Kayce Shin

Work

About

NewVrse

Facilitating easy access for students to discover and join both clubs and events.

PROCESS HIGHLIGHTS

Design challenge and overview of responsibilities

Challenge

At the New School, student engagement in activities, clubs, and events is low due to ineffective communication. Information is scattered across multiple platforms, with static user experiences making it difficult for students to quickly and easily discover relevant information. As a result, students often find out about events after they have already occurred, missing valuable opportunities to meet other students, overall leading to a disconnected community.

My Proposal

I proposed a centralized platform that streamlines communication between students and event hosts and enhances the user experience, ensuring timely and efficient access to school news, events, and club activities for all students.

Responsibilities

User Research

Design Thinking

Wireframing

Prototyping

User Testing

Deliverables

User Personas

User Flows

Competitive Audit

Wireframes

High-Fidelity Prototype

Tools

Figma

Overview of Case Study

1

1

Empathize

Empathize

2

2

Define

Define

3

3

Ideation


Ideation


4

Final Design

5

5

Reflection

Reflection

  1. EMPATHIZE

Conducting User Research

In this first stage of my design process, I empathized with my targeted users so that I could identify and understand the problems and pain points that they were experiencing.

RESEARCH

User Interviews

I conducted primary research through user interviews with my peers. I chose interviewing as my main method of research because I felt that I could receive the most honest and in depth information from my peers if it felt like an open conversation to them. By asking specific questions, I was able to get to know my users more and gain insight to their pain points, their journey, and what they desired.

I conducted primary research through user interviews with my peers. I chose interviewing as my main method of research because I felt that I could receive the most honest and in depth information from my peers if it felt like an open conversation to them. By asking specific questions, I was able to get to know my users more and gain insight to their pain points, their journey, and what they desired.

I ideated questions about community, involvement, and any suggestions for improvement to interview fellow Parsons students that would prompt conversations about each individual's experience and opinions.

Community

  • How would you describe your overall experience and involvement with student activities at the New School?

  • What are your thoughts and feelings on the sense of community here?

  • Would you like to be more involved than you are now? In what way?

Becoming Involved

  • Can you describe your process of discovering information about student clubs, activities, or events?

  • What platforms or methods that currently exist

  • do you use?

  • Tell me about a time where you missed an event you were interested in due to a lack of information.

Suggested Improvements

  • What type of communication methods do you prefer to receive updates on about school activities?

  • What changes or improvements would make it easier for you to discover and get involved in student activities?

RESEARCH

Affinity Mapping

After my interviews, I created an empathy map to visualize the student experience through thoughts, actions, and feelings.

After my interviews, I created an empathy map to visualize the student experience through thoughts, actions, and feelings.

I was then able to identify affinities from the different interviews that I could use to define a specific problem to target.

I was then able to identify affinities from the different interviews that I could use to define a specific problem to target.

RESEARCH

User Personas

Post my discussions, I utilized my empathy map for the creation of a couple user personas that represented my app's target demographic. This visualization allowed me to maintain users at the center in my design process, highlighting the key primary research takeaways and quotes I obtained from my interviews.

RESEARCH

Competitive Audit

My next step in my research process was to analyze all of the existing platforms that students used to discover school news, events, clubs, and meet other students.

My next step in my research process was to analyze all of the existing platforms that students used to discover school news, events, clubs, and meet other students.

By examining previous cases, I aimed to identify the strengths of current services that were most used, in addition to areas that required enhancement. My objective was to determine how to combine the strengths that the precedents already possessed, while integrating my own improvements.

By examining previous cases, I aimed to identify the strengths of current services that were most used, in addition to areas that required enhancement. My objective was to determine how to combine the strengths that the precedents already possessed, while integrating my own improvements.

  1. New School Student Life

New School Student Life

Instagram Profile

Primarily used by students when wanting to find events

or socials outside of school activities and clubs.

Pros

  • Accessible and up to date

  • Covers most of student life organizations

  • Ability to have enable notifications for posts

  • Includes personal profiles (Instagram feature)

Pros

  • Accessible and up to date

  • Covers most of student life organizations

  • Ability to have enable notifications for posts

  • Includes personal profiles (Instagram feature)

Cons

  • No resources to get connected with clubs and club members

  • Not reliable for most clubs - clubs have to contact the page in order to get an announcement out to their followers

Cons

  • No resources to get connected with clubs and club members

  • Not reliable for most clubs - clubs have to contact the page in order to get an announcement out to their followers

  1. New School Newsletter

New School Newsletter

Weekly Email

Primarily used by students when wanting to find events

or socials outside of school activities and clubs.

Primarily used by students when wanting to find events

or socials outside of school activities and clubs.

Pros

  • Weekly and up to date

  • Includes links with more info, links to RSVP

  • Reliable

Pros

  • Weekly and up to date

  • Includes links with more info, links to RSVP

  • Reliable

Cons

  • Requires students to subscribe

  • Few people actually read the Newsletter

  • Static and limited UI

  • No personalization

Cons

  • Requires students to subscribe

  • Few people actually read the Newsletter

  • Static and limited UI

  • No personalization

  1. Narwhal Nation

Narwhal Nation

Website

Primarily used by students when wanting to find events

or socials outside of school activities and clubs.

Primarily used by students when wanting to find events

or socials outside of school activities and clubs.

Pros

  • Website is run by the school

  • Filtered search option

  • Calendar display

  • Informative of club, upcoming events, and club members and leaders

Pros

  • Website is run by the school

  • Filtered search option

  • Calendar display

  • Informative of club, upcoming events, and club members and leaders

Cons

  • Not easily accessible

  • Static and boring UI

  • Lack of personalization

Cons

  • Not easily accessible

  • Static and boring UI

  • Lack of personalization

  1. Eventbrite

Narwhal Nation

Mobile App and Website

Primarily used by students when wanting to find events

or socials outside of school activities and clubs.

Primarily used by students when wanting to find events

or socials outside of school activities and clubs.

Pros

  • Accessible and up to date

  • Wide variety of events,

filtered search, notifications

  • Appealing UI Design

Pros

  • Accessible and up to date

  • Wide variety of events,

filtered search, notifications

  • Appealing UI Design

Cons

  • Not specific to the New School

Cons

  • Not specific to the New School

RESEARCH

Competitive Audit Takeaways

I decided to incorporate the best aspects of each platform into my app, while striving to minimize pain points such as accessibility, convenience, and aesthetic. The objective was to create a distinct, aesthetically pleasing interface that included features like filtered search, user profiles, user interactions, event sign-up, and had an smooth user experience.

  1. DEFINE

Identifying a Problem

In this stage of my design process, I synthesized my research findings in order to highlight key insights and an opportunity space. After evaluating my discoveries, I was able to identify a specific problem that students experienced that I could design a solution for.

DEFINE

Insights

  • Theme 1: Too Many Options - Some students feel that the school lacks school events and opportunities for other students to meet each other because the events that do exist are poorly advertised

  • Theme 2: Unappealing user interface - Students are not up-to-date on school activities/events because they do not use the existing school platforms due to the unappealing difficulty of navigation

  • Theme 3: Lack of personalized experience and ability to connect with others and clubs directly

DEFINE

How Might We…

From the research insights, I ideated a core 'How Might We' statement that geared toward my central problem statement. This helped me to reframe my insights into areas of opportunity that tackled a specific design challenge.

How might we centralize reliable, accessible, information and present it in an exciting, aesthetically-pleasing way for students to obtain about school happenings so that we can increase student engagement with school organizations, and with each other?

  1. IDEATE

Developing a Solution

In this stage of my design process, I ideated a solution to the problem in the form of an app. In the development process, I ideated user flows, wireframes, a visual identity, low-fidelity prototypes, and high-fidelity prototypes, all while testing with users and reiterating based on feedback.

IDEATE

Creating User Flows

A user flow displays the complete path a user takes when using the product. It lays out the user's movement through the product, mapping out each step that the user takes from entry point to the completion of each task.

Using FigJam, I created two user flows that represented the two main tasks that I wanted the app to service:

  • Helping students to discover events and connect with clubs

  • Helping students easily discover and connect with other students who share similar interests, majors, or dorms

IDEATE

Creating a Sitemap

In order to design an app that achieves the tasks of my target users, I studied my user flows to create a sitemap of the information architecture for the app.

Sitemaps help to organize and plan the content and structure of the app. It is a way for me to visualize the user flow and how users may navigate the app's content.

In my sitemap, my main objective was to determine what content would go on each page.

IDEATE

Wireframing

With Figma, I constructed wireframes, experimenting with user interface layouts. Wireframing helped to visualize where information would go, and how the user flow worked.

IDEATE

User Testing a Low-fidelity Prototype

After creating all of my wireframes, I was ready to test it as a low-fidelity prototype. In this first round of user testing, my main objective was to discover pain points or problems that may have existed with my user flow.

Main Takeaways and Feedback

  • Adding Additional Search Filters:

    "I think that additional search filters would be nice. Initially, something I would have wanted would be to look for fellow students who are abroad from Brazil, like me. So adding a filter for countries would be really helpful to meet people!"


  • Clarifying Navigation and User Flow:

    "The navigation to complete the task was pretty intuitive. I knew where to click, and the buttons were very helpful. I would like to see on the nav bar what page I was on though."

  • Adding Additional Search Filters:

    "I think that additional search filters would be nice. Initially, something I would have wanted would be to look for fellow students who are abroad from Brazil, like me. So adding a filter for countries would be really helpful to meet people!"


  • Clarifying Navigation and User Flow:

    "The navigation to complete the task was pretty intuitive. I knew where to click, and the buttons were very helpful. I would like to see on the nav bar what page I was on though."

IDEATE

Feedback and Iteration

After my first round of user-testing, I reiterated my designs based on the feedback. I also began to design the user interface of the app to prepare for the second round of testing with a high-fidelity prototype.

  1. FINAL DESIGNS

High-Fidelity Prototype

Streamlining the Discovery of Events and Clubs

Connecting With Friends