UX Case study - SAE Campus APP
Purpose: Design an app that helps the Audio engineering community
Deliverables: User research report. Persona. Task flows. Sketches. UI. Prototype, Concept Ideation Interaction Design, Visual Design, Prototyping
Role: UX Designer Duration: 6 Months
Overview
SAE Campus app was created for the industry and for Technicians, as a digital platform, designed to inspire, educate and promote the technology and practice of audio, by bringing leading people and ideas together.
Responsibilities
Conducting interviews, paper, and digital wire-framing, low and high wire-framing, Prototyping, conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, iterating on designs, determining information architecture, and responsive design
My Journey
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What is the problem and what can I do to solve it? My process and mind set going into the design phase
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Gather data that can properly support why the problem exists and what can be done to fix it. Examples: interviews data collection, pain point review, user complaints
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draw insight from collected data, collaborate with other teams and departments for assistance, obtain feedback.
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Exploration/ ideation, sketches, Wire frames, information Architecture, Low fidelity wireframes, Hi fidelity prototypes, style guide.
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Prototype testing, user feed back, post production enhancement, Quality assurance, ideation, reflection and new insight.
The Problem:
At the start of the pandemic universities and institutions were forced to act within months to move classes and services online and on to mobile devices. Now that the pandemic has ended, Students want more technology in their in-person classes and want the practice of leveraging digital resources to continue after the return to campus.
The Solution:
My solution is to create a Campus app for students and graduates to help them return to in-person teaching while retaining the lessons learned from remote learning. The Campus app will enrich the student experience and offer value beyond classroom curriculum helping to improve student satisfaction.
what does success look like?
Success to me can range from a Student acquiring an industry connection while using the app or having a meaningful video chat conversation with an advisor on advice about working and freelancing. but for now, I will just settle for the app being a safe space. To be on the safe side, here are my goals for success for the SAE Campus app:
The application is compliant with accessibility standards for differently-abled students
Campus app can help students succeed academically and socially
It offers an intuitive, delightful user experience
The user interface can provide students with new resources based on actions conducted within the app
The app allows students to connect easily with faculty and peers
The App helps students feel like they belong
The app can enable students to complete tasks and access resources easily and quickly
Students can discover clubs and register for events
Can provide relevant resources that are curated for each student
Understanding the user
Before starting the design process I needed some additional information. My primary focus was to figure out the different ways students and graduates learn and what challenges they may face. I decided it was best to conduct secondary research.
Throughout my time working as a Career readiness Director for SAE Institute of Technology, I have come into contact with a number of students and graduates who could serve as Interview candidates and survey takers. I decided to recruit 60 participants for my research study and split them into three groups each group holding 25 participants. I spoke with all participants to dig out any pain points, issues, and concerns they may already have regarding their education, resources, audio engineering experience, and availability of audio job opportunities.
What they want
You have tech and we need it now- students want more technology in their in-person classes and want the practice of leveraging digital resources to continue after they return to campus.
Student vs Institute - Students want more effort from institutions to create better student experiences and successes
Return on investment- Students believe that adding more technology will contribute to more payoffs in their audio Engineering future
We can’t turn back now - Mobile is here to stay as a primary channel of interaction between SAE institute and its students.
User survey Takeaways
My first step in solving the problem is to find the source, I moved into validating the problem through surveys, interviews, affinity mapping, and card sorting. I utilized one on one meetings, online Survey platforms, and my career readiness workshop to execute these.
In addition to the Survey, I completed 60 interviews with upcoming graduates, Past graduates, recent graduates, and current students. We discussed their career outcomes, goals, current educational goals and, and I got to dig deeper into my app design by bouncing ideas off them and receiving quality feedback.
I prefaced my survey with Audio Education based questions to help users better relate to the material. I did this because I published my survey to the current students who are halfway through their audio education program. The survey results revealed that many students had a basic knowledge of Audio Engineering, a strong interest in pursuing a career in Audio, and an even greater interest in acquiring industry-standard skills that would provide them with enough confidence to seek out competitive employment.
The results of the question “Would a campus app improve your Program Experience?” shows me that there are wants and needs that aren’t being met. The low-level quality of access to resources, assistance, and information has thus proven that there is a major gap between students and the institute.
The following framework will dictate how SAE campus app can segment the different aspects of student experience
Potential Experience Framwork
Academic Services
Ease of use and usability
Variety of class and student representation
Quality of Representation
Social context
social aspects
virtual comfort
Future employability
Learning opportunities
Cost
User Attributes
Emotional Disposition
Student Wellness
Student Engagement
financial outlook
Students do not feel taken seriously
Students often do not get enough one-on-one time with instructors and feel that they are unable to present their ideas to others.
Low external connections within Audio Engineering
Students that were interviewed described not having a supportive network of individuals that were committed to Audio engineering They repeatedly wished there were more opportunities to connect with the audio engineering society outside of school.
Bad infrastructure
Students and graduates would like to use more technology for educational purposes, but their school infrastructure is inadequate and there is a lack of easy-to-learn and helpful material available for the student body. There are also regular room changes, unreliable technology, and Internet connectivity, too few devices, hardly any maintenance of the technology, incompatibilities between programs and devices
Insights from User Interviews
Through on-demand availability, self-organization regarding time, place, and topic becomes possible. The pure transfer of knowledge (know-how) takes place digitally, which gives instructors more time to offer individual advice and orientation.
Group work is not liked, but this is mainly due to the lack of motivation of individuals within the groups and different types of learning. Because individual performance is still often valued, it is all about fighters - slower learners stay behind while faster learners feel abandoned.
Push for Self-organized learning is high among graduates
Students are reluctant to work in groups
Generation difference in the use of digital tools
A large difference in the perception of students and instructors on how often digital devices are used for educational purposes. Students say the use of digital devices at their school would be a great help with their current education, while instructors feel they use them less frequently to make their lessons.
CARD SORTS & AFFINITY MAPPING
With these results, I proceeded to do card sorts and affinity mapping. This part is always fun for me, as it really helps me step into my user’s shoes, allow peoples’ unique to quotes jump off the page at me, and get creative.
Persona’s
Personas were developed after data synthesis from over 60 user interviews. It is important to note, that these personas do not represent the whole population’s experience, simply those i’ve talked to within the project’s scope which may lean towards a more corporative group of individuals that were willing to discuss their current problems and concerns.
Journey Map
I made 2 journey maps in total to document the various stages of the experience within each target representation.
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Creating the personas allowed me to better understand whom I was designing the product for. Some requirements of seemingly similar students can be quite different. I created two personas based on earlier research by identifying their problems and needs to design the best possible used experience
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The journey map is a representation of the actions a user will most likely take to achieve a specific Goal. The map below focuses on what feelings accompany each user and what improvements can be made to improve the user’s experience
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Within each phase, the user will complete a designated action which will produce outcomes from that action. once a phase is completed the next phases describes the most predicted action and outcome until their initial need/ want is satisfied .
EXPLORATION & IDEATION: IA & WIREFRAMES
Initially, I explored the many different ways a user might interact with the Campus App. For many of the modalities, like Class information and campus activity calendar, thorough campus information data would need to be displayed in a user-friendly way. I also wanted the app to have a “My Hours option so that the user can check their makeup hour profile at any time during their schedule, as something like current hours completed or missed can be easily forgotten
Being able to search, explore, and connect with a Career advisor and tutors was a highlight feature of the campus APP, so I knew that I needed the scheduling process to be particularly intuitive. With these main features at the forefront of my mind, I got to sketching and began my design process.
Information Architecture
Based on the opportunity areas I summarized, I defined the Campus app product structure. Users will have access to base services and connections to educational resources.
Sketches
I began the design process with low-fidelity sketches to accelerate decision-making through visualization without losing time. My sketches were based on the initial user interviews, pain points, the user goals. We came back to the sketches throughout the entire design process to make sure that we don’t lose sight of our primary goals and ideas.
The main purpose of the sketches was centered around brainstorming possible features and options
Sketches were formed by interviews, persona's pain points
As soon as I was able to get my ideas on paper, the designs. started to make more sense
WireFrames & Initial Insight
Once my sketches and flow diagram were established, I started to begin the low-fidelity design process. All of my initial features and pages were derived from user pain points and underlining concerns that have been consistent within each graduating cohort.
Style Guide
Take a minute to write an introduction that is short, sweet, and to the point. If you sell something, use this space to describe it in detail and tell us why we should make a purchase. Tap into your creativity. You’ve got this.
Final Design
Final Design
Prototype Testing
After the prototype was created, i tested it on 4 users. Each user represented a Class module Ranging from Module 1 to Module 4. I created a research plan that outlined specific goals and questions, information about each student, and a script with tasks to complete. My main objective was to make sure the exploration aspect of the app was seamless. I needed to make sure that students could easily move through the application with minimal concerns and mistakes. The test was administered with the use of the Figma mirror application.
User task:
Complete the SAE campus app registrations
Create an appointment reservation with a career services advisor
Check your makeup hours on the academic page
Results:
75 % of the users were able to complete the campus app registration.
100 % of the users were able to book a reservation with a Career Services advisor.
100% of the users were able to check their individual make-up hours and total hours.
“I like the concept of the whole app, it would be really helpful to students who feel like they have no additional support or resources. ”
Module 1 Student (Class of 2024)
“This could help a lot of students and graduates who need additional help during the school semester. Certain societal pressures keep a lot of students from speaking up in public to ask questions that can assist their educational struggles”
Module 2 Student (Class of 2023)
“Looks like a great start to a campus app for SAE. I would like to see more interaction options on the career services page. A lot of students need additional assistance with finding employment during the semester and after graduation. Something like an internship pathway page or maybe a portal within the campus app”
Graduate Student (Class of 2021)
User FeedBack
For many students and prospects entering the new SAE campus, the mobile and soon-to-come desktop experience will be their first experience of the institution. I will strive to advance features of the campus app so that their first impression will be on par with the digital experiences provided by other service providers that incoming students interact with, such as banks, social media platforms, or even coffee shops.
“ Campus App” Future
“Big challenges require small steps”
I’ve learned to take small steps, because big changes can not be brought overnight, especially not just by creating an application alone. Accordingly, develop more strategically meaningful and realistically applicable tools that steer in the intended direction.
“Be open to research and let ideas go”
As always I overthink and I approached the product with too concrete ideas about the result, thus failing to correctly take into account some needs and challenges of the target group. I have to access my design flow and drive the designs from research and development.
“Journey Maps are my new best friend”
Especially as it gets more complex, Journey mapping is very helpful, on the one hand, to put a comprehensive process on paper and to uncover problematic and promising points, on the other hand, to provide a basis for good cooperation for all stakeholders.