Kassandra Lopez Carrillo
Innovatemap
Innovatemap, located in Indianapolis, IN, is a team of experts in digital product research, branding, marketing, and design. Big ideas always take grit and at Innovatemap, fruitful insights pave the way for innovation. Together, the team offers a collaborative, revolutionary experience.
My Personal Contribution
This was my very first UX project where I worked with a company. I was a scared little freshman at the time who was so excited to dive into this whole new world. During the span of this project, I dipped my toes into the various aspects of design, such as sketching, prototyping, research, analysis, etc. While I didn't have a huge impact on the final design, I primarily worked on how on the motivation aspect of the project.
Project Overview
The high school to college transition is daunting for many students. This is especially true for students who don't have family members who have gone through the college experience. Not equipped with the guidance or resources on how to navigate a university environment, first-generation students have an increasingly difficult time adjusting and becoming comfortable with university life.
Deliverables
1. A Digital Prototype
Our team created an interactive prototype on Figma of our designed experience. The prototype has three main functions that address three major pain points: person-to-person contact, identifying your group, and biteable content
2. A Research and Design Document
The team delivered a research and design document to our sponsors. This document showcases the research insights we found with respect to the college transition as well as the research behind the doubt and motivation of students when thinking about their education
High-Level Goals
1. Understand the struggles of incoming first-generation college students.
2. Identify where first-generation college students have the most need for a design solution.
3. Design an experience for high school students that gives them confidence when transitioning to university life.
Understanding First-Generation College Students
It is not uncommon for first-generation students to experience feelings of self-doubt, up to the point of considering dropping out of college.
According to the Clay Center for Young and Healthy Minds, ⅓ of first-generation college students drop out in the first three years of college. This is due to facing psychological, academic, financial, and social challenges.
Where do we fit in?
We can’t provide a comprehensive solution that addresses all the challenges first-generation students have. What we can do is focus on a set of challenges (listed above in the table). We want to alleviate some of the academic challenges first-generation students have. More specifically, we will focus on designing a solution that addresses the pain points of not feeling prepared. We chose this specific pain point after conducting rounds of interviews where we saw this being the most prevalent problem for incoming first-generation students.
Project Scope
Through primary and secondary research, the team found that first-generation college students are unsure whether they can finish college. There exists self-doubt and a lack of motivation when thinking about navigating an academic environment. this leads us to our problem scope:
Design a virtual experience for first-generation college students to address the doubt and motivation they have in regard to finishing their education.
Goals
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Build empathy with our end users
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Drive design decisions and rationale
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Tell the story of our final design
User Story - Maritza
Approach
Maritza is a persona made up of 2 rounds of interview takeaways the team got from 4 first-generation college students and 4 high school seniors who would have been transitioning to university life.
Meet Maritza
Maritza is a high school senior who decided to apply and go to college. She is the first one in her family to attend college and has recently been accepted to a large university
She's unsure about the transition from high school to college and is unsure about what university life even entails.
She often waits anxiously for update emails from the university to understand what she needs to do before getting to campus.
As the first one in her family to attend college, she feels alone in the process. She is unsure whether she will acclimate to the university culture and be able to make friends in an unfamiliar environment. It's also tough because she is unable to ask her parents for guidance as they are also unfamiliar with the process. Being the first in her family to ever pursue higher education and take this leap, she is even doubtful as to whether or not she'll be able to finish her college education. Stress, anxiety and doubt circulate in her mind while she heads into the summer before college.
One evening, she gets an email from her university to begin her onboarding experience and prepare for the upcoming semester. She gets access to an application call DUO Mobile and BoilerKey. She sets up her account and logs into another application she got access to, BrightSpace.