Google Design Exercise 2019

My role

UX Researcher
UX Designer

Methods

Interview
Sketching
Prototyping (Sketch)

Time

7 Days (2019)n

PROBLEM STATEMENT

A new school year is approaching, and the orientation team is looking to you for some design expertise. Design an experience for students to discover orientation events and craft a visual system to accommodate different types of events: sports, music, visual arts, social groups, and volunteering events. 

Provide high-fidelity mocks for searching, browsing, and viewing the details for these different events.

USER RESEARCH

I used to work in an academic advising office and was highly involved in event planning during the orientation. From an event organizeru2019s perspective, there were always students missing an event for various reasons, such as they did not know about the event, they were not interested because not much information was provided, or they simply forgot about it. 

It was tempting to make assumptions based on my own experience, but I decided to interview four students from different universities to understand their orientation experience. Some common themes were revealed although they went to different institutions:

Students received event information fromu00a0multiple sources: booklet, email, social media group, peers, notifications from orientation counselors or resident assistants, and university website.

Students want to know theu00a0as much detailsu00a0of the events as possible to make decisions.

Students need au00a0mapu00a0to get to event locations.

Students would like to receiveu00a0remindersu00a0of the events andu00a0notificationsu00a0of any changes.

Students preferu00a0simpleu00a0interface layout, either listing all events throughout the day or marking events on a map.

KEYWORDS

Easy to use, details, map, notification, simple

IDEATION

Since many people use smartphones, I believe a mobile application will provide a one-stop shop experience for new students. Based on the motivations and pain points gathered from my research, I believe the app should include the following features:

Displays events of the day in a clear order.

Details and user options are available in individual event pages.

Provides directions to event locations.

Reminds user of the events as well as notifies of any updates.

Shows saved events.

Indicates whether there will be swags given out.

LO-FI PROTOTYPE

HI-FI PROTOTYPE

SEARCH

I used Material icons to represent different categories of events complemented by labels. Students can still search the events by keyword by entering text or using voice control.

BROWSE

On the browsing screen, events of the day are listed on a timeline so that students can preview what is being offered. The event images are clickable for detail viewing. There is also the notification function for students to check updates of events.

DETAIL VIEW

All details of an event is included on the individual event viewing page. Students can check the current number of students who reserve spots before reservation. Event will be automatically added to the account after reservation is made. Students can also share the events to friends.

For events that do not require reservation, students can add them to the account. A reminder is then automatically set.

FUTURE WORK

  • I need to collect more data from students in a wider range of institutions to learn more about what they need in different situations.
  • I willu00a0 invite students to evaluate the prototypes in order to make further improvement.
  • I would like to add some sort of log-in feature so that added events can be saved in the student account.

REFLECTION

Through this exercise, I gained valuable experience in conducting individual user research and balancing the effort on each part of the design process. I also further improved my time management and organizational skills.u00a0Overall, I had a lot of fun in the process and would love to take on more design challenges.

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