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App to help students find vacant study spaces on campus that will meet their equipment needs.
One Week
User research, Interviews, User Testing, Rapid Prototyping, Wire-framing.
Design Exercise
Design a solution to help students find vacant group collaboration spaces on campus that will meet their equipment needs.
There is lack of information related to the space available to the students, such as capacity, amenities available, and the equipment that can be additionally requested.
Sometimes it take longer processing time to get response to the online form request, during this time the students are losing the opportunity of booking other free spaces.
Student seek immediate reservation confirmation rather than receive it few hours or days later.
Student are open to user other spaces on campus, if necessary but are not aware of the options available.
Student prefer booking the space online rather than in-person, to save time and also it will ease the process of deciding on the meeting time as a group.
Students face delays while occupying the room, since the previous user is not aware of the time.
After the research, I set my design goals based in the users’ expectations, needs and current problems. This helped me to keep the user as the center mind when designing the user flows and app.
To brainstorming and ideation, I created one persona based on user research and observed behavior patterns of the interviewees. Later to consider different use cases user stories are created.
To provide flexibility for booking the spaces on campus, student can sign in using the universities email address and password.
I designed the home to help students easily find the nearby study spaces, by showing the spaces near their location.
Rationale: In interviews, 4 students said that they mostly try to find the collaborative spaces near their current location.
Student can easily find their common available time by adding each teammate calendar, the system automatically detects the common times and highlights the specific time.
Rationale: Student spend lot of time deciding on the time and if the room is not available, they need to follow the same process again.
Students can invite their group members by inviting the team directly on the app which directly send the google calendar meeting invite. In this page users’ can request any other facility or equipment needed if required.
Rationale: From interviews it is fount that it is difficult to update the team members about the meeting because only the member booking the room has access to all the meeting request data.
The study/meeting space is illustrated with various details such as the room availability, location, equipments available, and amenities accessible. This helps the student decision making process easier while choosing the room.
Rationale: On campus students are unaware of the amenities available in the room and the capacity it can cater. Some interviewees also shared that they get lost finding a space that they have booked.
If the spaces are unavailable the system suggests other options which avoids the delays in the meeting.
Rationale: All the interviewees shared that they are open to use open spaces, cafes, common studies if the rooms are available, but are not aware of the other options that can cater their meeting needs.
Students can find the spaces according to their need by using the search filters.
Rationale: From interview it is found that students have various needs while reserving the space such as windows, computer, projector, capacity and nearby amenities.
Before designing the solutions it is important to understand the current system, find student needs and map out various problems while finding spaces on campus. Firstly I started finding collaborative spaces using the room reservations systems available on campus and later interviewed 4 students on campus to capture their experiences. This helped me to understand the strengths and weaknesses of system implemented.
Students work on campus either individually or in groups for their coursework and it is important to find a space that meets their needs. Most student spend lot of time finding a common time and collaborative space. To understand the student needs the project is focussed on the University of Michigan student, their problem and their experience finding a space that match their meeting needs.
I conducted some exploratory research by understanding the current booking/reservation systems available on campus. The students on the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor campus need to follow various guidelines and steps to find and reserve group collaboration spaces. Every student at U-M have certain limitations while reserving the spaces such as: –
1) The student cannot book the space for more than 2 hours in a stretch
2) Students can only book the rooms in their school/department or the spaces available in the 3 libraries on campus
U-M uses different systems to book spaces such as google calendar, online reservation form, online reservation portal, request through an online form, request through email and reservation at information desk. I looked into each of these system to find the students pain point and the space requirements.
To reserve conference spaces at the Duderstadt Library student need to fill an online room reservation form. If the spaces are available according to the user need, a confirmation email is received from the library desk. Students need to collect the room keys from the information desk before using the space.
To understands user experiences, needs and problems, I conducted 5 user interview with students from various schools at the University of Michigan. Interviews gave me a clear picture of how students use the reservation system, what helped them and what annoyed them and how I could improve their experience.
To brainstorming and ideation, I created one persona based on user research and observed behavior patterns of the interviewees. Later to consider different use cases user stories are created.
Considering the design goals, I explored various design solutions that cover some or all the insights from the research. Later I filtered down to six top solution that can help students in various scenarios such as booking from home, booking in a bus and finding alternative spaces.
The features, screens and actions needed are decided in the user flows, later I started to creating quick sketches of all the screens and iterated based on the A/B testing. After multiple iterations I created a final set wireframes that can be converted into hi-fidelity mocks ups.
