UI/UX DESIGN | INDEPENDENT PROJECT | DESKTOP
DAIICT Student Community
Web platform exclusively created for the student community of DAIICT that connects students and facilitates all the community activities.
OVERVIEW
We (a group of students) at DAIICT took an initiative to create a platform to facilitate all the student activities happening online and on campus. This platform shows all the information and updates regarding student clubs and events. It can be used by the student community to connect with each other, post stories and activities, share academic resources, and raise issues through polls. In sum, all the activities one could possibly do throughout university life!
Project Duration
July 2021 - November 2021
My role
Research, Information Architecture, Hi-fi Prototyping, Interaction Design, Design Systems
Platform
Desktop
Team
I was the only designer in the founding team
THE CHALLENGE
How do we make it easier for all the students to find community information and updates?
Currently, students of DAIICT use various platforms to perform different community-related activities. For example, using Instagram to connect with batchmates and post-club events, Linked in to connect with alumni. However, there is no dedicated platform which can be utilized to share academic resources with the community, neither there is a platform to raise issues to make change for good. Using different platforms for different means can be a cumbersome task, which needs to be solved.
THE SOLUTION
By creating a platform that connects students and facilitates all the community activities
DAIICT student community platform contains all of the latest information on student clubs and events. It can be used by the student community to communicate with one another, share experiences and events, and raise issues through polls. In a nutshell, everything one might possibly accomplish during their university years!
The target groups are:
CURRENT STUDENTS
CLUBS
ALUMNI
RESEARCH
Tackling the Problem
RESEARCH
Tackling the problem through User surveys and Competetive analysis
I aim to come up with research questions that will influence my design process at the start of every project. I used user surveys and competitive analysis to get the holistic overview of the current scenario.
At the end of the research, I intended to acquire answers to the following questions.
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1. What are the various platforms that students use to interact with their peers?
2. What purposes do they use various platforms for?
3. What are the benefits of using such platforms?
4. What challenges come in the way of smoother communication among the students?
SURVEY OBSERVATIONS + COMPETETIVE ANALYSIS
Analysing apps and their usage along with pros and cons
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Students use Instagram to post campus activities
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Clubs use Instagram to post club events, reminders and announce winners.
PROS
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Provides features like stories and posts to reach out to audience for both students and clubs.
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Clubs can use stories to post event reminders every now and then.
CONS
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Does not provide a mechanism where people get reminded of upcoming events automatically.
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Event coordinators have no way of knowing how many people will attend the event.
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Current students and alumnis use Linkedin to find and connect with each other.
PROS
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Linkedin provides easy search and filter mechanisms to find the person you're looking for along with professional background and activites.
CONS
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There is no way of finding students or alumnis related to a particular batch.
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Clubs use WhatsApp to repeat the same activities such as sending events posters and reminders.
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Some additional activities such as polls are forwarded through Whatsapp.
PROS
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Easiest way to reach out to students as all of them use Whatsapp most of the time.
CONS
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Their is no way of setting event reminders, or getting information about all upcoming events at one place.
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Need to use Google form and analytics to execute polls and then forward them to WhatsApp.
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Clubs use Google forms and analytics to get participants for competitions. They also use Gmail to send event posters and reminders.
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Students use Google forms to create polls.
PROS
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Google form is the easiest way to create polls and get the necessary analytics.
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Gmail lets you send mails to the whole batch at once.
CONS
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Google forms does not allow everyone to see polls results.
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Once the poll ends, it's forgotten and no one accesses it again for reference.
FINAL RESEARCH INSIGHTS
Understanding common trends and pitfalls
Based on all the survey observations and competition analysis, I found 3 major insights about the problem space.
Clubs use multiple platforms to communicate and perform the same activities repetitively.
Students struggle to get event reminders and thus miss the events.
There is no particular way of sharing academic resources
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Most of the clubs use multiple platforms such as Instagram, Whatsapp and Gmail to send event posters, reminders and other activities.
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Any of the current platform does not allow to automatically send event reminders to students, and thus they miss the timeline.
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Clubs also don't get any information regarding RSVP.
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Many students seek academic resources from their peers and alumnis, but there is no particular platform that allows sharing at one place.
IDEATION
Turning research insights into design solution and creating information architecture
After analysing the research, I came up with possible information architecture which can accommodate all student and club activites.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
KEY SCREENS AND FEATURES
Home page
Home page includes stories, posts, upcoming events, suggestions and all the key navigations.
Navigation menu collapse
Like the post
Search for people
View comments
Check notifications
Academic Sources
This section acts as a library of academic sources. Students can contribute and access existing materials.
Contribute a resource
Different resources and their list view component
Book
Link
Software
Video
Clubs
This section shows all the clubs, which then can be used to navigate to individual club pages.
Events
This section shows all events both previous and upcoming
Polling
This section shows all polls and lets everyone add new polls.
Profile page
Profile page shows all the necessary information of a student along with posts, contributed academic sources, and friends list.
Club Page
The club page shows all the necessary information about a club along with posts and events.
DESIGN SYSTEM
Design system including typography, buttons, text fields, colors, and iconography.
REFLECTION AND TAKEAWAYS
Successfully created a platform and learned about design systems
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The result was a platform that connects students and clubs and encourages the DAIICT student community to contribute and help each other in order to strengthen our student community.
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While working on the UI design part, I learned about how to create design systems and maintain consistency throughout the system.
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I also got experience with how to effectively communicate with developers and handover the designs.
LET'S CONNECT
Get in touch for opportunities or just to say hi!
