HIVE
Role: UX Design & Research
Timeframe: Two Days (Hackathon)
Problem Statment
As educational institutions evolve to meet the needs of increasingly diverse student populations, it has become increasingly harder for student voices to be heard.
Audience: Humber College Students
Tools: Figma, Freeform, & Notes
Introduction
HIVE is a mobile app that lets students candidly share their thoughts on campus life. A voting system (upvotes/downvotes) brings the most popular posts to the attention of fellow students, the broader student body, and even the Dean. It's a way to crowdsource student sentiment, highlight shared concerns, and ensure those concerns are visible to key decision-makers.
Key Challenges
Identify key issues faced by current and future students
Develop systems that turn feedback into policies and change
Reasearch
Methodology
I conducted five short interviews (10-15min) with groups of 4-5 students also participating in the hackathon
“Feels like everyone goes home right after class, there isn’t much of a social life on campus after class”
Goals
How likely and willing are students and staff to use an app like this?
What support is needed for students and staff alike?
How are students connecting already, in person and digitally?
What are the biggest obstacles students face when attempting to find a like-minded community on campus?
Key Findings
Students don’t feel heard
While students have an opportunity to share feedback about their experience via surveys from the student council, they don’t feel like their input is heard and are unsure where their messages and ideas go.
Students want to find and build community on campus
A large percentage of students at Humber are international, they want to meet and make friends with people from their country, and programs.
Students are afraid to speak up
Some students noted that they are afraid to advocate for themselves for fear of judgment or simply don’t know how or who to reach out to.
Technical Affinity: Faculty vs Students
Faculty members I spoke to noted they were not avid social media users and preferred to stick with emails for communication. On the other hand, students used a plethora of tools, platforms, and applications with a high degree of competency.
“We fill out surveys Humber sends us, but (I am) not sure where my responses go”
“It would be nice to build a community with people from my program, especially with people from home”
Design Process
Sketch
Working from my iPad, low-fidelity “paper” prototypes were created to form the structure of the home page. Allowing for fast planning and iteration within the short timeframe of the hackathon.
Wireframe
Lofi frames were created to help visualize the layout of the application digitally and could easily be tinkered with without much time investment..
Low Fidelity
This screen was shared with peers, friends, and family of varying technical abilities to gather feedback.
Goals
Is the structure intuitive and usable?
What else can be added?
How do test participants feel about the concept?
High Fidelity
Learnings
There should be an easy way for students to set up channels (HIVES) for topics of personal interest
New and trending posts should be split so that students can use the app for real-time updates
Imagery should be added for aesthetics
Changes Made:
A distinct pill button was added to the categories navigation allowing students to set up HIVE’s of their own
The option to see posts chronologically was split from the original view using the voting system.
Images and secondary colors were added using the same colour palette as Humber College.
Conclusion
At the end of the hackathon, we ended up 4th out of 14 teams, received a certificate of completion, and took home a little spending money (CHA-CHING!).
Lessons Learned
Don’t be afraid to let go of ideas
At the time it felt like a strength but as ideas started flowing with abundance we were left with the problem, which ones do we choose? As a team, we opted to vote democratically on a shortlist of three ideas that would be feasible within the hackathon timeframe. This forced us to work efficiently and as a team, ultimately resulting in a final product we were happy with/
Short timelines can Be your Best Friend
What’s the saying… pressure makes diamonds? While not a diamond we did end up placing in the top 3 teams and walking away with some cash! In part, it feels like this is because of the timeframe we were working with, forcing us to work quickly while putting our minds together to create something cohesive. It also allowed me to understand where my capabilities lie.
If there was more time available, I would have…
Conducted another round of testing in order to complete a second series of iterations to refine the final product
Created a functional prototype
Completed more research, as it‘s a complex topic with many factors (for example, technical and social challenges) and various stakeholders
