Overview
As a part of my Master's program at DePaul University, I took a Social Interaction Design class where I designed a Social Community Platform for new DePaul students and conducted research and survey study and based on the results developed user personas, user flows, and the final app designs.
Time
10 weeks (Fall 2021)
Role
UX Designer
Methods & Tools
User Research Methods
Competitive Review, Survey, User Personas, First, Click Testing
Design Tools
Pen & paper, Figma, Qualtrics
Practices
Design Thinking, Product Design, Interaction Design, Visual Design
Challenge
Design a social networking platform for new DePaul University students
I was tasked to define an idea that will be worked on throughout the 10-week course. When I began brainstorming for my project idea, I researched what existing apps or resources are there for new DePaul students. Upon exploring, I found that there is no single app that allows the new students to connect with their senior peers and stay connected with the community except for creating a Facebook or personal group. Therefore, based on that I decided to design an app named "DeQuad" that connects DePaul University’s students and enhances the process for new students (Freshmen, New Graduate, or Transfer students) to adjust to campus life and student ambassador/leaders to share their college experiences. The app also allows students to explore events and see campus maps.
The name “ DeQuad,” is inspired by the classic grassy space between buildings amid DePaul University's Lincoln Park campus called “The Quad!”
The name “ DeQuad,” is inspired by the classic grassy space between buildings amid DePaul University's Lincoln Park campus called “The Quad!”
Existing Services Research
I begin by conducting general research on the existing services provided by DePaul for students and see what it’s lacking.
DeHub
DePaul University offers DeHub App that allows students to post about different events happening around campus, join clubs and see calendar events. The DeHub App does not offer the functionality to students to post questions or share college experiences, but it does allow students to email students and make comments on a new event post.
iDePaul
DePaul University also has a DePaul app for both new and current students that is available for iOS and Android and gives access to campus maps, university news, the library, the DePaul directory, and campus events. However, it does not offer the functionality for students to post questions or share college experiences.
Social Media Groups
DePaul also creates Facebook groups for all classes, where the new students can ask for help. However, students who have different graduation years cannot join these groups. Also, when I explored these groups, I found many questions were unanswered and most of the posts were unrelated to campus or academics (memes).
Survey
After researching existing services, I created a survey to understand the student experience at DePaul and divided it based on my two primary users: new grad students and student ambassadors/leaders at DePaul.
Based on the survey responses, I extracted the following key insights:
• Having a separate platform at DePaul where students can get more in contact with student ambassadors/leaders.
• A better way to gain insights on career opportunities from fellow students.
• Have an option to attend in-person events remotely to stay in the loop.
• Having a group where students can get information about resources all at once.
• Additional way to ask and answer commonly asked questions then only email.
Participants’ Demographics
• A total of 12 people responded to the survey.
• 7 out of 12 participants were new students.
• 5 out of 12 participants were student ambassadors/leaders.
• 10 out of 12 participants were female.
• 2 out of 12 participants were male.
• 7 out of 12 participants were Human-Computer Interaction majors.
• 3 out of 12 participants were Computer Science majors.
• 2 out of 12 participants were Experience Design majors.
Statistics
• 2 out of 7 new student participants found it very easy to reach out to student ambassadors to ask for help
• 1 out of 5 student ambassador/leader participants found it very easy to connect with new students when they ask for advice
Primary User & Personas
Based on the research, I identified my primary users and created user personas. For the sake of this assignment and looking at the timeframe, I am going to focus only on New Graduate Students and Student Ambassadors/Leaders at DePaul as my primary users. However, I will make sure that my designs work for any student at DePaul who want to ask questions and share their experiences with the community.
Persona – New Graduate Student
Persona – Student Ambassador/Leader
Design Goals
After looking at existing solutions and gathering insights from the survey, I understood that there is a need for an app that connects new students and student ambassadors/leaders for a better campus experience. Also, the identified themes from the responses enabled me to keep the following design goals in mind when improving my prototypes
• Make it easy for new students to get answers about their major courses, internships, and career paths, navigate around campus, and campus events.
• Create a stronger sense of belonging in DePaul’s community for new graduate students.
• Enable student ambassadors/leaders to share answers to common questions.
Lo-Fi Prototype First Iteration
Based on the personas and my initial idea, I sketched out my Lo-Fi prototypes and performed two iterations on them. After the second iteration, I decided on five key interactions of my app.
• The first interaction is asking a question or sharing the experience.
• The second interaction is liking a post or making a comment.
• The third interaction is to follow peers who have the same hobbies, majors, or interests and who are also in the same clubs as the user.
• The fourth key interaction is to be able to message a peer.
• The fifth interaction is to see the career resources on the app and find more information related to internships.
All these interactions facilitate my idea for new students and student ambassadors/leaders to have a sense of belonging within DePaul’s community.
Mid-Fi Prototype
I converted my lo-fi prototypes to mid-fi and added some color and then performed first-click testing on the important features of the tasks.
First-Click Testing
For my first-click testing, I recruited the participants via the participation pool and personal connections.
Participants’ Demographics
• A total of 19 people completed first-click testing.
• 11 out of 19 participants were new students.
• 1 out of 19 participants were student ambassadors/leaders.
• 17 out of 19 participants were female.
• 3 out 19 participants were male.
Participants performed five key tasks and following are there results.
Task 1
You are a new Graduate Student at DePaul and want to ask your peers how to navigate course selection for your major. Where would you go to pose your question to the DePaul community?
Task 2:
You are interested in connecting with other students, where do you go to connect with other students at DePaul?
Task 3
You want to send a question to your peer, how would you go about it?
Task 4
You want to find out about upcoming events that are happening remotely and on-campus, where would you go to find out about them?
Task 5
Now imagine you are a student ambassador and want to answer your peer's question, how would you help your peers?
From first-click testing, I found that most participants had issues completing Task 1 and Task 5. So, keeping that in mind, I strived to improve my interface for better recognition and make it clear for users how they can post a question or help their peers. I focused on improving labels on my question and looked into further how to expand on filtering options.
Hi-Fi Prototypes
After completing first-click testing and gathering results, I created my Hi-Fi prototypes. I made the following changes to my prototype
• For filter options, instead of having a dropdown, I now have options laid out at the top to make sure they are readily available to the user.
• I also made the labels more prominent as this was something that the user in first-click testing found difficult.
• “Ask a Question” feature on the homepage allows students to post questions about different topics related to campus life. They can also add tags for easy filtering and post it anonymously.
• “Comment Icon” on post allows students to answer the question and once it is answered, it will be labeled as “Answered.”
• Student Profile to allow students to edit it, see the posts they have made, questions and answers they have posted, and which posts they liked.
• Change the menu option from “Peer” to “Community” on the navigation menu and this is where students can see a list of students at DePaul, View their Profile, and Follow and/or Message them.
Project Reflection
Challenge
The main challenge for me was to properly allocate my time to different phases of the design process. I made sure that I spent the same amount of time on each step. Managing my time well for a project like this is a valuable experience that I gained.
Future Direction
While I was able to test a few people, I believe more user tests can uncover different problems in the design and can further lead to a more inclusive design