As a university student, finding a quiet place to study on campus can be difficult.
Students have the option to study at home, on-campus, or in a third space (e.g. a café or library), but may have different needs which make it frustrating to find a location that works best for them.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
USER RESEARCH
Investigating the problem
I conducted user interviews with four university and college students that attend school near or within Downtown Toronto.
The goal of these interviews was to learn more about my target audience’s demographics, study habits, needs, and ideal working environment.
Below are three categories that presented the most valuable findings from the interviews.
With the gathered research, I created a User Persona, Empathy Map, and User Journey Map to further synthesize my findings. This helped us to identify the main pain points that we should cover in our prototype.
Our solution
“3RD” is an application that helps users find study spaces outside of home and school environments.
It prioritizes the user’s needs through filtering practical and personal preferences to find an optimal study environment.
The visual design of the app has a simplistic approach with accents of colour to complement the insightful and accommodating impression.
INTERFACE
At a glance
We wanted to make that it was quick and easy for students to browse and compare various study spots.
Reviews, distance, and personal needs were the most important to our interviewees, so we made sure this information was immediately available.
Much like Google Maps or Uber, we added a lock screen widget that provides directions to students while they commute to their study spot.
Through my research, we found that this feature would be helpful to students that are less familiar with their surroundings.
Takeaways
This project provided me with lots of insight into how user research is important when developing seamless user experiences.
Receiving feedback, thoughts, and behaviours from my target audience was very useful when developing user flows.
Despite having to take on a large workload in a team of two people, I gained a stronger understanding of user experience design!
TRY THE PROTOTYPE BELOW!