UX DESIGN
DESKTOP
FREELANCE PROJECT
Encouraging student engagement through a social platform
OVERVIEW
I worked as an only designer for an initiative to create a platform to facilitate all the student activities happening online and on campus by a student community at my undergrad university.
Jul 2021 - Nov 2021
5 Months
One Designer (Me)
Two Developers
UX Researcher and Designer
UX research
UI design
DURATION
TEAM
ROLE
SKILLS
ABOUT THE CLIENT
During my undergrad, I collaborated with a student community to design and contribute to a platform for managing student activities.
PROBLEM
At present, DAIICT students employ multiple platforms for community activities, like Instagram and WhatsApp for connecting and posting club events, and LinkedIn for alumni interactions. Managing different tasks on various platforms proves cumbersome and results in missing out on a lot of information.
"How do we make it easier for all the students to find community information and updates?"
SOLUTION
Developing a platform to connect students and streamline community activities.
SOLUTION
RESULTS
A DAIICT Student Platform
The DAIICT student community platform consolidates up-to-date information on clubs and events, providing a space for students to communicate, share experiences, participate in events, and voice concerns through polls. In essence, it encapsulates everything one could aspire to achieve during their university years!
Home page
The home page includes stories, posts, upcoming events, suggestions and all the key navigations.
Navigation menu collapse
Like the post
Search for people
View comments
Check notifications
Academic Sources
This section acts as a library of academic sources. Students can contribute and access existing materials.
Contribute a resource
Different resources and their list view component
BOOK
LINK
SOFTWARE
VIDEO
Clubs
This section shows all the clubs, which then can be used to navigate to individual club pages.
Events
This section shows all events both previous and upcoming
Polling
This section shows all polls and lets everyone add new polls.
Profile page
Profile page shows all the necessary information of a student along with posts, contributed academic sources, and friends list.
Club Page
The club page shows all the necessary information about a club along with posts and events.
TARGET AUDIENCE
Target audience were anyone affiliated with the university
Various groups of individuals could potentially be our users, and their needs and preferences were taken into account during the platform's creation.
CURRENT STUDENTS
CLUBS
ALUMNI
RESEARCH
Tackling the problem through user surveys and competetive analysis
My goal is to formulate research questions that guide my design process at the beginning of each project. Utilizing user surveys and competitive analysis, I aim to gain a comprehensive understanding of the current landscape.
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By the end of the research, I wanted answers to the following questions:
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Which platforms do students employ to engage with their peers?
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What specific purposes do these platforms serve?
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What advantages are associated with using these platforms?
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What obstacles hinder seamless communication among students?
SURVEY OBSERVATIONS + COMPETETIVE ANALYSIS
Analysing apps and their usage along with pros and cons
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Students use Instagram to post campus activities
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Clubs use Instagram to post club events, reminders and announce winners.
PROS
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Provides features like stories and posts to reach out to audience for both students and clubs.
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Clubs can use stories to post event reminders every now and then.
CONS
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Does not provide a mechanism where people get reminded of upcoming events automatically.
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Event coordinators have no way of knowing how many people will attend the event.
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Current students and alumnis use Linkedin to find and connect with each other.
PROS
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Linkedin provides easy search and filter mechanisms to find the person you're looking for along with professional background and activites.
CONS
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There is no way of finding students or alumnis related to a particular batch.
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Clubs use WhatsApp to repeat the same activities such as sending events posters and reminders.
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Some additional activities such as polls are forwarded through Whatsapp.
PROS
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Easiest way to reach out to students as all of them use Whatsapp most of the time.
CONS
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Their is no way of setting event reminders, or getting information about all upcoming events at one place.
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Need to use Google form and analytics to execute polls and then forward them to WhatsApp.
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Clubs use Google forms and analytics to get participants for competitions. They also use Gmail to send event posters and reminders.
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Students use Google forms to create polls.
PROS
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Google form is the easiest way to create polls and get the necessary analytics.
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Gmail lets you send mails to the whole batch at once.
CONS
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Google forms does not allow everyone to see polls results.
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Once the poll ends, it's forgotten and no one accesses it again for reference.
FINAL RESEARCH INSIGHTS
Understanding common trends and pitfalls
Based on all the survey observations and competition analysis, I found 3 major insights about the problem space.
Clubs use multiple platforms to communicate and perform the same activities repetitively.
Students struggle to get event reminders and thus miss the events.
There is no particular way of sharing academic resources
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Most of the clubs use multiple platforms such as Instagram, Whatsapp and Gmail to send event posters, reminders and other activities.
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Any of the current platform does not allow to automatically send event reminders to students, and thus they miss the timeline.
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Clubs also don't get any information regarding RSVP.
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Many students seek academic resources from their peers and alumnis, but there is no particular platform that allows sharing at one place.
IDEATION
Turning research insights into design solution and creating information architecture
After analysing the research, I came up with possible information architecture which can accommodate all student and club activites.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
DESIGN SYSTEM
Design system including typography, buttons, text fields, colors, and iconography.
REFLECTION AND TAKEAWAYS
Successfully created a platform and learned about design systems
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The result was a platform that connects students and clubs and encourages the DAIICT student community to contribute and help each other in order to strengthen our student community.
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While working on the UI design part, I learned about how to create design systems and maintain consistency throughout the system.
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I also got experience with how to effectively communicate with developers and handover the designs.
