Web/Mobile App Critique: Codecademy

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    I decided to write a review on Codecademy’ s web application. For those who may not know, Codecademy is an online platform that gives just about anyone the ability to learn different skills they'll need to succeed to become either a software developer or even a data scientist.

    The creators of Codecademy made the application really easy to use. More specifically on the curriculum developers, they focused on the user goal with providing really good technical writing and good interaction design to make it easier for users to learn different types of skills as well as making it very engaging when going through these courses. Not only is the application very easy to use but Codecademy allows user to add any feedback when it comes to any bugs that we may see or any errors that we may see in the courses they allow us to be able to provide that feedback to make it even more effective for users. In my opinion, Codecademy’s web application follows all seven key principles of universal design as the creators focuses on making it simple for the users (Stevens et al., 2021). The web application includes numerous of resources that are easy to understand to be able to gain the skills that are needed for a particular career of the user interest. The web application design is useful and marketable to people with diverse abilities as Codecademy focuses on people who are just learning how to code but they made it more diverse because they also focus on people who have more experience in coding that are looking to reskill and for those who would like to become a data scientist. It is not just for the beginners; it is for any stage of their career. As for the site functionality, Codecademy’s web application is easy to navigate and it's well organized. Throughout the web application, it does not have any spelling errors and the website is free of broken links.  

    My first recommendation for improving the Codecademy's web application is to give the students the ability to elaborate on what they want to complete for the week in the goals section rather than having the students choose how many days they plan to work on the career paths every week. As a student myself, I would prefer to be able to pick one of the sections that I'm currently working on and make it a goal for me to complete it for the week. Another recommendation for improvement would be to allow students to be able to work on two different projects after reading a lesson that focuses on giving students a step-by-step guidance on how to complete the project and the other project will allow the student to think-out-the-box to guide ourselves on how we can solve the problems in the project with the resources only provided by Codecademy to help give us that push to complete the project. The think-out-the box could also provide a solution on how a developer at Codecademy would have completed the project so the students can do some comparison. Lastly, it is recommended that after a student completes a section within a career path then Codecademy can send kudo alerts congratulating the student for completing a lesson as it will give the student a little more motivation to keep on going through the courses.


References

Stevens, E., Emily Stevens Managing Editor at CareerFoundryOriginally from England, Emily Stevens Managing Editor at CareerFoundry, Stevens, E., CareerFoundry, M. E. at, & England, O. from. (2021, December 13). What is ux design? [fully updated guide for 2022]. CareerFoundry. Retrieved January 5, 2022, from https://careerfoundry.com/en/blog/ux-design/what-is-user-experience-ux-design-everything-you-need-to-know-to-get-started/#the-value-of-ux-designs

Quesenbery , W. (n.d.). What Does Usability Mean: Looking Beyond 'Ease of Use' . What does usability mean: Looking beyond 'ease of use' - Whitney Interactive Design. Retrieved January 6, 2022, from http://www.wqusability.com/articles/more-than-ease-of-use.html

About Codecademy. Codecademy. (n.d.). Retrieved January 6, 2022, from https://www.codecademy.com/about

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