Abstract:

This article presents exploratory research that covered the development of a metacognitive virtual learning tool that centralizes the student's cognition and learning structure as an object of observation when planning an interface that: a) can be generalized to any content; b) optimize the user experience and; c) enhance the learning process. We highlight the contributions of the areas of e-Tutoring & Mentoring on helping to develop students' cognitive potential.

The design has become similar in its graphic elements and structure, in different sites and platforms we obtain homogeneous experiences, in positive aspects such as the recognition of icons, and negative aspects such as subconscious actions about something that should be consciously understood. This may indicate the need to use the design more freely and focus on the knowledge that people have about their own cognitive processes and the ability to control those processes. This paper seeks to show that the use of user experience (UX) design can contribute to users of online education by awakening their understanding of their learning processes. For this, it is intended to apply empirical and prospective assessment techniques. The empirical evaluation will consist of the direct participation of the user, with an interaction test where the users will be guided to perform a certain task with a sample of the system in the perspective of questionnaires and interviews. The approach used is based on the design thinking model proposed by Stanford University, and is divided into: empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test. In "empathize", the problem was understood through an exploratory research about users of a digital platform named ActivUFRJ, and members of a community entitled “speech therapy - cognitive psychology” and their issues on understanding the connection among psychologists, philosophers, and theories. In "define", the problems were organized in a way that led to logical solutions, we used card templates from the collaborative tool Trello, where information and tasks were shared. At the "ideate", we arrived at a design proposal based on a tree graph. In the "prototype" phase, we created the main screens for a simple content display system based on graphs similar to a flowchart with the addition of hypermedia. As a "test", 5-10 participants will interact with the prototype and data collection about the experience will be done through questionnaires. The sample number follows the usability test precepts, where 5 users show 80% of the interface problems, a larger sample tends to fall in repetition. This project raised requirements specifically from the digital community of speech therapy - cognitive psychology and generated a systemic network. The systemic network corresponds to the adequacy of theoretical knowledge to the logical-systematic structure of the hierarchy in view of the degree of relevance between the domains and subdomains of the theory.

Keywords:

User experience (UX) design, Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Mentoring, e-learning.