First up on the list of things to improve at the Khan Academy is the exercise interface. There are several goals for this part of the design effort:
- Surface the knowledge map — Sal believes, and I agree, that it is one of the best ways to show the progression between the subject areas
- Make it easier for people to progress through a series of exercises
- Prepare for multi-subject reviews, and comprehensive (summative) single-subject reviews
- Increase the fun factor for exercises
- Improve the usability of the knowledge map
The new concept is by no means complete, but has the bones needed to build in all of the improvements that we’re hunting. The homage to Google Maps is also no accident. Kamens is actually chasing the possibility of using the maps API to power the knowledge map. Using the API could be a real usability win since we get the ui controls, map nodes, and connections, not to mention all of the awesome cross-browser goodness.
Pretty exciting first two days.
