M1: Digital Accessibility and Usability
Updated 2026-03-16
Focus
For this milestone, we focused on validating SecureLearning from a usability and HCI perspective.
At this point the platform already had enough interface work done for us to put it in front of users, ask them to complete realistic tasks, and understand where the experience was clear or confusing.
Usability Testing
We ran a usability evaluation with:
- 12 user tasks
- A post-task questionnaire
- 8 total users
- Participants aged between 15 and 56
The final SUS score was 83.2, which was a good sign that the general direction of the interface was working.
The feedback was mostly positive, but the tests also exposed some weak spots:
- Some users struggled with creating a refresh section.
- The sending profile creation flow created some confusion.
- Color usage was not always consistent.
- Creating entities incrementally felt easier for users.
- Some screens needed more context.
Interface Improvements
Besides running the tests, we also kept improving the interface with usability in mind.
Some of the work done around this milestone included:
- Clearer course interaction flows for learners.
- Module creation flows for content managers.
- Better information hierarchy between navbar, sidebar, toolbar, and page content.
- Responsive layouts for different screen sizes.
- Error handling using toast notifications.
- Dedicated 404 and under-development pages.
- Application-wide dark mode.
These changes were not just visual polish. They were meant to make the platform easier to understand, especially for users who are not already familiar with the system's internal concepts.
What We Learned
The main takeaway was that the platform was usable, but it still needed more guidance in the places where users were creating or connecting entities.
From the feedback, we identified a few concrete improvements:
- Add tutorials for the different pages.
- Create a help page explaining the core concepts of the app.
- Improve design and color consistency.
This helped us decide what to fix next before continuing with the rest of the second-semester work.
What This Milestone Represents
M1 of the second semester was mainly about checking whether the product made sense to real users and turning that feedback into practical UI improvements.