Product Designer
Fall 2018
Mobile Application
Sketch,Principle
A student organization can be a great way to get involved and make new friends. They often offer leadership opportunities, learning experiences, and environments to network with professionals. Each college has its own selection of organizations which are operated by current students or alumni. Their activities may be based on the major fields of study at the institution, while many organizations focus on particular interests of students.
How to find the right student organization quickly and accurately is a challenge for every new student. New students have limited information, if any, on the student organizations when they first receive their admission letters. The choice in student organizations is related to the new student's experience of college life. They could waste lots of time and energy if they choose the student organization they don't like.
Design Question
How to find the right student organization quickly and accurately for new student?
First thing’s first, I thought a face-to-face interview would bring me closer to my user, so I prepared some questions for my user. I am curious what methods they are currently using to look for a student organization. As a designer, being a good listener is an essential skill that we should have. I went to the venue, ate lunch with them, and listened their thoughts on looking for a student organization. I summarized the advantages and disadvantages of different ways to find a student organization through the interviews with new students. This helped me collect and curate my plan for searching out student organizations.
Quotes directly from new students about their involve experiences when exploring student organization.
As a new student, which channels do you search first for the student organization?
Internet Search - The Internet has become indispensable for finding the information we want to know. Google searches, social networks, question-and-answer posts are all helpful tools in the “online” world. The convenience of the Internet greatly facilitates our life.
Advantage/Pros:
Disadvantage/Cons:
Student Organization Handbook - The Student Organization Handbook contains official college policies and procedures covering the use of campus facilities and services, rights and responsibilities of student organizations, and University recognition of student organizations.
Advantage/Pros:
Disadvantage/Cons:
Student Involvement Fair - The Involvement Fairs, at the beginning of semesters, provides venues for students to discover all the opportunities that are readily available. Student organizations, and select departments, are prepared to meet and greet students to share their positive experiences about being involved.
Advantage/Pros:
Disadvantage/Cons:
By research and summarizing visitors' various problems, it became obvious that visitors have/had expectations before arriving at the zoo that do not pan out. The journey had been for nothing in their minds.
Next, I will focus on a major customer group of mothers. To see what other design opportunities can be found, I chose a young mother who had just taken her child to the zoo.
Next, I continued on to the overall Orientation Stories; from a new student perspective. These stories are used for understanding and addressing new student needs, pain points, difficulties, and design opportunities. The different phases within these journeys will help me paint a comprehensive view of the entire customer lifecycle.
Mapping the basic flow helps me to organize the user story step by step. Listing the features user need and ask myself why they need, and then create this user flowchart.
One student walked through my sketches before I moved on to next step. He found the Interests Pick page is not clear because he cannot randomly pick from a lot of keywords. He wants to explore more classified interests that he can pick. I have to say, this is the best gift I received from this test. I redesigned the Interests Preference page with the classified interests suggestion and got my user's approval.
This visual process helps me arrange the interface elements and allows me quickly test my user flow before diving into the details.
It’s best to start researching student organizations at a school before actually arriving as a new student. A new student can measure themselves in all aspects by knowing about the club in advance. As the Chinese strategist, Sun Tzu, said, "Know yourself and know your enemy, you will never be defeated." In other words, only enough understanding of yourself and the student organization can help make the most correct choice, so there are some important solution-directions I will use in my app:
As a first time user, they can simply register with their school and student ID, and the app will help users lock in all the student organizations at their school. In this way, the app can help users collect and classify the school’s organizations accurately right away.
More detailed classifications with suggestions make it easier to find user’s own interests and potential. Collecting user’s preferences in different categories makes it more convenient to recommend different types of student organization based on an Accuracy Interests setting.
Adding the member list on every single student organization page not only shows how popular this organization is but also enables the new student to easily find friends and communicate with them.
Student organizations are formed by students. Meeting every student’s needs is the essential goal of the app. Users have various requirements with evermore new things. It is best to create a new one when the existing organization cannot meet a user’s exact specifications.
Designing an app in short time is a challenging task. From the initial research to the final page design, every step could not be done without the user. User Centered Design greatly helped me summarize and understand the user’s needs and perceived difficulties. I understood that the product would need to be a custom fit to the user. Finally, I created a "by students, for students" app from user experience perspective.
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