UX Design
University of Tampere; introduction in Finnish & in English

This was a pioneering project in Finland to implement the first large scale electronic exam system, using video surveillance and predefined question banks. Recommendations available on LinkedIn profile.

My role was to design and usability test a reservation and electronic exam delivery service UX that was based on Moodle. The system was later taken into use in Universities of Eastern Finland, Lapland, Turku, as well as by various Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences (i.e. polytechnics).

Particular focus was placed on supporting user memory during the process: reminder emails; guiding features throughout the process from finding the right exam to book, to receiving exam results by mail.

The entire UX was lauded by students as making taking exams easy and fluid. It continues to be in expanding use, reducing teacher workload significantly compared to traditional solutions.

The multifaculty and multidisciplinary working group needed to create the entire workflow and both electronic and real world user experience. We worked in a multidisciplinary team combining skill from multiple university faculties.

With no predecessor for such a UX, we had to solve questions such as:

  • Can students bring food or jackets into the classroom?
  • How often to the surveillance tapes have to be checked for cheating? How do we process reports of potential teacher suspicions?
  • How do we combine various historical exam practices into a single cohesive UI?
  • What freedoms do teachers have in defining their exam parameters?
  • How do we prevent students forgetting to arrive at exam, wasting classroom resources? (Answer: email reminders.)
  • What if the student forgets which computer they have reserved? (Answer, allow students to login on any computer and tell them the number of the right one they’re supposed to use.)

I also came up with the shorthand name “tenttis” in the URL (e.g. tenttis.uta.fi), explanation in Finnish follows: 

Tenttis on sanaleikki sähköisestä tentistä, s-tentti, ja murteellisesta ehdollisesta ilmaisusta: “Jos sitä vaikka menis ja tenttis”. Tenttistä suunnitellut työryhmä piti tästä monimerkityksellisyydestä joten lempinimi jäi mm. nettiosoitteeseen ja puhekieleen.

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