Bringing UX Strategies to LX Design: The Kano Method

LX designers have embraced many user and experience design analyses common to UX professionals – including user personas and journey maps. We have evolved our teams to work with more divergent thinking approaches and to empathize more directly with our learners. As the field of LX design continues to evolve, what additional strategies can be brought from the UX design space?

The Kano model was developed in 1984 by Noriaki Kano, a Japanese researcher and consultant. This model was designed to help determine customer satisfaction with product features, and is based on the premises that:

• Satisfaction with product features depends on the level of functionality provided
• Features can be classified into four attribute categories: threshold, performance, excitement and indifference
• We can gain significant insight by asking customers how they feel about product features

With the Kano method, the approach to measuring user satisfaction takes an interesting lens to look through, plotting customer satisfaction levels with features (frustrated, dissatisfied, neutral, satisfied, delighted) against the functionality of those features (none, some, basic, good, best).

In this session we will introduce the Kano method, explore how we have transitioned it over for use in the LX design space, and share applied effective practices that can be easily integrated into any course or program design. We will provide guiding documents and design model canvases that can be modified for use in any online, blended, or web-enhanced learning experience design project.

We see this approach as a new way to integrate student satisfaction levels into our design practice, and to shape the development of our learning experiences as satisfaction levels change over time.

Using the Kano Method in LX design, we can look at learners’ satisfaction with the features of our learning experiences based on their functionality, and go a step further by mapping this data back to course (and module) objectives and outcomes.

Key to exploring the Kano Method through an LX design lens is an understanding how the four attribute categories translate over into the course space:

1. Threshold Attributes (Basics). These are the basic features that learners expect to come across in an online or blended course.
2. Performance Attributes (Satisfiers). These elements that students may have asked for. They are not absolutely necessary, but we know that they might increase a student’s engagement or enjoyment level while they are participating in the learning experience.
3. Excitement Attributes (Delighters). These are the surprise elements, or “icing on the cake” that boost learner interaction and engagement throughout the learning experience. These are course elements that students don’t even consider wanting, but are overjoyed and delighted when they encounter them on their learning journeys.
4. Indifference Attributes (No Reactions). These are the elements that matter little to the learning experience –features that learners ignore as they progress on their learning journeys.

Looking at these attribute categories enables us to open up to divergent thinking approaches. Our LX design strategy is to brainstorm possible elements, features and attributes that could be included in our learning experience designs.

From there we classify each of these elements, features, and attributes according to how they might impact learner satisfaction. Are we aiming for the basics, or willing to explore possible delighters? Are there elements, features, or attributes that are irrelevant or unnecessary?

We have developed an intentional practice to make sure all threshold attributes are in place (the basics) when moving from design to development, and grow out from there. And, we work to find a balance of threshold and performance attributes that are manageable, meaningful, and scalable.

Finally, we assess all possible excitement attributes, and carefully consider how to pilot and/or incorporate them into the learning experience -- weighing the benefits of that delightful student experience.

In order to plot out the relationship between satisfaction and functionality, the basis for gathering insight and data comes down to two simple questions in the Kano method:

• How do you feel about a specific feature?
• How do you feel if you do not have access to a specific feature?

These are not asked as open-ended questions, rather along a specific scale:

• I like it
• I expect it
• I am neutral
• I can tolerate it
• I dislike it

These responses are collated into evaluation tables that provide an easily to read visual narrative of learner preferences and satisfaction in relation to functionality. These tables clearly show where learner frustrations are popping up, which can lead to productive shifts in course design approaches in the early stages of course development.

And, as an added bonus, plotting these responses in the LX space enables us to explore different aspects of empathy with our learners.

We see the Kano method as an evolving part of our practice. We invite participants to explore this approach with us, and find ways to translate and incorporate this model into their practice.

As we review our LX design approach throughout this session, we will invite participants to reflect and collaborate on answers these questions:

• How might we use the Kano method to measure student satisfaction?
• How might we design our courses in order to best provide that satisfaction?
• How might we use the Kano method to go beyond satisfaction and into delight?