School Involvement Design Challenge

Prompt

Design an experience for new students to browse, search, and propose new student organizations. Provide your overall process, a wireframe flow, and one to two screens at higher fidelity.

Role

UI/UX Design

Tools

Adobe XD

Understanding the Problem

New students coming into college are stepping into unfamiliar territory, and with this comes adjustments to many areas in a student’s life. Universities highly recommend that students join an organization on campus to get involved and find their “tribe”. Creating an experience that allows students to discover or suggest a new organization required me to know the whys for joining an organization and to identify what will make the process of finding one easier when there is such a wide variety.

Mission statement:

How might we get new students to join organizations on campus?

This will be achieved by:

1. Helping students easily find organizations that fit their needs and interest

2. Giving students easy access to create an organization they believe is missing

3. Sharing ways being involved on campus can benefit them

Research

• User research on 19 college students through surveys

• Competitors analysis on university websites that list organizations

Goal for Research

• Figure out what students goals are for joining an organization

• See how my competitors (universities) lay out their organization listing websites

• Get students’ opinions on current organization listing websites

• Learn what the impact of joining an organization has on the college experience

Insights

Through research, I identified the 3 main goals students wanted to achieve by joining an organization (listed from highest to lowest percentage)

1. Meet like minded people 78.9%

2. Build up resume 73.7%

3. Step outside their comfort zone / discover new interest 57.9%

In order to feel inclined to join an organization, students will need to be informed of the types of students joining these organizations, the ongoing discussions/workshops, and the opportunities they have access too once they’re a member.

94% of the students surveyed expressed that joining an organization has had a positive impact on their college experience. Making friends, gaining leadership opportunities and building skillsets were all part of the reason for their positive feelings towards joining an org.

Lastly, the survey results indicated that students weren’t too fond of the organization listing websites available to them. Outdated, unorganized, and “really long list” were among the words used to describe the common faults in those students’ university websites that list organizations.

Direct Quotes from users regarding the websites

Competitors Research

I looked at 5 university websites dedicated to listing organizations for students, and was able to observe many of the complaints mentioned from the students surveys. From the analysis of the 5 websites, I was able to pinpoint aspects I liked and didn’t like for when it was time for me to create my experience for the prompt.

What I Liked

• Campus events along with organizations

• Perks of joining the club

• Track involvement

Design Process

Conclusion

For this specific app experience, users will be able to find organizations that spark their interest without sifting through a long list. Obtaining valuable information upfront is the ultimate goal for the application.