Making an app for students to have a better and more reliable source of navigation to classes and through campus
About
Product Overview
Collaboration
The Goal:
To make a specialized navigation tool that is urgently needed to offer precise, user-friendly guidance, enhancing academic life and reducing stress by improving accessibility to campus facilities navigation.
The Team:
Tran Tran
Koh Micek
Peter Ho
Charitha Bale
Kotaro Garvin
Problem:
UX Design
Prototyping
Navigation
Many universities have complex campus layouts that pose navigational challenges that are not adequately addressed by existing maps, affecting student attendance and the overall experience.
Confusing roading
Most campus navigations route you through main roads when a lot of campus roads have shortcuts and narrow roads that help cutting time.
Class scheduling confusion
UW class scheduling has been consistently confusing and time-consuming, which adds stress to the students when on a time-crunch season.
Navigation
The Solution:
Navigation improvement
Our UX design will develop a specialized navigation tool tailored to academic environments.
Improved roading
This tool will provide precise, user-friendly guidance to enhance campus accessibility, streamline navigation to facilities, and alleviate the stress associated with finding one's way around
Class planning
Incorporate features such as adding your own classes, to help further students save time
Timeline
Overall 5 Weeks
Research: 2 Weeks
Designing & Usability testing: 3 Weeks
My Design Process
Step one: Surveys
Step one: Surveys
For surveys, we decided to use an online survey method with a Google form. The purpose of this survey is to see how people were navigating campus using the currently available methods. This research method was appropriate because it shows that there is a problem for certain demographics who require more resources to navigate campus. The distribution methods used were large group chats, and student hubs online to find people who often come to the UW campus (students and non-students). Age range, gender, and class standing were collected to understand what types of people struggle the most.
The key questions were: “How often do you use maps to navigate campus?” and “How easy is it to find the right building on campus?”
Step two: User Personas
Step two: User Personas
For the User Personas, I created 2 opposite points of view, similar to the interview candidates we had, with one being an American junior student who recently got admitted to a major, and the other being an international student who is still learning English and has a hard time accommodating to the change.
Step three: Design language
Step three: Design language
We decided using the Alata font because it was the cleanest looking font and the font that looked the most modern and professional to fit the theme of the mobile app that we were designing, and for the colors, we selected a wide mix of purple, a goldish yellow, blue, and some other colors to fit the traditional UW colors
Step four: Wireframing/Prototype
The Login Screen is the first screen in the app, the “remember me” button allows the user not to have to repeatedly login in the future, and If the user doesn’t have an account, they can register with their UW email so their MyUW and UW Mapping can be connected. The “Forgot Password” feature sends a code to the associated email to allow the user to create a new password.
Step four: Wireframing/Prototype
Course Registration
The course registration system is aimed to be a user-friendly, efficient, and reliable system for students to enroll in courses. It provides details about the course you want to register for and allows students to arrange a potential class schedule that avoids any conflicts in timing since that was the biggest accessibility issue and concern students were having currently.
UW Mapping
Prototype presentation:
Home Page
The home page and map design is aimed to look slightly professional but also welcoming, and the accessibility is made to be smooth with valuable options such as zooming in, indicators, detailed class information and best directions to classes, and allows users to seemingly go back and forth between pages.
This is the prototype in action:
Learnings
To improve our final prototype, we were suggested to implement certain features for special cases.
integrating audio so that it can give directions to classes for the visually impaired.
Having multiple route options to choose from to accommodate varying user preferences.
Update the map on real-time traffic, letting users know which areas are busy or too crowded.
Learnings: The app can be improved to be applicable to all sorts of users and special cases. The goal for our product is to be clear and concise with a user-centered approach.
I thought these would be great personas since the international student population in the University of Washington has been growing constantly.
Conclusion
Reflecting on the investigation into campus navigation challenges at the University of Washington, it's evident that existing mapping services do not meet the specific needs of navigating complex university environments. This research underscores the necessity for a tailored navigation solution that addresses the intricacies of campus layouts, including indoor spaces. Moving forward, developing a user-friendly, accurate, and comprehensive mapping tool will be crucial in ensuring that students, faculty, and visitors can navigate the campus efficiently, reducing stress and improving punctuality and overall campus engagement
Thank you for reading our case study!
Want to work with me? Feel free to contact me!