Unicate

Our first task as UX developers was tackling the question of how to better communicate as students. Our solution was a user-friendly site connected to our school login information.

Question

"How we can better communicate as students in an online environment?"

Summary of Responsibilities

- Design App
- Prototype
- Wireframing
- Branding

Tools Used
- Figma
- Miro
- Google Docs

Duration Fall 2020
September - December

Problem

Students were having a tough time learning from each other as result of online schooling, An increase dissociation brewed between students and the university they were learning in. We wanted to create something in which students can collaborate, socialize and learn in a effective and efficient way. This meant that the solution had to clean, simple and easy to use.

Research

One research method we used was surveys and dialogue with students one on one. We found through surveys that the best form of communication for students is video call. This allows for emotions and thoughts to be conveyed with faces, which is very critical for humans. We also found that they would prefer a warm and inviting experience rather than the rather cold and gray settings our school platform offers communication. (D2L)

INFORMATION GIVEN

Students were just put into online classes and schools did not have any prior experience, rigourous preperation or thoughtful research
Studies have shown that facial expressions and body language is a huge contributor to communication that is necessarily absent in online learning environments.
Cross pollination of Ideas and collaborative learning were no longer possible due to the nature of online schooling, this created an isolation for students

Ideation

User Needs and Desire

Here are some of the user needs and desires we found from our research

Collaboration

Students need to learn from each other, this is an essential part of university

Video Calling

Students missed talking in person with each other, they said video calling is a helpful feature

Connected

Students have to be connected to their school logins, an external application would be messy

ICONS AND WIREFRAMES

We started with some simple icons and wireframes to get designing

Home

Help

Profile

Settings

Prototyping

We had a theme colour scheme and we knew what our users wanted, we got to turning our wireframes into prototypes, below is gallery of our work. I was responsible for the product design and took a leadership role in designing the work, there were many challenges and but working collaboratively is something that I strive for.