Dr Anthony 'Skip' Basiel – Blended Learning Solutions

Case Study Challenge 14/01/2026

I have been tasked with writing a 10-step lesson plan for the case study below. Please do review this challenge and let me know how you may solve it differently. – Yours, Anthony

TASK: The student has 10 hours of mentorship time left to meet their goals. Prepare a one-page plan showing:

1. What realistic goals you’d set for this student
2. How you’d structure your remaining 10 sessions to help them enhance their competition and achieve these goals

Your response should be practical, creative, and demonstrate your mentorship approach in this limited timeframe.

Scenario:
The student developed MindMesh, a Chrome extension to help neurodiverse students visually organize academic research. They built a clickable prototype in Figma and a basic code repository on GitHub, which they shared with 5 classmates for feedback. While the idea received positive interest, users found the interface confusing. The student has not launched a live version, has no onboarding experience, and lacks a clear user acquisition or feedback strategy.

The 10-session 0ne-page plan:
Session 1 -2: There are 2 ways to approach the next 10 sessions: a) Traditional – Tutor-set learning outcomes. This top-down approach is a content driven lecture style b) Learner-generated content model. This bottom-up approach sees you as the UX Research Consultant. I will outline Plan B.

Debrief: Discuss what has happened to-date. Through this brainstorming we can identify any issues and trends. We need to establish prior knowledge of the theories and software resources related to the case study. If a summative assessment was required we would use a pre/post-test approach.
Mind map: This can be done as a text table of contents design or a graphical flow chart to identify the human and technical materials / resources and system components required.
SMART Objectives: Through a guided discussion a small set of SMART aims and objectives are established. This serves as the criteria to measure success of the case study. Note: The Tutor can guide in the use of appropriate terms used in the objectives e.g.  Bloom’s Taxonomy and AACSB (Business) Learning Assurance.

Session 3 – 4: Project management: Introduction to www.projectmanagement.com . We establish a Gantt chart to identify the key milestones and develop the stages of the study. These sessions are linked to our User Experience strategy based on the work by Nielsen (https://www.nngroup.com/) . This helps us to identify our 5-part Sprint UX methodology.
Map current work: The existing work is mapped to the new UX strategy to identify the data that can be used and what gaps we have to do the next part of our sessions.

Session 5 -6: Persona work: The short case study description lacked a key stage in UX design. These sessions help the student to develop a better understanding of the user(s) profile. This includes a) research, design, development and evaluation of an online survey of possible stakeholders to establish user needs b) persona diagrams c) empathy maps d) user journey map

Session 7 – 8: Addressing the gaps: It was established from the pilot study that the prototype: ‘has no onboarding experience, and lacks a clear user acquisition or feedback strategy.’ These elements will be addressed in the Gantt chart over these sessions. Using AI tools, onboarding experience will be developed and evaluated. The UX testing of the previous prototype and related code will be developed through additional research to incorporate user-centred (UCD) and task-centred design (TCD) testing with the 5 classmates. Additional research respondents can be explored through online communities and forums with a focus on the neurodiverse sector.

Session 9 – 10: UX Testing and Conclusions: Based on the new UX testing strategy and the Sprint methodology the prototype is subjected to several UCD & TCD tests. This is matched to the original SMART objectives or agreed Learning Objectives. A short web video presentation to demonstrate the prototype and application of UX design can be posted on social media for feedback. Reflection on the experience: An oral debrief or essay can be a good way to unpack lessons learnt and what might be done differently next time.