a fun, uh, you know, add onto the experience. Um, but you know, when we tested that on ourselves and with learners, um, it just really did not resonate. Um, it was distracting. It felt unnecessary. It's somehow in a way, I don't want to say cheapened, but it seems that sort of lower the level of the product, you know, if you're studying these really difficult meaningful subjects and then suddenly, you know, you get a, a flashy gold coin, uh, for, you know, learning about, you know, I don't know, like what a T test is. It, it just didn't feel right. Um, so I think that's an example of maybe, uh, an idea that seemed cool. It seemed. Um, on trend with what people were doing, but it just, it just really didn't work in our context.
Alexie Harper: Yeah. And, uh, another example, um, of something that we tried really early on, was one of the first things we built was this negotiation game, um, which was a lot of fun. Um, and, but it was really a game. And what we discovered is that we were incentivizing poor negotiating tactics, um, because it was. It was a sort of thing that made you feel like you wanted to win. Um, and so we were not, um, promoting collaboration in the way that I think that, um, perhaps would have been a better tack. Uh, so that was something that we kind of put on the put to the side. Um, and we, you know, we've since addressed negotiation and in our typical course format, um, but it was kind of a, it was a fun experiment, but it felt like, um, we wanted to make sure that. Teaching people, um, in the right way and making sure they learn the right lessons, not just having fun learning the wrong thing.
Lyssa Myska Allen: Let's dig into the gamification a little bit, it seems like that was part of the early vision and you've a little bit gotten away from that and then attempt to be, I don't want to call it more serious, but more focused. Um, how do you see that evolution and would you still consider yourself gamified?
Alexie Harper: I think some, sometimes students will say that they think that we are gamified learning. Sometimes people will say that they don't think that we are. And I think we're kind of maybe taking a middle, middle ground, um, sort of, um, we always knew that we didn't want to have too much in the way of extrinsic motivation for our students. We wanted them to feel like they were learning because this was something they wanted to do. They were really maybe enjoying the. Th the, the storylines or they were enjoying the experience we, we always wanted it to feel addictive in that way. But I think sometimes when you talk about gamification, it is as Ori mentioned, maybe layering on things that aren't related to, um, maybe your understanding the reasons why we were, why we think a lot of people want to pursue higher education or. Or we're learning anything new. Um, so we just felt like in some ways those were getting in the way of what the learner really was.
Ori Ratner: I think one thing we did stick with and it's kind of core to everything we do is we really internalize the idea of sort of interaction loops. Um, and there's different names for that, but you know, certainly in the games industry, uh, you know, that's critical, I think, to any game design. And so, you know, we were very clear on trying to have these, these sort of, um, concentric loops that are sort of, they start very tight, uh, you know, maybe seconds apart and then move out and out further. And that's kind of key to making something addictive. and so for us, Chose to kind of do that with the core learning method, instead of say all of the stuff around the learning method, like a traditional product. So that's where that every eight seconds loop of, you know, you're, you're clicking, you're making a decision, you're, you have a choice and so forth, and you're getting that feedback on that choice very often. And then every five to seven minutes, you're finishing a lesson which is giving you again, feedback and you know, more direction and then call it every hour to two hours, you're finishing a course module and so forth. And on and on and out. And so I think, um, that was all very deliberate. Uh, it wasn't accidental that we created those, uh, at sort of the chunk sizes that we did, um, that was all, you know, very intentional to fit the mobile paradigm so that, you know, again, you could be in a checkout line and in those few minutes you could actually make meaningful progress in a lesson and so forth. Um, but it also goes to, I think, uh, the addictiveness, which, you know, many, I think would identify as feeling very gay.
Lyssa Myska Allen: How much of the current course content is gamified. Or maybe that's not the right word we want to use. Maybe the word is how much of the content would you consider completely interactive?
Alexie Harper: Yeah. So I would say pretty much everything that the student is going through. That's a core. Interactive in that way. Um, we have created some content that you might be familiar with, like our core summaries. Um, we've now packaged that into a book. Um, so that is something that, that is sort of, uh, ancillary to the main experience. It's completely optional, but it is something that I think a lot of students find really helpful to remind themselves of what they've learned, to go back to even years later. Um, but I think we, we felt like we were. As much as possible for everything that the student is going through, um, in the software to be interactive.
Um, as far as the engagement piece of things, we have a team that's actually dedicated to helping students connect with each other. Um, so while students are going through a lot of the materials. Solo, um, and sort of an asynchronous way. Um, we do try to have a lot of touch points for them to, to connect with our faculty, to connect with other students. And we even built, um, a network inside of our software that facilitates that. Um, so we have this big map where you can see where students are all over the world. You can kind of easily find. Are there any other people in your area that you can, you can search it and see that very easily. And then we've also, um, made it easy for students from that same view to find all the events that we are holding, whether those are virtual or in-person events. Um, so that, that was another big piece, uh, that we added. Once our degrees have been running for a while, we felt like that was sort of the next step is we wanted to make sure it was easy for people then to find out about all the events that were running, um, and then to really be able to connect with each other. So, well, a lot of those events are run outside of our software. You know, there might be local meetups or there might be conferences, which I know let's say you attended. Um, we will from the software itself, it to be easy for students to find those events, um, and connect.
Lyssa Myska Allen: And so, that's sort of like speaks to the networking piece of it. But like say when I went through, we had group projects and we had, study sessions Are those still a piece of it? And what piece of the degree program, or do they play? What percentage? How does, how do you make sure that it fits with that? Um, sort of we meet you where you are, but also you have to do this like group project thing.
Alexie Harper: Yeah. so that was something when, in the very first cohorts that we were running with the MBA program, we didn't have. And it said all we had were exams and we actually changed quite a lot about the structure. So we, we started off with a midterm and a final exam and the whole program was a lot shorter. We lengthened the program. Um, we have since, um, added exams at the end of each of what we call concentrations, which is each topic area. And we added projects, which is what you're alluding to. Um, and that was something that we felt like we really want students to come out of the degree program, feeling like they know how to apply what they've learned in the real world. And that's what projects are Great for. And they're also great for connecting you with others, uh, in your cohort. So, we currently have both, um, projects where you're working on, say an accounting project or finance project you might be writing. Some sort of essay. Um, and we also have presentations, um, that students can give as well. So we, we want students to kind of, um, practice all types of skills that you would be learning in a business school and also skills that will transfer over really well into the.
Lyssa Myska Allen: I love that because it gets into probably one of my last questions, which is around, um, that cross-functional collaboration. So clearly you and Ori worked really closely together product and technology, but then within the. company structure, which then turns into, you know, what you're teaching, um, how do you encourage collaboration and communication between different departments, including, uh, operations, marketing I'd love to hear your perspective on that sort of cross-functional collaboration.
Alexie Harper: Yeah, I mean, with projects, um, it's one of the main ways that students connect and, and in particular with the, the business plan project, the capstone project that lasts for about five months, um, students are working so closely together that we've seen that those projects in particular friendships that are formed, do persist long afterwards. I'm even in some WhatsApp groups with what different project groups, um, that, you know, people that I met in person at conferences. Um, and it's, it's been really nice to see how they've kept in touch years later as well. Um, and I think there's something kind of special that happens when you're all working together and maybe, you know, across functionally as well, because they're not all say accountants or something. They're all coming from different backgrounds, different industries and working together to accomplish something. Um, as part of a school.
Ori Ratner: I think, um, one example that Springs to mind is, uh, we've, we've followed. Uh, sprint process, um, since the very beginning. So we're, we're very much proponents of agile development, uh, throughout the company. And so, um, we've been running a continuous, uh, agile sprint process since the very beginning. I think we're now on sprint 1 0 9 sprint 110. I'm not sure. Um, and so we've been very consistent about doing that since the very first week of the company's founding. and since the beginning, we've all. Included the entire company in those review sessions. So it's a way to ensure that the entire company is aligned and aware of everything that's going on across all the groups. And so unlike a traditional sprint planning where it might be about just one team, we actually create space for all of the teams at the company to give updates as they see fit.
First, make learning easy, accessible and engaging. Remove any friction points in the app that make learning a chore. Make the content highly available with low latency. And put the learner in real-world scenarios with interactions as often as every eight seconds.
Second, visual branding is key. Be thoughtful about the brand name, and even get input from users. Make it visible across platforms, from computers to smartphones. And even think about font size.
And third, make the app engaging through gamification. But be mindful of the kind of learning you’re incentivizing, and that it’s teaching users the intended lesson. You can even motivate learners through promotions, like the degree program Quantic offers, or an actual title promotion.
Client: Awesome, you’ve definitely given me food for thought on translating our training materials to a mobile app. I think employees will actually want to spend time on it instead of feeling overwhelmed. Thank you for this!
Lyssa Myska Allen: It’s our pleasure! Do you guys want to head over to the HGS pub and celebrate with a few metaphorical pints?
Alexie Harper: sure. Sounds great.
Ori Ratner: to,
Lyssa Myska Allen: So tell me, what is the worst class that both of you had in college? I had a chemistry lab class, um, That was quite difficult, its entire grade came down to a single lab at the end of the semester. Um, that was answered on a scan-tron sheet. And, um, when I transcribed my answers, uh, I accidentally started on row two instead of row one. And so every answer was correct, but shifted off by one. Um, and, and the, uh, the TA's were very unforgiving.
Ori Ratner: that was my last chemistry class.
Lyssa Myska Allen: Wow.
Alexie Harper: I'm really having trouble thinking of a class. I didn't like.
Lyssa Myska Allen: Uh, well, that was a little bit of a, like a cheat question because I wanted to tell you guys how much I hated accounting in college and loved it through Quantic. So it was, I was really just setting myself up. Um, okay. So what, like what hobbies do you guys enjoying? Right.
Alexie Harper: for me, I learned to knit a few years ago and, um, we have a five month old daughter and I'm really enjoying knitting her hats and sweaters and things like that.
Ori Ratner: Yeah, I feel like a Ren our daughter is, is, is my only hobby these days.
Lyssa Myska Allen: Oh, that's so exciting. Congrats new parents. Okay, well, so any pearls of wisdom about life customer experience, being a new parent, anything, uh, you'd like to leave our listeners with
Alexie Harper: just listen to the. on the topic of founding a company, um, uh, it takes longer than you might think. Um, it, it very much feels like the 10 year overnight success story that they talk.
Lyssa Myska Allen: I love that. It's so true. you, Alexi or EI for joining me today, this has been amazing. You guys are great code detectives. I will work on any case with you anytime, um, but really appreciate your time today.
Alexie Harper: Thanks, Melissa. This has been.
Ori Ratner: yeah.
Lyssa Myska Allen: Thank you for listening to CX Detectives, brought to you by HGS. If you liked what you heard today, tell a friend, a colleague, the person standing too close behind you in line at the grocery store. And don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Next time there’s a CX case to be solved, we’ll be there!