College Navigation
An exercise in user experience design.
Overview
My Role: User Experience Designer
Summary of Responsibilities
• conduct user research via comparative analysis, user interviews, and stakeholder interviews
• document research process, findings, and design ideas
• create user storyboards
The College Navigation project was a user experience project whose goal was to research the way that users navigate Columbia College Chicago and improve it where possible. I worked on the project alongside 3 other students.
Our hypothesis was that the wayfinding system at Columbia College Chicago is not user-friendly, the experience is confusing for new students, leaving them feeling anxious and unaware.
View a summary of all of our research and findings here.
← Final prototype of new navigation page created based on our findings
Research Process
After determining target audiences for the college's navigation system, we began to conduct research. Our goals for our research were the following:
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Learn about the existing wayfinding system.
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Understand how students are currently navigating the campus and if they require an improved wayfinding system.
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Determine if the free amenities and resources available to students are being utilized.
With these goals, in mind, we began to conduct research.
In order to learn about the existing wayfinding system and where it fails in comparison to comparable systems, I conducted a comparative analysis alongside my teammates (see image to right).
In order to understand how students navigated the system, I conducted user interviews with students. We chose to conduct interviews with different types of students (new students, long-time students, transfer students, remote students) in order to understand how different types of students experience the navigation tools at the college. View the compilation of findings of the user interviews here.
In order to understand the resources available to students and whether they are being utilized, I also conducted stakeholder interviews with professors and other workers at the college. View the compilation of findings from the stakeholder interviews here.
Feature Matrix from Comparative Analysis →
Deliverables
After conducting research, we created several deliverables.
We created wireframes and a prototype which included possible solutions to the problems which users and stakeholders expressed encountering. This was a collaborative process between all members of the team. Among my contributions was the map system used in the final deliverable. We also conducted usability testing on the prototype and journey mapped the future state of the project.
Additionally, I created storyboards to showcase the progress between the findings of the original interviews and the usability tests of the prototype. For the storyboards, I focused on a single one of our user personas, the "Freshman."
← Storyboard Deliverables (current college wayfinding on top, improved college wayfinding on bottom)