Synopsis of My Academic Project

Challenge (Problem)

Design a multi-sided platform for program managers that aids in the recruitment, retention, and engagement of students in afterschool programs. Develop the “look and feel”, a brand identity, a cohesive set of design principles that will be of use to a program manager/admin in understanding and organizing student data.

Approach (Process and Methods)

We prepared a survey using Google Forms and posted it on multiple social media platforms to find participants to conduct desirability interviews with. We looked for participants who have relevant work experience (administrators, teachers, coaches etc.) or parents/guardians of children currently enrolled in K-12. Determine which design directions are desirable by the target user and then alter design elements and concepts based on participant feedback. All interviewing was done remotely, via zoom and they were recorded to get transcripts for each interview using Otter.ai.

Three total interview sessions took place and during each participant were shown multiple designs and asked a series of open ended questions and survey questions to rate their experience on a scale of 1 to 5.

Discoveries (Research and User Insights)

Initial research was to do a competitive analysis and takeaways were that the competitors used bright playful and fun color palettes. They also used illustrations and photography to engage users. Most of them have side navigation bars and text labels with icons.

Based on the interviews the user insights were:

• They love the side navigation bar because it’s easy to understand and approachable
• Users like the bright colors which gives the feeling of fun
• They preferred the negative space rather than having a cluttered layout
• Users want to be legible and scannable
• They want the familiar layout that they have already used before

Solutions (Design Decisions, Strategy and Deliverables)

The solution was to use bright colors but still provide a professional interface for the program administrators to use. I decided to use the color blue green which is a very common color used in design, this shade of blue is calming and symbolizes trust which is to make the parents feel that their kids are safe and their information is safe in this system. The Roboto font family was used because it gives many options such as regular, bold, italic, condensed etc which was helpful and showed hierarchy.

To give enough negative space to the user to be able to easily visualize all the design elements and explore the website more comfortably. This type of interface is meant to be used by anyone and not necessarily someone who is tech savvy.

Outcomes (Results)

The users found the platform very easy to navigate and completed given task flow without any errors. On a difficulty rating survey, they gave it a 1 which represented that the task was not difficult to complete. Users want more context that lets them know this platform is for managing after school programs. Some participants liked that there were two routes to get to the same information instead of having to go back to the main page. Participants want a confirmation page/message when exporting a page/doc is successful. Users responded positively to when images were used for program cards. Users were able to complete the tasks easiest when the design patterns of the prototype felt familiar/similar to programs they have used before.

Umair Jeelani

UX/UI Designer