Reach by Pieneer
UX Research- UX, UI Design- Prototype- Launched Oct 2023
Role: UX Designer Lead with 2 UX interns
Problem
Off-campus students rely on word-of-mouth for information on student organizations, given their limited time on campus, moving between specific locations like parking lots, classrooms, and the library. This restricted movement often results in missed opportunities to explore various campus areas during their four-year college tenure
Define the problem
On-campus students, residing within the campus, benefit from increased visibility to flyers, school activities, and events.
Introverted students, however, may find it challenging to sign up for student organizations in person. Often opting for digital communication, they send messages to join instead of participating in on-site sign-ups. Additionally, they tend to follow student organization pages for updates and selectively attend events.
What if.....?
This environment offers more opportunities for interaction, increasing the likelihood of engaging with other students and benefiting from word-of-mouth.
What if a digital solution is built to allow students communicate and join organizations instead of participating in on-site sign-ups? Additionally, having a method to follow student organization pages for updates and selectively attend events?
UX Research:
Time to see what has gone wrong about our students
I had some questions to ask about joining the club but too many students are around. I don't feel like doing it anymore
Not every students are active enough
to interact with others
I just want to join this club... maybe it is way too popular... I should give it up, shouldn't I?
Most students are too busy to be patience. They would move on to other clubs
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I already have too many things to handle after the 1st day of school semester. I don't want to be an admin of any clubs anymore!
Admin has to go through a bunch of requests at club fair. It's a matter of time admin leaves clubs for excessive work
Survey
We conducted student surveys in different forms, meaning each type of user receives a specific survey.
The user types were defined with the synthesized data, and we based them on their intention of attending events and organzations:
- Word of mouth. Their friends are going too
- Event itself is attractive
- Nature of those student organizations
Also, we conducted user interviews for qualitative data.
The top two, most frequently answered questions are:
Q: Do you want to see who's coming to the event?
A; I want to go with my friends and other students who are interested in same specific topics.
Q: Do you want to let other people know you are joining this organization? How do you share with others?
A: I would love to, but I feel weird to share that with everyone in person. I could share that with a few close friends, but I am shy to talk to people I am not to close with.
Personas and Journey Maps
Users were interviewed and data was synthesized for creating 3 personas and journey map in order to address their needs and concerns
Stakeholder's pain point
The Stakeholder's goal is to not only resolve student's issues and considerations, but also create business opportunities from attracting fellow students, organization leaders, and local vendors and businesses.
An app idea is stuck in the stakeholder's mind but it is difficult to visualize it on an artifact. As a UX Designer, what can I do to help him present it with a visualized user interface with rich functionalities, and seamless process for user to use?
Ideation
Prioritizing features
Many ideas are brought up but the levels of feasibility are varies. We need to come up with more prioritized features with limited resouces.
After prioritizing all possible ideas of features, we come up with 3 essential features, 1 potential feature in MVP and
2 in our bucket list due to the current resources, feasibility and stakeholder's expectation of key performance indicator
Wireframes
Initial wireframes are set for highlighting top 3 essential features:
1. Display all available organizations
2. Display all upcoming events
3. Functional navigation features for notifications
Lo-fi Design
Landing page
Organizations
Events
Mid-fi Design
It is a very exciting stage to start scratching the surface about how
we could visualize the ideas thru the user interface design.
The UIs contains features to let user easily access all available organizations and events.
Pen or paper is no longer needed!
Interaction
Our limited resources may limit our outside-the-box innovated design, but relying on iOS component is never a bad idea
How would our user search
for an organization? Going one by one down the list
could be potentially the worst idea ever......
BUT.....
How does user search for upcoming events?
How about the organizations user just joined?
No personalization?
Iteration
Searching for organization without going down a list is very important.
Therefore, we conducted another user survey about how user likes to get info of organizations. Survey result showed 75% of user would like to have options scanning a QR code at club windows for info.
By scanning QR code, it deeplinks and sends user to specific organization or event for more information,
INews and Updates is also implemented to showcase new updates and events
Updates section gives organizations to post any visualized news and content, and notifies students right away
Hi-fi prototype
I met with stakeholders and demo'ed the final prototype for feedback. After a few iterations, the Reach app is ready to code
Conclusion
Usability testing after launch
I performed the testing with engineers to ensure the consistency and stability. It went well and we planned to have the upcoming launch with a major feature adding to the app:
Chatbot feature was on the way
