As part of a collaborative project, my classmate and I designed a mobile application for the Valencia College Graphic Design Program. Our goal was to improve communication among students and professors, encourage engagement outside the classroom, and create a more tight-knit community within the program. By integrating essential features into a single platform, we aimed to address existing challenges and enhance the overall experience for users.
The Valencia College Graphic Design Program struggled with communication and engagement between students and faculty. Platforms like Canvas, Slack, and Outlook were used inconsistently, causing missed information and limited interaction. Students wanted one central platform for notifications, connecting with others, and accessing resources.
Some main objectives for this mobile app were:
The primary users of the app are students and professors within the Valencia College Graphic Design Program. Students seek an easy-to-use tool for communication, resource access, and collaboration. Professors desire a reliable platform to share announcements and engage with students more effectively. Both groups expressed a need for timely notifications, opportunities for interaction, and access to valuable content like project showcases and professional tips.
We conducted interviews and surveys with students and professors to understand their communication needs and preferences, identifying key features to include in the app.
Using insights from our research, we created personas, developed wireframes, and designed an intuitive user interface that incorporated our solutions.
We built a functional prototype of the mobile app, integrating the key features.
We conducted user testing with peers to gather feedback on usability and functionality, making adjustments to enhance the overall user experience.
To address these needs, we proposed a mobile app featuring four key components:
Calendar: An interactive calendar displaying important dates for events and activities, allowing users to click on dates to add or view events.
Connect & Chat: A communication tool enabling students and professors to interact through chats and forums, enhancing collaboration and community building.
Project Showcase: A gallery where students can upload and view each other's work, fostering inspiration and providing opportunities for feedback.
Design Resources: A collection of educational materials, tutorials, and professional content available to all users. This platform brings everything together to simplify communication, encourage interaction, and provide key resources, helping users stay connected and informed.
We conducted in-depth research through interviews with students and professors, user surveys, and analysis of similar platforms. Students shared frustrations about missing event notifications because information was spread across different apps. Professors emphasized how student participation often leads to greater success. Our research revealed that users wanted timely notifications, more ways to interact, and a centralized place for important information. These findings shaped our design to ensure the app addressed the specific needs of its users.
We started our design process by creating detailed user profiles to understand our users better. Then, we made mood boards to explore visual styles and themes that would appeal to them. We drew wireframes to map out the app's layout and user interface, focusing on making it simple and easy to navigate. Key design choices included adding an interactive calendar, improving communication tools with chat and forum features, and creating a central place for resources. Visually, we kept the branding consistent with the college's guidelines and used a clean, responsive design to ensure it worked well on all devices.
We faced some constraints during the project. We had to complete it within a limited time frame, which was the academic term. Also, we couldn't do extensive user testing beyond our classmates. Despite these challenges, we focused on creating a functional and easy-to-use design that met the main needs identified in our research.
We faced several challenges during the project. Users initially had trouble navigating the chat channels and finding specific posts. To fix this, we improved the navigation system with clearer labels and better organization. The calendar's hover effects weren't helpful, so we changed it to allow users to click on dates, which made it work better. Some parts of the design weren't aligned properly, disrupting the visual flow. We corrected this by using a detailed grid system. We couldn't do extensive user testing, but we gathered as much feedback as possible from our classmates and adjusted our designs accordingly. These challenges taught us valuable lessons in user experience design and the importance of continually improving our work.
We created a mobile app to support the Valencia College Graphic Design Program by encouraging more interaction outside the classroom. The app improves communication and helps build a stronger sense of community by addressing the main challenges faced by students and professors. Working within our constraints, we focused on a simple, intuitive design and plan to add features like personalization and accessibility in the future. This project taught us the importance of designing with users in mind and creating tools that boost engagement and collaboration in education.