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Student-Centric Research and Design

To Improve Engagement with Student Affairs Platforms





The University of Michigan School of Information (UMSI) has many staff members available to help students. However, it is difficult for students to identify who is the correct person to reach out to based on their needs. Various email listservs exist for students to ask questions or seek help. This method is decentralized, and not student-centric. UMSI has enlisted our team to conduct user research with current students to understand their usage and challenges in interacting with the wide range of student affairs staff members that are available. With these research findings, our team will work to create design recommendations and design a centralized tool that helps students to identify which staff and resources are available for their specific needs.


The UM School of Information has three student affairs offices (Office of Academic and Student Affairs (OASA), Career Development Office (CDO), and the Engaged Learning Office (ELO)) with more than 30 student affairs staff. 


Problem Statement

Problem Statement

Problem Statement

  • UMSI Student Affairs information resources are currently decentralized and lack a recognized organization. As the School of Information has increased enrollment, it has outgrown the capacity of its original communication channels. The organization of the website and email communication channels should be attuned to user needs and expectations in order to facilitate student engagement with academic resources. 

Objectives

Problem Statement

Problem Statement

  • Provide design recommendations for a communication tool that accounts for the UMSI website and email channels, expressed through a high-fidelity, interactive prototype.
  • Provide design validation and evaluation through usability and A/B testing on current and prospective student users.
  • Provide research insights and final strategy recommendations to unify student communication channels and increase student engagement with relevant resources.

Methods

Heuristic Evaluation

A heuristic evaluation is an inspection technique used to evaluate an interface design against a set of criteria and usability principles. The UMSI website has been assessed the and other external resources. It was found the system to rank low in several areas.

 

  • Visibility of system status
  • Consistency and standards
  • Flexibility and efficiency of use
  • Help and documentation 

Competitive Analysis

Conducted a comparative analysis early in the research phase. This analysis is used to identify competitors in the problem space and determine the strengths and weaknesses of different systems to learn how competitors succeeded in handling similar problems.

User Interviews

For this project the goal is to interview a wide variety of participants within each of primary and secondary user categories: current students, faculty, and staff. The following is the distribution of the interviews: 


Current Students:

  • Bachelor of Science in Information (BSI) (Undergraduate): 6 
  • Master of Science in Information (MSI) (Graduate): 6
  • Master of Health Informatics (MHI) (Graduate): 2
  • Master of Applied Data Science (MADS) (Graduate): 3
  • PhD in Information (PhD): 2


Staff:

  • Engaged Learning Office (ELO): 2
  • Office of Academic and Student Affairs (OASA): 3
  • Career Development Office (CDO): 1
  • Academic Programs/Recruiting: 4


Faculty: 4


Total Interviews Conducted: 32


Interview protocol was prepared that consist of an introduction Questions and outro.

Design Process

The design process was feedback driven and consisted of several iterations. First started by brainstorming ideas based off of the identified requirements. Then built information architecture and created a low-fidelity prototypes and reviewed these with the client.  Finally, took the feedback from these reviews and iterated on a final design.


Next step the design was evaluated through user testing. Then further iterating on the design.

Insights

Final Recommendations

Final Recommendations

  • Many students expressed that they experience information overload from UMSI emails.


  • Some students expressed frustration with navigating iTrack, specifically with trying to find job opportunities or book academic advising appointments.


  • Students and staff feel that the nature of the information resources is decentralized. 


  • Students often sought assistance from friends or peers when they could not find their desired information within the available resources.


Final Recommendations

Final Recommendations

Final Recommendations

  1. Additional user testing with graduate students. During the evaluation phase, most user testing was conducted with undergraduate students. 
  2. Performing A/B testing. If the client chooses to make changes to the prototype to accommodate their needs, the variations of these designs can be tested against each other. 
  3. Conducting a card sorting exercise. By asking students and staff to complete this exercise, we achieve a more accurate understanding of the user’s mental model and their user journey. 
  4. Performing a heuristic evaluation on the final design.  
  5. Exploring different color options for higher contrast. This will increase the accessibility and visual appeal of the prototype.
  6. Designing a desktop version. 

Design

* This is a team project

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