Mobile App Experience
Improving students' well-being
For most students starting university marks a new era in their life, where they need to find the right balance between productive studying, enjoyment and leisure time. During the pandemic, most universities have replaced physical classes with online courses. This leads to multiple hours spent home alone in front of a computer screen without much social interaction and increases the risk of loneliness and lack of belonging – arguably a big struggle for young people.
Product vision
Detected user problems
Findings
A tool fostering students’ well-being:
How might we help educators and students adapt to remote learning while at the same time maintaining their physical, emotional, social and cognitive health? Our vision is to redefine the structure and design of the modern education system.
Studying remotely during the pandemic became needlessly a solitary practice. Students were now forced to spend countless hours studying at home on their own, yet they found it motivating to share their ideas, thoughts and feelings with other people.
Prototype to capture initial user feedback.
Process highlights
Project team
My responsibilities
Methodology
Project plan
Consisted of one advanced, product and graphic designer
Research, UX and UI Design
Design thinking driven service concept development
Two weeks of discovery and ideation, followed by a week of rapid prototyping and concept pitch
Discovery and ideation
Being students who are studying remotely ourselves, we served as stakeholders. Therefor, it seemed obvious to start with our own perception of the circumstances. Complications associated with a workflow that is entirely digital causes a lack of inspiration and motivation. The struggle of trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle and the absence of social interactions were among the aspects we discussed. These thoughts provided us with sufficient information to continue interviewing students and building up user profiles.
While interviewing students we found that communication among scholars is lacking when classes are confined solely to their limited online schedules. Unfortunately, this lack of communication can lead to a decrease of well-being, which is particularly important in order to enhance intrinsic motivation, decrease disciplinary problems and increase academic achievement. Students reported that every week they spend countless hours by themselves, so we decided to help them by making part of their studies a more social experience.
Prototyping
By focusing on the most important features we were able to develop a story that can be broken down into a few key user scenarios: Connecting with other students based on personal studying preferences and social behavior, setting up and receiving inquiries or requests and discovering recommendations for well-being.
The thumbnail below shows one key prototyping step implemented to bring these scenarios to life:
Validation
The Prototype was tested on 5 users. Our previously defined storyline guided users through the app. We used Marvel app to record user interactions and compare test sessions.
We observed almost entirely positive feedback. Most users appreciated the integrations with the SheerID service, the overall look and feel and the ability to find study partners spontaneously. The way our filtering system works is a result of the validation process.
Findings
Our current prototype covers the aspects of the app that were relevant to user journeys. Once we have a working prototype, we would start in-depth usability testing.
We understood that further development would require a compelling business case as well as a choice: do we want Klatsch to become a service app operated by a university or by a private company.
Retrospectively this project helped us understand the necessity of integrating features that foster well-being in a remote university context.
Mobile App Experience
Improving students' well-being
For most students starting university marks a new era in their life, where they need to find the right balance between productive studying, enjoyment and leisure time. During the pandemic, most universities have replaced physical classes with online courses. This leads to multiple hours spent home alone in front of a computer screen without much social interaction and increases the risk of loneliness and lack of belonging – arguably a big struggle for young people.
Product vision
A tool fostering students’ well-being:
How might we help educators and students adapt to remote learning while at the same time maintaining their physical, emotional, social and cognitive health? Our vision is to redefine the structure and design of the modern education system.
Detected user problems
Studying remotely during the pandemic became needlessly a solitary practice. Students were now forced to spend countless hours studying at home on their own, yet they found it motivating to share their ideas, thoughts and feelings with other people.
Findings
Prototype to capture initial user feedback.
Process highlights
Project team
Consisted of one advanced, product and graphic designer
My responsibilities
Research, UX and UI Design
Methodology
Design thinking driven service concept development
Project plan
Two weeks of discovery and ideation, followed by a week of rapid prototyping and concept pitch
Discovery and ideation
Being students who are studying remotely ourselves, we served as stakeholders. Therefor, it seemed obvious to start with our own perception of the circumstances. Complications associated with a workflow that is entirely digital causes a lack of inspiration and motivation. The struggle of trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle and the absence of social interactions were among the aspects we discussed. These thoughts provided us with sufficient information to continue interviewing students and building up user profiles.
While interviewing students we found that communication among scholars is lacking when classes are confined solely to their limited online schedules. Unfortunately, this lack of communication can lead to a decrease of well-being, which is particularly important in order to enhance intrinsic motivation, decrease disciplinary problems and increase academic achievement. Students reported that every week they spend countless hours by themselves, so we decided to help them by making part of their studies a more social experience.
The idea is to offer them the possibility to easily connect with their fellow classmates as well as to reach out to new students.
What followed were efforts to map the existing user experiences in order to identify additional pain points and precise areas for opportunity development:
Prototyping
By focusing on the most important features we were able to develop a story that can be broken down into a few key user scenarios: Connecting with other students based on personal studying preferences and social behavior, setting up and receiving inquiries or requests and discovering recommendations for well-being.
The thumbnail below shows one key prototyping step implemented to bring these scenarios to life:
Validation
The POC-prototype was tested on 5 users. Our previously defined storyline guided users through the prototype. We used Marvel app to record user interactions and compare test sessions.
We observed almost entirely positive feedback. Most users appreciated the integrations with the SheerID service, the overall look and feel and the ability to find study partners spontaneously. The way our filtering system works is a result of the validation process.
Findings
Our current prototype covers the aspects of the app that were relevant to user journeys. Once we have a working prototype, we would start in-depth usability testing.
We understood that further development would require a compelling business case as well as a choice: do we want Klatsch to become a service app operated by a university or by a private company.
Retrospectively this project helped us understand the necessity of integrating features that foster well-being in a remote university context.
