Duration:
July 2020
My Contribution:
User interviews, Data Synthesis, Usability Testing & Visual Design
Our Objective
Build a responsive website and mobile website for students who are seeking to enrich their academic endeavors.
Our Outcome
Our team developed a responsive website and mobile web solution that allows students who study aboard by providing an intuitive interface that assists them with preparation before and during their trip aboard.
RESEARCH
Our goal was to find people who have studied abroad recently ideally or at any point in their life. We made our initial assumptions and conducted 6 user interviews to validate our hypothesis. Affinity mapping provided insights which enabled creation of our primary persona Iris and secondary persona Dave, who are representing two distinctive types of users. We also mapped out the primary user’s journey and gained insights on the opportunities of our product.
Validate
The user interviews validated our initial assumptions and hypothesis that students who study abroad are seeking a reliable source for information. One of the most important insights we discovered was that students who study abroad in the U.S are academic driven, students who study abroad outside of the U.S are leisure driven.
Key Insight #1: Students who leave the U.S to study abroad are predominately leisure driven VS. Students who come to the U.S to study abroad are predominately academic driven.
Key Insight #2: Students who study abroad use multiple different online resources to find places and activities locally.
Key Insight #3: Students who study abroad need information on many aspects: local public transportation, housing, visa, and other resources.
"Our team was able to identify that there has been a need for reliable resources for two distinct types of users, those who study aboard for short term and users who are seeking to establish a career post graduation."
Iris - Pain Points
Experiences inconveniences when she goes grocery shopping and doctors’s appointment because the public transportation is not reliable
Difficult to balance work and life
Appreciates traditions but finds it hard to distance from generational values
Difficult to balance work and life
Appreciates traditions but finds it hard to distance from generational values
Iris - Pain Points
Figuring out how not to get lost, things look so much different at night
Trying to find fun activities that aren’t related to his studies
Figuring out how to communicate effectively in a foreign language
Trying to find fun activities that aren’t related to his studies
Figuring out how to communicate effectively in a foreign language
Our Focus
Students who study abroad are faced with many obstacles such as visa applications, language barriers, identifying public transportation, and community events.
How might we provide students studying abroad with a tool that will allow them to access reliable information prior and during their trip abroad?
Key Insight
#1 - Set Up Profile
#2 - Search Bar
#3 - Community Information
#4 - Filter Button
Key Features
#1 Users can utilize a map to navigate through their journey
#2 Users can view their recent activity and set reminders to complete exercises.
#3 Users are able to track their personal discovery and progression.
#4 Users are able to collect badges.
Design
As we begin to develop our key insights to features, we collaborated with our development team in a design studio where we provided our synthesized research. From there, we developed our login page. From that we leverage our Prioritization Matrix which helped us to analyze our desired features and organize them in a way that defines how essential and how much effort would be involved to execute.
Final Reveal
After running our Design workshop we began to round out the design for our hi-fidelity wireframes. Working in Figma, the team took all validated components of mid-fi prototype and elevated the fidelity level. The team also took time to develop color schemes and some direction of branding.
Our Takeaway
After 2 weeks from developing an idea, validating, designing, reiterating and developing, MyAlpaca provides solutions for student who are traveling aboard and young adults who are seeking to establish a career within a new country. We designed a responsive website that allows students find multiple resources from visa application, housing and sightseeing. We also incorporated multiple features such a search bar, local community information and filter application to sort through the information provided. Our goal was to allow students and young adults to easily access essential information before and during their trip.
