optiMize
A platform for student entrepreneurs
5 MINUTE READ
ROLE
UX Research Lead
TIMEFRAME
2.5 weeks
March 2023
TEAM
Planning Lead, UI Lead, UX Research Lead
TOOLS
Figma, Google Forms, Zoom, Asana, Miro, Canva
PROBLEM
A college organization funded by donors needs a platform for their members to develop social impact projects while providing them with support in the form of mentors, fellow students, and additional resources.
SOLUTION
Providing an easy, efficient online experience for both students and mentors alike will contribute to developing more successful projects that the organization can highlight when raising funds.
OVERVIEW
Connecting student entrepreneurs with mentors
optiMize is a student-led organization at the University of Michigan that provides support for student entrepreneurs to develop social impact projects. They are seeking a platform for their members to connect with mentors and fellow students, view available projects to join, and access additional resources like workshops.
Our team had 2.5 weeks to come up with the solution, which was a web application both students and mentors could log into to view communication and files related to their projects.
RESEARCH
What platforms do college students use for school related activities?
As a team, we conducted business research on optiMize to understand our client's needs. One of the key things we learned was that they are mainly funded by donors.
We wanted to make sure any solution we created would be appropriate for optiMize specifically rather than college students in general. While we didn't have connections to actual students participating in optiMize, our goal was to find information that would still apply to them.
The optiMize business model created by the Planning Lead
I led the team in designing our screening survey to be short and easy to fill out. We directed the questions only to those with a connection to a college/university in the past five years. The main objective was to find out what online platforms they currently use and what activities they participate in.
Header portion of our user survey
We posted the survey on two of General Assembly’s Slack channels as well as Reddit and our own social media accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Unfortunately, we only received four responses total from all of those platforms combined!
The Slack post requesting responses to our screener survey
We got banned from the subreddit where we tried to post our survey :(
We even got banned from the subreddits where we tried to share our survey! At this point, we pivoted to reaching out directly to people through our personal networks, with a focus on finding college students and mentors who were willing to be interviewed.
I also used my alma mater’s alumni platform to reach out to alumni participating in mentorship and entrepreneurship groups.
As Research Lead, I conducted seven of the eight resulting interviews.
For students, we wanted to know how they currently interact online with other students and faculty, as well as what their communication with academic advisors is like.
For faculty and mentors, we essentially wanted to know what would make it easier for them to interact with students. After learning that optiMize was funded by donors, we concluded that providing a positive experience for both students and mentors alike would contribute to the success of projects that the organization could highlight while raising funds.
As a team, we made an affinity map of the data from our interviews to help us identify any patterns in the feedback.
A common trend among students was that it could be difficult to communicate with advisors or faculty online. For example, some instructors might not be very responsive to email, or different instructors might use different communication methods.
We also noticed that ¾ of the students we interviewed booked their appointments with advisors online.
Both of the faculty members I interviewed expressed multiple concerns about interacting with students or alums on more casual platforms such as GroupMe or Instagram.
IDEATION
Clarifying the tone of the platform
As a team, we conducted a design studio workshop to sketch possible solutions together.
Sketches from our design studio workshop
From there, the UI Lead created Figma wireframes of the main sections of the web application.
Examples of the wireframes the UI Lead created
While discussing the wireframes as a team, I suggested we change the layout of the messaging screen to look less like texting since the faculty members I interviewed had mentioned feeling uncomfortable communicating with students on casual platforms.
Examples from the prototype, including the updated messaging screen on the top right
From there, the UI Lead created a style guide based on optiMize’s existing branding and turned the wireframes into a clickable prototype.
I conducted three usability tests to check whether users were able to complete navigation tasks in the prototype. We adjusted a few details such as adding an X to the confirmation screen to clarify how to exit.
NEXT STEPS
We should ask for more feedback
The usability tests also gave us great ideas on what to explore if the prototype were taken beyond the stage we reached in this particular project.
For example, two users expected to access Settings through a profile rather than checking for direct access to that page. Further tests could help us understand whether to reorganize information on the Profile page and side navigation.
We could also conduct additional tests on message notification placement, as all three users commented that they expected to see notification badges on the side navigation in addition to the ones on profile photos.
The goal would be to directly integrate the whole platform with optiMize and get feedback from their student entrepreneurs!
