Academic Advising Project
Overview
Summary
User Testing
User Personas
Proposed Solution
Future Steps
What I’ve Learned
Summary
Project Goals
Our main goals for this project are as follows:
Understand students’ struggles and pain points when currently navigating physical and digital resources at Laurier.
Complete user personas and journey maps based on user research.
Propose a solution idea that is both digital and physical, and will allow for ease of navigation for students.
Methods and Results
This project is currently in progress, with prototyping and testing still to be done.
So far we have managed to successfully complete our user interviews, and used this data to propose an idea. This was received well, with a note to focus in on the solution a little more to better match our scope.
We accomplished this through the use of:
Various meetings with our client
In person interviews for user testing
User personas and journey maps
User Testing
Interviews
In order to understand our user’s needs we decided that speaking to them in person would be our best option.
We resided in a campus space and asked various students to participate in our semi-structured interviews.
We began with our initial question, which was open ended and asked them to explain their experience finding resources on campus.
Based on their answers we followed up with several other questions as well.
User Personas and Journey Maps
The user personas we created consisted of 4 user types:
The introvert
The extrovert
The tech savvy Introvert
The non tech savvy extrovert
The purpose of these were to showcase different groupings of user types that was found in the interview data.
Every persona has different needs, wants, and problems that need to be addressed.
For each persona, we created a user journey map. This is the one created for the extrovert.
This shows a student’s thoughts when they are searching for information at the Academic Advising centre. This shows where each persona seems to run into problems, and at which points they get frustrated.
Proposed Solution
On Campus Signage
More signs on campus will help to improve understanding.
Will be especially helpful for first year students who haven’t learned the campus.
Signs which state campus buildings and their course code, so that students understand their class schedule locations.
Kiosks and mobile application
In the Academic Advisory space on campus, we wish to implement a kiosk system in which they can look up information.
This could show where classrooms are, and where certain resources are on campus.
It would be ideal to also link this concept to a mobile application where students can access anywhere.
Interactive Maps
The main focus for both the kiosk and application would be providing an interactive map which can guide students around campus.
Having a physical kiosk map could be helpful when passing by if a student is confused.
Having an application which links to this kiosk system would allow the student to continue to follow the navigation instructions.
Future Steps
This project is still currently in progress. Our solution phase is still in its beginning stage, so these are the steps we will be continuing with in order to finalize this project.
1
Refine our proposed solution into a low fidelity wireframe and outline.
2
Move from low fidelity to high fidelity prototyping and perform usability tests.
3
Modify our final design according to usability tests, and eventually reach our end design which we will present to our peers.
What I’ve Learned
Overall, I feel that I have continued to learn more about the user experience process as a whole throughout this project. Within this we have combined project management planning, user centred thinking, client relations, and convergent and divergent thinking.
Within this project I am putting together the various types of knowledge I have gained throughout my years in school, in order to create an effective solution with my team. We have had to learn how to work cooperatively and efficiently in order to ensure both client and user needs are being met in a timely manner.
I think it has be beneficial to again practice gathering data, sorting it and then using it to brainstorm solution ideas with my team, until eventually coming to a solid idea possibility.