Nomad helps commuter students find campus resources and events depends on their geographical location and schedule to enhance their connections with the university community.
Collaborators | Chevonne Xue (me) · Emily Gazo · Vriti Wadhwa · Kiera Woodill · Zahra Parsa
Client | University of Toronto innovation hub
Project date | Sep 2021 - Dec 2021
My Roles | Research · Ideation · Wireframe and prototype · Usability testing · Playback video making
Our Challenge
Students who live off-campus need to spend more time commuting to the campus, limiting their time on campus and preventing them from being isolated from the university community.
Many students experience a lack of knowledge of campus resources, lack of connection with other peers, and don’t know where and how to make friends.
Our Key Findings
In order to better understand our challenge, we conducted both primary and secondary studies. We surveyed 27 and interviewed 11 U of T students who commute to school, and here’s what we found.
⊹ Feels isolated from peers
⊹ Frustrated from getting lost on campus
⊹ The constant fear of missing out due to their commuting schedule
Design Goal
Help our users make more friends and have more connections with the community
Help our users explore the campus and resources to know what to access during their commuting days.
Social Need
Physical Need
Product
A one-stop shop for commuter students. By using Nomad, students can easily find the resources nearby, know more about the campus, and participate in events that meet their schedule. Commuter students no longer need to worry about missing out or being isolated from the community and feel more engaged in campus life.
Resource Finder
Geographical based resources finder
Users can browse by different types of resources and see what’s available nearby. When they select their desired category, they can see a list of applicable options, along with a map.
Board information
Once the user has selected the resource they’d like to visit, they see a more detailed map, and information about their destination. This includes building address and hours, and photos and reviews of the resource that other students can submit.
Social Events
Find event that fit your schedule
The user can select Events from the homepage and then browse by category or today’s events. If the user selects Today’s Events, they will see more detailed information about their options, including the time and distance from their location. They can also filter the events, for example, by time, to make sure they find the option that works best for them.
Add events to the calendar for better schedule management
Once the user has selected an event, they can see more details, including how many others are attending. They can sign up or add the event to their favorites. Once signed up, they will get a confirmation message and be able to add the event to their calendar.
Social Cluster
Real time social cluster
The resources tab (through the category “social clusters”), allows the user to see posted invitations that others have posted to meet up on campus, and where social clusters are active in real time.
Protect your privacy
User can also see who is on their way to the lounge or is currently at the lounge. The social cluster function allows users to either declare that they are also on their way to the social cluster or choose ghost mode if they are not interested in socializing.
Our Design Process
Meet Our User
... and her journey
As-is scenario
To-be scenario
User Testing
From Nov. 19 to Nov. 21 2021, we spoke to 3 University of Toronto students about our low-fidelity prototype.
All of our participants were long-time smartphone users who live varying distances from campus. We shared our sketches with them in a Powerpoint over Zoom and walked through the prototype with them.
we asked them to be vocal about anything they liked, disliked, or expected to see.
Iteration
Based on our findings and the feedback we received after our user testing, we are going to move ahead with our Resources and Events features, and include more social aspects in the Resources feature instead of having a separate section called Connect.
Watch Our Promo Video
Evaluation Protocol
⊹ 4/4 users said that they would be open to meeting people through our app, and would feel safe using the app.
⊹ Users liked the Events feature very much and found it intuitive to search, filter, and sign up for an event using the app.
⊹ Users located the lounge we asked them to look for quickly and without much hesitation.
⊹ Users intuitively wanted to browse around the homepage and use it to complete the tasks: we should build this into our next iteration.
⊹ Users were confused about the variety of social and messaging features in the app: these areas require clarification.
Next Step
Return to prototyping and iterate
clarify some confusion on our labels and information architecture, and make the experience more intuitive.
Further design of home page
Return to the needs statements and ideation to find out how we can incorporate impactful, personalized recommendations into our users’ homepages.
Improve socialized function
reconsider the social cluster function, how to make it more understandable for user
Key Takeaway
The design process never end
Open to new findings and new opportunities, continuous iteration, and always seeking a better solution for our users.
User's needs must always come first
Don't start with the idea of what kind of features to design, but take the time to study and understand the users and empathize with them. Only then can we design a product that really meets the needs of the users.
Ideation prioritization is crucial
There are several different ways to tackle one problem, how to decide your gold nuggets is critical.