________ CLIENT DETAILS

Understanding the idea

About

Aggie Explorer is a student-driven platform meticulously built, maintained, and operated by UC Davis students. It offers a valuable resource for the UC Davis community, enabling students to access comprehensive grade and enrollment statistics from past academic terms. The overarching mission of Aggie Explorer is to enhance transparency and provides students with valuable insights, ultimately empowering them to make more informed decisions during the course registration process. By providing this data-driven tool, Aggie Explorer plays a pivotal role in supporting academic success and informed educational choices at UC Davis.

Design Challenge

How might we redesign the interface and integrate interactive, student-friendly features into the user dashboard to enhance the overall user experience and authentically reflect the Aggie culture of UC Davis?

________ SWOT ANALYSIS

Analyzing the internal and external factors

Conducting a SWOT analysis for Aggie Explorer was essential to gain a comprehensive understanding of its current position and potential for growth and improvement. By identifying internal strengths and weaknesses, the analysis provided insights into areas where the platform excels and where it might need refinement.

Strengths

Student-Driven: Aggie Explorer is built and maintained by students, which provides a unique perspective and user-centered design.
Access to Course Data: It provides access to valuable course-related information, such as grade distributions and enrollment statistics.
Transparency: Promotes transparency in course selection and academic planning.
User-Friendly: Designed to be user-friendly and cater to the needs of UC Davis students.

Weaknesses

Limited Scope: Focuses primarily on UC Davis and does not cover a broader range of universities or colleges.
Data Accuracy: Reliability of data, such as grade distributions, could be a concern if not regularly updated or validated.
User-Generated Content: Relies on user-generated content, which can vary in quality and accuracy.

Opportunities

Expansion: Opportunity to expand to other universities or educational institutions beyond UC Davis.
Additional Features: Introduce new features or tools that cater to academic needs, such as GPA calculators or major exploration resources.
Mobile App: Develop a mobile app version for greater accessibility and convenience.
Collaboration: Explore partnerships or collaborations with educational institutions to enhance the platform's credibility and reach.

Threats

Competition: Face competition from other similar platforms and university-provided resources.
Data Privacy: Concerns related to data privacy and security, especially if collecting user information.
User Engagement: Sustaining user engagement and keeping the platform up-to-date.
Changes in Education: Changes in educational systems or policies that may affect the relevance or use of the platform.

________ SURVEY

Asking the right questions

Research Goals

Our objective was to gain insights from individuals across various grade levels at UC Davis in order to comprehensively understand their needs, motivations, pain points, thereby obtaining valuable insights into their preferences and challenges. Moreover, the survey aimed to elicit feedback on the current design, discerning its strengths and areas necessitating improvement. This holistic approach allowed us to identify key user-centric considerations and provided a solid foundation for enhancing the website's usability, functionality, and overall user experience.

Questions

What was your first impression of Aggie Explorer?

What are your top goals and priorities when using Aggie Explorer?

Once you see the statistics on Aggie Explorer, what are your next steps?

Do you feel like this site was made with you, a student at UC Davis, in mind?

Would you keep using this site in the future? If not, why?

If given your own account, what additional features would you like on the site?

Results

It becomes evident that AggieExplorer, designed for UC Davis students, has made a positive impression. Users appreciate its straightforward and simplistic design, finding it easy to navigate. They mainly use AggieExplorer to explore grade distributions for specific professors and classes, enabling them to make informed decisions when registering for courses. This information influences their class choices, emphasizing fairness and manageable workload. Users express their willingness to continue using the site in the future, suggesting potential enhancements such as the ability to save preferred classes and syncing past course data for more insights. Overall, AggieExplorer serves as a valuable tool for UC Davis students, aligning with their needs and priorities when making course selections.

________ PERSONA DETAILS

Synthesizing user research

Jacob Harris

Age: 21
Academic Year: Senior
Major: Psychology

Biography

Jacob is a senior at UC Davis with a deep interest in understanding human behavior. He's an active member of the university's psychology club and enjoys participating in research projects related to his field. David is also passionate about sports, often playing intramural basketball and following NBA games. He values efficiency in managing his academic and extracurricular commitments and is always on the lookout for tools to help him succeed in his studies.

Pain Points

Jacob encounters challenges in discerning the reliability of websites for accurate information and seeks assurance regarding Aggie Explorer's credibility as a source for course selection.

Goals

Jacob's primary goal is to use Aggie Explorer to gain insights into psychology courses, including grade distributions and professor reviews, helping him select classes that suit his interests and academic needs.

Alexa Callan

Age: 19
Academic Year: Sophomore
Major: Sociology

Biography

Alexa is a sophomore at UC Davis, originally from San Francisco. She has a strong passion for social issues and a keen interest in understanding the dynamics of human societies. Alexa is actively involved in volunteer work and community engagement activities on campus. When she's not studying or volunteering, she enjoys exploring hiking trails around Davis and participating in local art exhibitions. Alexa values tools that can help her navigate her academic and extracurricular commitments efficiently.

Pain Points

As a sophomore, Alexa faces issues with course availability, especially for higher-level psychology courses, leading to frustration when planning her academic schedule.

Goals

Emily's goal is to choose sociology courses that meet both her major requirements and general education units, relying on Aggie Explorer to provide grade distributions and professor reviews for making well-informed decisions.

________ COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Understanding the competition

Berkeleytime

Course Transparency

Berkeleytime provides students with a range of tools and resources related to academic planning and course enrollment.

RateMyProfessors

Professor reviews and ratings

A platform where students share and access peer-generated reviews and ratings of college and university professors.

Schedule Builder

Plan your class schedule

UC Davis Schedule Builder helps students plan and create their class schedules for upcoming academic terms.

Takeaway

While platforms like RateMyProfessor rely heavily on student ratings and reviews, they can often provide polarized opinions about professors and lack the necessary nuance in feedback. In contrast, websites like BerkeleyTime offer a wealth of valuable data, including Grade Distributions for comprehensive course and semester comparisons and Enrollment History for up-to-date enrollment trends. This data-driven approach empowers students with unbiased information, aiding them in making informed decisions. Meanwhile, the UC Davis Schedule Builder proves to be a practical tool for planning class schedules by providing essential details such as class numbers, times, and locations. However, it falls short in providing insights into course quality.

________ BRAINSTORMING

Generating ideas

We initiated a brainstorming session to generate diverse ideas aimed at enhancing the user experience on Aggie Explorer's profile page. Our focus during this ideation phase was on generating a wide range of ideas, prioritizing quantity over immediate quality assessment. Throughout this process, our team adhered to a non-judgmental approach, understanding that critical evaluation would follow at a later stage. This approach was intentionally adopted to foster an inclusive and encouraging environment that welcomed contributions from all team members. Subsequently, the team conducted a thorough review to determine the essential elements required for the user dashboard, efficiently discerning which elements aligned with our immediate goals for this term.

________ WIREFRAMES

Mid-fidelity wireframes

During this phase, we embarked on the process of selecting an appropriate color scheme, opting for brighter tones that impart a welcoming and lively ambiance to the website. In our pursuit of developing mid-fidelity wireframes, our primary focus revolved around experimenting with diverse graph formats to enhance the efficient and effective presentation of statistics. Following a comprehensive evaluation of available graph options, we collectively concluded that the horizontal bar graph would serve as the optimal choice for displaying statistics on both the website and mobile view. This selection is underpinned by the graph's capacity to facilitate the simultaneous presentation of statistics for multiple classes within a single chart. Notably, our analysis led us to the determination that the doughnut pie chart would be unsuitable due to its limitation in accommodating multiple class statistics within a single chart.

In parallel, we undertook explorations of various calendar layouts to modernize and enhance accessibility on the Schedule page. During the presentation of our proposed calendar design to the development team, we actively solicited their insights and expertise. As a cohesive group, we reached a consensus that adopting a standard calendar design would be the most pragmatic choice, considering its widespread familiarity and user-friendliness.

________ TESTING

Usability testing at the source

We conducted a series of five usability tests involving students who align with our target personas. These tests were instrumental in gathering valuable feedback from our intended audience, offering insights that might otherwise elude the creator.

Tasks

Successfully sign in to your personal account.
Complete your account information.
Review the saved statistics for DES 111 and PSC 041 on the respective page.
Deselect DES 111.
Search for DES 149 and save it to your planner.

Identified Pain Points:

Profile Page Data Entry: Four users encountered challenges when attempting to input their information into the text boxes on the Profile page. They did not intuitively press the "edit" button before typing.
Misleading "Your Planner" Title: Users expressed confusion regarding the "Your Planner" page's title, expecting it to function as a task manager rather than a course planner.
Inconsistent Deselection Mechanism: Users found the process of deselecting courses on the "Saved Statistics" page confusing due to the existence of two different methods for accomplishing this task.
Visual Design Critique: Some users commented on the excessive white space on the Profile page and the perceived oversized text, suggesting a need for improved visual design.

Recommendations:

Enhance Visibility: Improve the visibility of the "edit" button on the Profile page to ensure users readily recognize the editing functionality. Alternatively, consider enabling text entry directly in the text fields without requiring a separate "edit" action.
Clarity in Page Naming: Rename the "Your Planner" page to "Calendar" to align more accurately with its functionality, reducing user confusion.
Streamline Deselection: Standardize the course deselection process to a single, user-friendly method, eliminating potential confusion.
Visual Design Refinement: Address user concerns about excessive white space and text size on the Profile page, optimizing the interface for a more balanced visual experience.

________ REVISIONS

Priority Revisions Post-User Testing

Following our rigorous user testing phase, it became imperative to establish a system of prioritized revisions, focusing on the most critical issues necessitating immediate attention. With a looming deadline, this prioritization allowed us to streamline our efforts effectively, guided by valuable feedback received from participants, ultimately enhancing the website's overall usability and intuitiveness.

Key Issues and Solutions:

Issue #1: Inadequate Clarity in Editing Process

Solution #1: To rectify the issue where users were unaware of the necessity to click "edit" before entering text into the fields, we proposed implementing an automatic text entry option. This solution eliminates the need for a separate "edit" action, enhancing user-friendliness.

Issue #2: Misleading "Your Planner" Page Title

Solution #2: Recognizing user confusion surrounding the "Your Planner" page title, we recommended renaming the page to "Your Calendar." This adjustment ensures the page's nomenclature aligns accurately with its intended function, mitigating user ambiguity.

Issue #3: Confusion Regarding Deselection Process

Solution #3: To address user perplexity concerning course deselection on the "Saved Statistics" page, we propose a simplified solution: offering users a single, intuitive option for deselecting courses. By streamlining this process, we enhance user comprehension and usability.

________ DESIGN COMPONENTS

Creating a new visual design system

Typography

The choice of Proxima Nova as the typeface for Aggie Explorer brings forth a range of positive attributes that elevate the user experience. Its clean and modern design exudes professionalism and readability, ensuring that content is easily comprehensible. Proxima Nova's versatility allows for seamless integration across various screens and devices, maintaining consistency in typography. Additionally, its balanced blend of sophistication and accessibility contributes to a visually pleasing and user-friendly interface. Overall, Proxima Nova enhances Aggie Explorer's overall aesthetics, readability, and usability, making it a valuable asset in providing a refined and engaging user experience.

Primary Colors

The color scheme chosen for Aggie Explorer plays a pivotal role in shaping the user experience. Vibrant and welcoming hues have been carefully curated to evoke a sense of enthusiasm and positivity among users. Bright colors infuse the website with a lively ambiance, fostering a warm and inviting atmosphere. The intentional selection of these colors is aimed at not only capturing users' attention but also creating an engaging and enjoyable environment for navigating through academic and scheduling information. Overall, the color scheme exudes a sense of vitality and approachability, enhancing the user's interaction with the platform.

________HIGH FIDELITY DESIGNS

The final design

LANDING PAGE

UC Davis Academic Insight

Aggie Explorer functions as a dependable resource for accessing extensive information on grade distributions, course offerings, and professor reviews, ultimately supporting students in their academic endeavors. Whether the goal is selecting the most suitable courses or efficiently organizing schedules, Aggie Explorer stands as an indispensable tool for UC Davis students aiming to elevate their educational experience.

Profile

Profile creation offers efficient data retrieval, eliminating the need for repetitive searches.

Your Schedule

Browse upcoming classes and craft an optimal schedule tailored to your needs.

Saved Statistics

Saved statistics provides insights into grade distributions and enrollment trends of a class."

________ CONCLUSION

Reflection

What I would do differently

A key change I would make in the early stages of our project involves initiating a comprehensive discussion with my designer partner regarding the design process's crucial steps and clarify our mutual expectations. I observed that my partner may not have initially attributed the same level of importance to the research and user testing phases as some other stages in the design process. This prompted me to take an active role in encouraging their engagement and cooperation in these specific steps, emphasizing the substantial value they bring to the project by enhancing user-centered design and overall product quality.

What we did well

Our team demonstrated excellent collaboration throughout the project. Our weekly Tuesday meetings proved highly successful as they provided a dedicated forum to collectively address our objectives, tasks, challenges, and track our progress. This practice significantly enhanced transparency and ensured active participation from all team members. Furthermore, it fostered mutual understanding between developers and designers, allowing us to gain insights into each other's design and development processes, screen interfaces, and the unique challenges faced by each discipline.

The future of the project

With the successful integration of designs into the website, it is now up to date and ready for the next phase of refinement. We anticipate the following team to further enhance the user dashboard through continued user testing, with particular emphasis on the profile page. Furthermore, we encourage future project teams to embark on user research initiatives to identify and integrate additional features aimed at assisting students in making informed decisions about their course selections during their UC Davis academic journey.