Pluto.
A student-driven group project designed to build a stronger community between two satellite-campuses.
Through the lens of a UX designer & Researcher.
Lack of Activities
What the survey meant
Students living in Stratford had significantly fewer options for ECAs. That, in turn, resulted in the respective students to be more aggressive towards the concept of satellite campuses and lack of equal opportunities of student life.
The Pain Point
What the survey meant
Expectedly, the exam season was the most stressful/disliked season of the whole term. This indicated that this was an added pain-point as most of the exams had to be written on the main campus, Waterloo, and not on their own satellite campus. The traveling back and forth was not appreciated.
Sustenance
What the survey meant
Students were equally disappointed with the lack of a variety of food options in Stratford. Students with a requirement for halal, vegan, vegetarian had to go to an extra extent to find suitable food.
"The University of Waterloo has a satellite campus in Stratford, ON. which was not meant for students to enjoy and thrive. The idea was to create a platform where students had more opportunities to interact beyond campuses and faculties"
Problem x Users
Present Situation
How to know what was happening?
After the initial surveys of the students of Global Business & Digital Arts, we started examining the ecosystem of the satellite campus, the main campus, the students in both the campus and other faculties.
One of the problems that we encountered was the lack of responses from people in google surveys; so we improvised.
We added a variety of similar questions to Instagram stories in the form of polls and Q&A. Each member of our group was connected to a very diverse group of students(UW and other universities) and this resulted in a very contrasting and fast response.
Funny thing, people love playing Q&As on insta.stories.
For who?
For us!
Along with understanding the environment, we also had to think about our users and who they are?
After iterating all the responses and studies done by our individuals we came to understand that the students just want the company of more people and the presence of diversity more than food/ECAs/Parties.
Our target was to build a bridge between the two campuses so that no one feels left out.
From here, the group divided the workload.
Alvina and Lisa from the group spearheaded the work for visualizing the data and research William and I were working on. As they worked on designs and functionality, we focused on research and usability.
The Options
We narrowed our bridge to apps or websites. Each of the members worked on wireframes and conducted usability testing.
The Outcome
The results of the usability testing came negative. The concept of an app or a website had major flaws:
How many people actually download a new app every day? Why will they download our one?
No one will bother to find a link to our website, let alone actually accessing it.
Designing something brilliant won’t matter unless the target users actually use it.
The Change of Plan
We decided that our product needs to work without being downloaded and something that doesn’t require the user’s energy to search for.
Furthermore, we also realized how the students already are required to use the website “Learn” for daily university purposes.
What if we make a plug-in that can be accessed/downloaded when logging into Learn?
A plug-in that shows students about events all over the university, how to get there, who to get there with, events and projects to work on with different faculties.
The Product Testing
We worked from scratch and made new wireframes and low-fidelity prototypes. Figma was an absolute blessing.
After iterating further responses from usability testing, we needed certain features like:
Map to show events happening near you.
Rideshare option
A way to give the plug-in a “university of waterloo feeling”
In our final hi-fidelity prototype, we incorporated all the new features and tested the color scheme similar to the university’s official website
Finally, we made Pluto.
Pluto.
A plug-in prototype developed by a group of students to build a stronger community between the two campuses of their university.
Pluto. is nothing without u
And?
I learned to accept that others can come up with a better idea for solving a problem.
As a team, I believe, we learned to divide the task and carry the project when one of us fails to meet expectations.
Conclusion & Take-aways