Overview
Faced with the complex application requirements and various information, non-native students spend a lot of time to deal with it, which makes the application efficiency very low.
I hope to design an information integration tool to facilitate international students to retrieve information and improve application efficiency.
ROLE
DURATION
UX Research & Design
2 Months
User Research
In order to understand:
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What information the applicant needs;
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How to use the information after obtaining it;
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What other help users need during the application process
I interviewed more than a dozen people who have applied to American universities, about the difficulties they encountered in the application and what help they hoped to get at the time. And then I used surveys to learn about more details, preparing for my quantitative analysis.
Contextual Inquiry & Key Findings
To better understand my users' pain points when applying for schools, I conducted contextual inquiries. During the inquiries, I formed empathy with interviewees by watching them planning, choosing and applying for schools. According to the results of interview and inquiries, I got some important findings and flashed design ideas.
1
The first step was always choosing their dream schools with confidence.
Looks like a good start, right?
The second step is... Huh?
Why is each school structured differently?
Why is information so hard to find?
Hard to find and deal with info !
2
3
Fine~ I'd better talk to someone who also wants to apply for these...
Well, who should I turn to?
No one to ask for help or talk to
Why can't I submit my application?
It's 12.2 today...
Oops, yesterday was the deadline
Easy to forget and miss key events
4
Understand my users
Following the result of my research, patterns were identified through qualitative analysis (affinity mapping). I was able to broadly identify a typical type of users and built persona.
Brainstorm
Firstly define design requirements:
1) Greatly reduce the time spent on searching for admission information
2) Help applicants to decide whether her or his background meets the requirements
3) Make it easy to find friends with similar goals to work, talk and play with
Potential solutions
Based on the requirements, I began to think of real product solutions and started scoping ideas out by sketching screens to test their functionality and usefulness.
I thought about a lot of ideas: official website page rebuild, crawling, application timeline, following dream schools, key event reminder, matching test, finding project partners, etc.
Impact/Effort Matrix
After mapping out the matrix, considering the priority and practicality, I narrowed down the scope and finally decided on the main functions of the product.
User flow & Low-fidelity
Main Functions:
· Set basic information about your academic background
· Search for your dream schools or programs
· Compare these schools and choose some to follow
· Add these schools'events to your calendar
· Get informed when deadline or key events are upcoming
· Find friends with same goal to work with or talk with
Test the idea
I recruited 5 potential users (international applicants) to test my idea. I let them card sort their preferred features, try with the screenshots sequence on the phone.
Afterwards, I collected their feedback, suggestions and brainstorms. The results were educational.
1
The home page should set some functions closely related to users, such as daily arrangement.
Not everyone cares about Ranking.
2
They like the search function, which should be the core of the app, because it is the entrance for users to enter the information pages.
3
They want to chat freely to make friends with the same goals, rather than just posting some posts in the forum for help, which is very inefficient.
High-Fidelity Design
Based on the feedback from the low-fidelity prototype, I summarized my main mission and finally crafted the design.
Onboarding & Setting
These processes will help the app find the most suitable content and schools for you.
Homepage & Upcoming Calendar
On the home page, you can find the schools you are following and quickly enter their information pages.
At the same time, the home page also includes the latest and most important practical news and information, so that you can always stay up to date.
Most importantly, the home page shows some of your recent important events, including the application deadline or some events you added.
Search & Discover
In the second interface of the app, users can use the global search function to find the enrollment information of their dream schools.
Furthermore, users can also see the ranking information of this year's US universities and the top searches on this screen.
Information & Match
After entering school page from the search screen, users can browse the relevant information of the school and enter the departments or programst pages.
In the specific program page, users can check their matching rate with the program to improve the efficiency of choosing schools.
Trends & Messages
In the second interface of the app, users can use the global search function to find the enrollment information of their dream schools.
Furthermore, users can also see the ranking information of this year's US universities and the top searches on this screen.