Competitive Analysis

✨ Exploring class planning platforms

I conducted a competitive analysis of 6 popular platforms that students use for reference information when planning classes. I aimed to gain a comprehensive understanding of the platforms' strengths, weaknesses, and potential gaps between their offerings and the needs of students by examining the features of these platforms.

🏹 Key insights:

• Although most platforms offer a substantial amount of course information, it is often disorganized and challenging to navigate.
• Few platforms provide both comprehensive course information and the ability for students to communicate with previous students.

User Research

✨ Peering into the student perspective

To better comprehend the needs and challenges faced by college students when planning their courses, we conducted a Google survey that included both closed-ended and open-ended questions.

85% of respondents have considered dropping a class after checking the syllabus.

73% of respondents expressed interest in having a Q&A feature on the platform.

🏹 Key insights:

• Students often struggle to find clear and comprehensive information about the courses they're interested in.
• To obtain information about their upcoming classes, students often have to navigate multiple platforms and sources.
• Providing more detailed and accessible information during the enrollment period could potentially help reduce the number of students dropping classes.

Prototypes

✨ Starting the prototyping journey

Based on the insights gathered from our experience testing, I led our group in creating low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes as part of our preparation for usability testing.

Usability Testings

✨ From feedback to iteration

"I enjoyed the question forums! It really helped build an online community and made it more comfortable to ask questions."

🏹 Key insights:

• New students find our platform helpful in selecting courses that are relevant to their career paths.
• Users enjoy the Q&A feature on our platform the most.
• Feedback from users suggested a need for a reward system to incentivize greater platform engagement, particularly among upperclassmen.
• Some suggestions for improvement included adding more information to individual profile pages and providing a more detailed class catalog.

🌈 Profile Improvements:

• Added more basic information for the users to make their profile more personalized.
• Redesigned the card’s buttons to make it easier for users to input and edit information.
• Added Linkedin links to profile.

🌈 Q & A Improvements:

• Added search feature, filter feature, and tags for posts in the Q & A forum.
• Using a distinct color to differentiate the icon of the current page in the navigation bar.

✨ Final Designs

Your Personalized Profile

The personalized profile page on our platform provides users with an individualized space to showcase their career goals, course history, and connect with other students.

Join the Discussion

The Q & A forum is a searchable platform with tagged posts for students to ask and answer questions related to courses and career paths.

Connecting and Collaborating

The chat screen allows users to communicate through public servers and direct messages, facilitating social and academic interactions among students.

✨ Reflection

How did the survey format impact the project's success?

The survey format played a crucial role in our project's success. It allowed us to collect valuable insights from users after each testing session, enabling us to identify the most useful features and prioritize necessary improvements effectively.

What exciting discovery did you make during this project?

This project helped me better understand the immense potential of creating online communities that connect students and offer valuable resources.

What's your next steps for this project?

Looking ahead, I'm thrilled about implementing a reward system. By doing so, we aim to encourage more frequent platform usage among upperclassmen and elevate their overall experience on the platform.