Project- Upgrad

By:
SACHIN S P
Content
Market- Edtech Industry
Competitive Analysis
User Research
User Personas,User Journey Maps
Features Overview-Enchancements
Prototyping
Usability Testing

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Market- Edtech Industry
Indias Online professional training opportunity is liable to be worth USD 2.7-3.0bn as of 2016-2017.
In 2015-2016 30mn students enrolled into higher education in India.
Every year 0.2mn students compete for 4000 seats at IIM, which shows the amount of challenges in Indias higher education system.
Ed-tech startups are tapping into by providing online courses designed to help professionals upgrade their skills.
Corporate training market in India is around USD 1Bn and expects to grow at ~20% in the next 5 years.
International players like Coursera,Udacity,Lyda,edX and Udemy have already laid their
platforms into the Indian Market and are direct competitors of Upgrad.
With investors such as Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), Sequoia, Sofina,
LightSpeed Ventures and Times Internet have all been investing in the Indias EdTech
Industry.
Some the Indian companies which are in the same segment of that of Upgrad are
Simplilearn, Jigsaw Academy Digital Vidya and Edureka.
The higher education institutes like IIMs,IIITs and other organizations also target the similar audience but in
an indirect way.
Lets consider a direct competitor Simplilearn and compare it against Upgrad.

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 Upgrad
UpGrad was launched in 2015 by Phalgun Kompalli, Ronnie
Screwvala, Ravijot Chugh, and Mayank Kumar and is based in
Mumbai.
Goals and Strategies: Online higher education programs to
empower individuals to reach their full professional
potential. expects to build a $100M revenue business in the Goals and Strategies: The company is looking to fuel its expansion
next 5 years. The company expects achieving a topline of
$20M from its B2C business in the next fiscal year.
Background
Funding: Headquarter in Mumbai, initial round of investment
of $16mn is been made which would go mainly into content,
interactivity, platform, technology, assessments, adaptive
learning, marketing and building a national footprint.
Size: Current employee strength of Upgrad stands around 11-
50 employees.
Revenue :Estimated revenue of the company stands around
$1.2mn till 2017.
Simplilearn
Simplilearn was founded in 2009 as a project management blog by
founder and current CEO Krishna Kumar. Within, 9 months of
starting the blog it had almost 3000 followers which gave rise to
the idea.Regarded as 8th most influential education brand in the
world by LinkedIn.
plans with $30-40 million from growth-stage investors. Founder
wants his company to be the third professional education firm to
hit the $100-million-revenue mark globally, after LinkedIn-owned
Lynda and Pluralsight.
Size: Based in San Francisco, California and Bangalore, India with
employee strength of 1000.
Funding: Simplilearn has so far raised $28 million from
Mayfield, Kalaari Capital and Helion Ventures. It also raised $3
million in debt funding last year. In June 2015, the company
acquired a US based digital marketing training company Market
Motive for $10 million.
Revenue: Simplilearns revenue surged 43% to Rs 132 crore in the
fiscal year 2016.With grown at a rate of 400% YOY so far since
inception.
 Upgrad
Locations: Upgrad operates out of Mumbai and
Bangalore.Major share of business comes from metropolitan
cities.
Target Market: Working professionals looking to upgrade
skills in shore span of time.
Assets: Two office location with 50 odd strength. Has tie ups
with 30+ companies to frame the curriculum. Startup India
Business Model
learning program platform.
User Segment: Wide range of user profiles with all age ranges
and demographics would need to upgrade their skills to move
ahead in their carrier. Major segment includes experienced
professionals.
Revenue Model:
Company charges fixed amount of money for a particular
program for which the student has enrolled to
Strategy Shift:
UpGrad has acquired Pyoopil Education Technologies Pvt Ltd, a
mobile based SaaS (Software as a service) product used by
corporates to deploy online training programs to be consumed
by their employees on the go. This is in line with their plans to
foray into the $1B+ corporate training market in India.
Simplilearn
Locations: Courses are spread across 150+ countries. Simplilearn has
hired corporate veterans to build business in the promising US
market, and is looking for acquisitions in target markets such as
Australia and the UK.
Target Market: Customers with professional background looking to
upgrade their skills using online platform.
Assets: 2000+ industry experts,400+ courses, hundreds of teaching
assistants, 20,000 trainees every month,learning software tool.
User Segment: Has a wide range of portfolio users of all ranges and
demographics with internet connection. Corporate companies whose
employees require training.
Revenue Model: Same model as Upgrad. Simplelearn has Corporate
plans where scheduled sessions are conducted and the corporate costs
are differently priced.
Strategy Shift:
In 2010-11 Simplilearn offered both offline and online sessions to the
trainees. However as the company expanded only the online sessions
are conducted as the reach is more.
Initially hired Industry experts, now along with hiring experts, company
offers the trainer programs for individuals to become a Simplilearn
trainer.
Started to target the corporate companies to help upgrade the
employees skillset with different revenue structure.Has plans of getting
full fledge into to B2B market like Coursera , PluralSight.
 Upgrad Simplilearn
Strengths: Strengths:
Collaboration with the many companies and industry experts. 24 hour support and money back guarantee.
Case study and strong content driven curriculum. Has affiliate program which allows commissioned base marketing of
Has carrier assistance programs. the product.
Does not compromise on quality. Wide range of courses targeting many segments.
Costs relatively less than its competitors.
Strengths and Weakness

Live instructor led training programs.

Weakness:
Though there is an Android app, due to the program structure
majority of the program usage occurs over the website
version.
Limited funds unlike other big Indian players and International
players to capture the market.
Pain Points:
Does not have a iOS app.
Videos over Android app has issues.
Program costs are stacked slightly higher than other players.
Product does not provide integrated live sessions.
Has lot of free learning materials in the name of feature called
Career Edge.
Pain Points:
Too many courses the quality takes a hit.
Due to the open trainer certifications of Simplilearn, cannot
validate the credibility of the trainer.
Video content cannot handle the varying internet speeds of India.
The new career assistance program tend to be tough as the
credibility of the students are not verified.
 Upgrad Simplilearn
App Downloads: Andriod Downloads 1k-5k. iOS app not released. App Downloads: Andriond Downloads 50k-100k. iOS not released.

App Ratings: Android rated at 4.3 by 100 users. App Ratings: Android rated at 3.9 with 1200+ ratings. iOS current
version is rated at 4.
App Reviews: Android reviews are mostly positively inclined.
However major issues were reported over the video glitches and App Reviews: iOS reviews are quite positive and the latest version is
video capabilities. highly rated. Android reviews are average and issues are related to the
audio and video issues.
Product Analysis

Performance: iOS app hangs during continuous usage.

Performance: App performance in both platforms are good.
Functionality: Web site allows users to see who have been
recently online. And check the course listings. User can go Functionality: App allows users to go through the blogs written by
through a particular listing and watch the videos by the industry experts. User can select from wide range of courses and read reviews
experts. Discussion forums are used to communicate within the about the courses before selecting. The new features allows students
batch. to make study plans. Many courses are self paced.

User Experience: Web site Interface is not cluttered. User flow is User Experience: User experience is smooth. User gets to see the
very easy. User is not bombarded with many options. App follows price ranges of different courses and see the reviews about the courses
the similar user experience with 4-5 options of navigation. before starting. If the video file sizes are large the mobile devices has
loading issues.
 User Research
Since the product already exists, anymore additional features ideally should enhance the product quality.
Methods of Research
Surveys- To get a quantifiable metrics of the user behavior with the existing features.
User interviews- To help bring out in-depth insights about the product with the existing users.
Surveys link (https://goo.gl/forms/2y6OxBzHPlplp1W63)
Target Audience: People who are using/used Upgrad product.
Objectives Hypothesis
How well the users are using the current features of interaction? Since the means of communication within the product is few, the
users make the most out of it.

What are the limitations posed during the course that hindered
the interaction with the other party?
What are the scopes of improvement for better interaction?
External factors such as connectivity, lack of time could
influence the communication within the course.
In the online course people would not worry much about
interacting with other peers. However, whenever there is a
need people would want an immediate response.
To make more offline meetups. Allow direct interaction with
industry experts who teach.

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User Research
Survey Analysis
Surprisingly, more than 75% of the respondents have indicated that the website is the most used platform
during the course and not mobile app. Following could be some of the reasons could
App version is only suited for watching videos.
Most of the course involves assignments, case studies which makes app unsuitable.
People tend to write long texts in discussion forums which is
easier to do in web version.
About 70% of the course attendees are not using the discussion forum feature well.
These users have responded that they are either moderately or rarely active, which is also quite
evident form the forum leader board. Same is the case for Whatsapp group.
Insight: 50% of respondents have said they do not have time or cannot find relevant content. This shows that
people would need to easier and organized way to discuss their doubts or queries.
Hypothesis Validation: This goes against the hypothesis that the users would use the discussion forums very
extensively.

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User Research
Survey Analysis

60% of the users have informed that the reason they missed the
TA sessions is because either they could not track the email or whatsapp
reminder or they forgot to attend.
Around 36% of the users have told that with current means they are not
able to convey their doubts and could not follow up with TA.
2 out of 3 respondents have told that they would need way to get their doubts cleared quickly.
Insight: A better way of communicating the doubts of the students would help the course quality and
also the follow up mechanism for doubt clearing from TA or experts should be enhanced.
Some of the common responses for the scope of improvement were Live sessions, Live Classrooms
once in two weeks, Alerts/notifications for entire group, show who all are online.
Insight: Users need live communications which helps the synchronous learning. Students need to know
about their peers activity.
Hypothesis Validation: This goes along with our hypothesis that better interactivity features are needed.
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User Research
User Interviews
Upgrad over other online courses.
I have tried other online courses like coursera but due to lack of discussion forum I choose upgrad. Another reason upgrad being an Indian platform
would help in making a better future in India meeting the industry standards.
It is the one that claimed to give individual attention with mentors and lot of industry
Exposure case studies
Usefulness the discussion forum have been.
Initially discussions were mutli vision. But after 2-3 weeks only top leaderboard
students answer more frequently which in turn restricts diverse answers.
It is difficult at times to get relevant content,especially when you want to quickly get your
cleared
Doubt and queries during the course.
I post it in the discussion forum or check the forum if anyone has already asked the
similar question. If its related to assignments I ask them during the TA sessions.

Sometimes I forget the question to be asked at the end of the video and move on to the
next video.
Sometimes I need an immediate response from either my peers or the TA. I post a query on Discussion forum but it takes atleast 2-3 hours on average
to get the response. I wish their was a way I could get my queries resolved faster

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User Research
User Interviews
What do you need.
Alerts/notification to entire group if someone updates anything on discussion forum.
I need to be able to directly chat with my peers and I should be shown when the TA is online (Even if it's for limited time)
Live Classrooms once in two weeks, TA sessions to be in live classrooms for asking doubt.
Live sessions would bring the peers more closer as there would be conversations as real time.
I do get quick feedback on my work done. If there was a way to get it faster it would be
great
Currently I do not know where I stand, the scoring mechanism should be better, It helps students
Insights
There needs to be a way people can interact in real time so that it brings more synchronous between peers.
Real time interactions help understand queries/doubts better.
Student cannot ask quick doubts while studying, and the responses he/she gets is not quick enough to help the student.
Scoring/feedback mechanism should improve. Student needs to see what are his/her positives and negatives.

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User Persona

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User Journey Maps

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User Journey Maps

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Features Overview-Product Enhancement
Integrated Live sessions-
Sessions where a presenter will host a video display for a limited period and the participants join in using the audio devices such as
microphone. These sessions are part of the module learning, so that the students does not have to go outside the product, this brings the
integrated learning experience.
Features include:
1. Two kind of sessions-
Supervised session: (Core Feature)TA/experts will host the session in every module, for a specific
time within the module deadline period, and the students have to join in to the session.
Un-Supervised session: (Good to Have Feature) These are the session where TA may/may not
be part of, a channel will be open within the application for a short period(eg: 1 hour)
of time every week for that module and the students would join in to the channel via
microphones and discuss among themselves during that time. There will not be any
explicit host/presenter. Session could be recorded for monitoring purposes.
2. Notifications to users reminding the live sessions.
3. Live discussion board where user can post during their course study for questions to be
discussed in live sessions.
4. Chat with peers.

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Features Overview-Product Enhancement
Quick Discussions-
During the course, students can post quick doubts and queries to the discussion forum from the inline shortcut to the forum. And the
TAs and the students who has already gone through the segment gets notified about the question so that they can respond and help the peers.

Features include:
1. Short cut icon at every page of the module to post or read the
questions related to that module,
2. Can post the questions to the discussion forum within the module screen. Also can re-post the
queries to the live discussion board from the module page.
3. Can view the list of students who have completed or studying the current segment
of the module.
4. Notifications to the TAs or experts and the students who have completed or studying the
current segment of the module.

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Features Overview-Product Enhancement
Score Cards
Integrated score cards, where the students can view his or her own performance.

Features include:
1. Score card listings of every module.
2. Overall progress and performance of the student.
3. In-depth analysis of the assignments and work
of the student for every module.
4. Feedback loop for every analysis to help students
understands their strength and weaknesses.

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Prototyping
Method of Prototype: Paper Prototype
Current method is chosen as it is quick to build and iterate upon and enables one to catch design issues in the
initial stages of development.
Current Paper Prototypes design show cases the website version of the Upgrad product, as indicated by the
user research majority of the users spend most of the time on website rather than the mobile app.
Features in Paper Prototypes are built on top of the existing features as new features or enhancements.
Please find the link to the document of the paper prototypes. Document explains each features and their
schematics.
If the above link does not work please copy this
url.(https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7DnSa3QdwKJT09sMkdKSWhweUE/view?usp=sharing)

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Usability Testing
Test Plan
Purpose of the test Assessment of the new features for the Upgrad product.
Stage of the feature Prototype- Developed a paper prototype for the Live Session, Quick Discussions and Score Card features.

Goals To be able to attend the interactive Live session by students of upgrad without any external tracking
required.
To be able to quickly post queries or doubts and get back the response at faster rate.
To be able to view the overall performance and get feedback from the Upgrad.
Participants Upgrad Users
Method Interviews(Quick and dirty method)
Scenarios/Tasks Following are the Scenarios asked
You are studying a particular module in Upgrad product you have a particular doubt on assignment or
content which you think needs to be asked during the Live sessions. How do you do that?
You ask a question in Discussion query, but the answer you get do not convince you, you decide that you
would want to ask that question in Live session how would you do that?
You want to know who all have completed a particular content you are going through how you do that.
You want to see the score you obtained for a particular module and check the feedback how do you do
that?
Your live session is scheduled for now, and you have a question in mind to ask how you would ask it.

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Usability Testing
Test Plan
Metrics How effectively the Tasks were performed?
Did they like the new features?
What are the feedbacks?
Did users face any hurdles/ambiguity while figuring out
-who all have already gone through the section of module?
-using the Live Discussion board.
-using Live session screen.
-using the score card screen.

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Usability Testing
WireFrames
Please find the wireframes at this
link.(https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7DnSa3QdwKJQXd3SjV5ekVfeFU/view?usp=sharing)
All the feedbacks and actionable items have been incorporated into the wireframes. Same has been
explained in the document.

Analysis/Insights
All the tasks except repost question task was successfully completed.
Users like Score Card, Live session and Quick Discussion Students/notification feature.
User did not have any other way of navigating to the Live session page other than the link provided in the
module specific screen.
Action Taken: Created a global navigation so that user can choose the live session and go the respective screen.
User did not understand the text Re-post to Live and its functionality. Some users were not able to perform
the posting the query from discussion board to live board.
Action Taken: Renamed the text to Post to live, with the help text that would suggest what it does.
User did not understand whether the action of posting to live was successful or not.
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Usability Testing
Analysis/Insights
Action Taken: Started to show success/failure message of the action.
User was confused with the existing courses screen and new Score card screen.
User suggested to keep the scores and courses in a single listing.
Action Taken: Made a unified screen where Courses and Scores can be seen in the same view.
User expected to join the live session automatically when he the live session is underway and after having been clicked on
LIVE button.
Action Taken: Removed the Go Online and the Live screen implicitly joins the user when opened and if there is any current
live session running.
User found the Video ON/OFF not useful.
Action Taken: Button is removed.
User wanted the feedback loop for the score screen.
Action Taken: Created a comment mechanism for the score screen.

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References

http://bwdisrupt.businessworld.in/article/UpGrad-acquihires-Pyoopil-Aims-to-Build-a-100M-Business-in-the-1B-Corporate-
Training-Market-in-India/17-10-2016-106996/
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/upgrad#/entity
https://inc42.com/startups/interviews/krishna-kumar-founder-ceo-simplilearn-com-explains-journey-far-simplilearn/
https://www.simplilearn.com/about-us
http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/lessons-in-entrepreneurship-the-success-of-simplilearn-
115090300270_1.html
http://techcircle.vccircle.com/2017/03/02/simplilearn-is-education-company-of-the-year-vccircle-awards/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplilearn
 THANKS
By:SACHIN SP