How often are you happy to be proven wrong? Return to Lab is a case in which I was happy to be proven wrong. In retrospect, I wonder how I ever doubted a feature that got an 83% positive rating after release, and has been referred to as a “lifesaver” and a “game changer.” 

Research Proposal

The Course Improvement Council (CIC) was TestOut’s deciding body for course-related features. To help us make informed decisions, I proposed a process for validating feature ideas through customer research, based on the book Nail It, Then Scale It. The CIC accepted my proposal, and one of the first concepts we tested was the Return to Lab feature. It allowed students working in one of our simulated lab environments to check their progress and verify completion of required tasks before submitting their work for a score.

The Problem

Students working in labs had no way to verify task completion. This made it easy to overlook tasks. The only way to check completion was to submit their work for a score. They would score their lab, only to find they had failed, because they missed one thing. This required redoing everything they had previously done, just to complete the one thing they forgot, so they could pass the lab.

I was skeptical about the value of this feature. Although students were frustrated, some teachers cited having to repeat the lab as a good thing, promoting learning through repetition. After discussion, the CIC approved the feature, so we began the research process. 

Feature Validation

We started with a customer survey to validate the pain point. Over 50% of the instructors who received the survey responded. They ranked the pain of not having this feature at 3.42 out of 5. The response rate and pain rating met our threshold to continue. 

Design and Iteration

I designed what I saw as an MVP, a checklist students could complete themselves as they went through the lab. It didn’t require any logic or scoring. However, customer feedback told us this solution wasn’t sufficient. Through the iterative process, we landed on a modified version of the score summary dialog, which students see after submitting their work for a score. The modified version excluded the full explanation for task completion, and only showed which tasks had been completed and which hadn’t. 

Release and Response 

The final version of Return to Lab was released in August 2022 in two courses, Digital Literacy Pro and PC Pro. In October, we surveyed instructors to learn about their students’ reaction to the feature. 83% of respondents cited a positive reaction from students. 17% cited a neutral reaction, and no one cited a negative reaction. 

Ben Moore, an instructor at Treasure Valley Community College, said, “Being able to see how far they are in the process, without having to submit and start over if it's not as complete as they believe, is a LIFESAVER.”

Instructors requested that we add Return to Lab to all of our courses, which we did as we released major versions of each course.

Conclusion

The reaction to Return to Lab has been consistently positive, starting with our first customer research efforts. It continues to be a popular feature, and I have never been so happy to have been proven wrong.

Note: Where are the images? I gathered the data for the basis of this case study not long after release. However, I failed to gather images and publish the case study at that time. At this point, I don’t have access to the files I worked on in order to show images. Am I kicking myself? Yes. Is it doing any good? Not really.