Project Vision
2022 marked the beginning of year 3 of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we've had to rethink the way we approach things like working and going to school. As a result, many interactions have become virtual.
Online classes for school are now commonplace. But learning at home has created new hurdles to jump through - students lack the proximity of other students in a classroom to strike up conversations with, and therefore it's a lot harder to make friends and find people to study with.
This website aims to help students find a study partner to work with.
Challenges
How do we connect students who have nothing but an internet connection and a desire to learn?
Is there a way to make a school and subject-agnostic hub to bring learners together while taking into account aspects of remote learning?
How do we make remote learning less lonely, more motivating, and engaging?
Kickoff
After the challenges were assessed, some exploration into the variety of users for this site was noted, in addition to others (aside from students) who would benefit from this site, like parents of students.
Initial User Research
Volunteers who were teachers, students, and parents of students were gathered to interview for some insight on the problems they were facing.
The struggles were evident after the interviews. An affinity diagram was made to organize and visualize the information gathered.
Meet the Users
Competitive Analysis
There are couple websites out there that also aim to help people connect for studying. These were researched to see what features they offered, where room for improvement lay, and how StudyBuddy could fill those gaps in.
After looking over what was offered, features like a dashboard and simple profile creation were added to the to-do list.
Wireframes
A graceful degredation approach was decided on when it came to wireframes. Because users would be using both desktop, laptop, and mobile versions nearly equally, ensuring that a thorough desktop version exsisted, and to shrink down from that, seemed the most efficient path.
Both Desktop and Mobile paper and digital wireframes were made so that user testing for each could be done at the same time.
Testing the Digital Prototypes
After a low fidelity prototype of both desktop and mobile versions were made, two small groups of testers were brought in to test each version and get feedback.
The interviews and testing gave some insight on how the navigation and design could be improved to better meet user's needs.
🟡 The nesting of certain items in the menu didn't make sense
🟡 Some pages could be compressed into one page - alternatley, some pages that were one page should be broken up
🟡 Users requested that certain filtering options be availible when searching for a study partner
Style Guide
High Fidelity Prototypes
Takeaways
This project was made in an attempt to fix a problem that's around all of us - life has been affected by the pandemic and adaptation and growth is the key to rising above the setbacks that come with it.
It was a positive experience to engage with and learn from users whose lives have had to adapt in order to do something as simple as go to school and learn. I learned that users know what they need, and usually how they need it, though only through good UX design can those needs be met to create a product that is useful.
I’m currently searching for employment opportunities in UX Design and similar fields. I’d love to be a part of your team and bring my eye for color, shape, and design to your project.