I work on UClub as a student project with a team of 5 talented fellows in collaboration with UofT(University of Toronto)’s Innovation Hub. Our vision is to build an intriguing experience for students interested in club activities by creating a platform for them to discover and share their club experiences.
From user interviews to prototyping with Figma, I lead the design work with proud.
Timeframe | Role | Category | Platform |
|---|---|---|---|
2022.9 - Ongoing | Designed mid-fi prototype, Created user journey map, and conducted user interviews | Social, Student Life | Mobile |
UClub
How can I stop wasting time on finding a club that is not for me?
It all started with the question "What matters to UofT students?". With a total population of 71,680, the University of Toronto has over 500 student groups (often referred to as 'clubs'). While participating in club activities is a memorable part of one's college life, many students found it difficult to join one due to unfamiliarity. As a result, our team set out to build a solution that allows students to discover the clubs that they would love to engage, and to build stronger bonds with student clubs community.
Gather Insights
#1 As a newcomer, finding the right information is HARD
We gathered 4 User interviews and a questionnaire with 29 UofT students about their experience with student clubs at UofT. We learned that there is a considerable potential club member population. Faced with more than 500 options, this population is hesitant to make the choice and take the move to apply, especially when they are new to this community.
2 out of 5
questionnaire participants are interested in participating in club activities but never take action
50%
questionnaire participants who do not join a club because of a lack of sufficient information
(contacts & club info)
"
One of our interviewees said when asked about the reason for not joining a club
The information provided on the university website is not in detail, and it is time-consuming to find the information by myself when I have a busy academic life
"
#2 It is HARDER when you don't know what you want
In our interviews and our questionnaire responses, students say they want to join student clubs to meet new people and find a sense of belonging. In this situation, many of them don't have a specific option in mind. This sense of randomness often results in a halt to their club search because these students are less motivated compared to those who have a clear idea in mind.
Process
Diverging, converging, and the Lean UX process
We investigated how UofT students anticipate their club experience to be over the course of 3 months by using the Lean UX methodology. Let user research be our guide, we conducted brainstorming sessions and created many solutions. We later put our theories to the test through usability studies, and based on the results, we created a mid-fidelity interactive prototype. As a final goal, we want to create a high-fidelity interactive prototype.
Meet the user
While analyzing our findings from the research, we identified future-ready / freshman students to be our most common users who are challenged by the complicated new environment they are facing with. Therefore, we determined the solution needs to account for
1. Information delivery efficiency
2. Effortlessness
3. Motivation consciousness
Our design goal
Future UofT club members can...
#1 Discover a suitable student club by reviewing the characteristics of a club at a glance
#2 Learn more detail about clubs without becoming a club member
#3 Can find student clubs that match their interests and be provided with other options that they might not have considered before
Ideation
Diverge with wild ideas, converge with careful decisions
After brainstorming ideas, we picked a few ideas that are most closely tied to our design goals. We relied on the prioritization grid to evaluate their feasibility and impacts. After we had a clearer sense of our ideas, we moved on to sketches for quick iterations.
Brainstorming sessions
Prioritizing our ideas
Sketching
One of the user journeys that was designed with low-fidelity prototypes
![[Mockup] iPhone 14.png](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1f8143_5690da27088a436b95da93e466ded1de~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_402,h_703,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/%5BMockup%5D%20iPhone%2014.png)
A test dedicated to help newcomers find their dream club
Assessing based on the student's goals, available time, interests, and experience, we will provide a personalized go-to choice with reasons and other options generated with our algorithm. Students can retake the test anytime in the future to fit their changing situation.
Tools used:
Characteristics at a glance
With the radar chart, you can get a grasp of the characteristics of a club at first glance. Press and hold to open tooltips if you are unfamiliar with the criterion
Details with community feedback
Tap on the criterion to view the detail page, where we aggregate comments from the Forum mentioning this aspect. We don't tell you how it is, we show you how others feel about it.
Explore
Discover what's happening in the student community with our feeds.
Forum posts
Learn more about your target club before joining in by connecting with the club members under their posts.
Two-way searching
Switching between two types of results with just one tap maximizes your search efficiency.
Calendar
You won't miss important dates because Uclub automatically tracks future events of your favorite clubs. See if your friends are going at the event detail page.
Evaluation
A continuous cycle of iteration and improvement.
After creating the prototype, we faced the need to get users’ perspectives in for evaluating our solution. We conducted 3 user testing sessions with university students that are interested in joining a student club. The session featureed 3 tasks that test the effectiveness of information delivery and usability. We observed the participants during the session and conducted a short follow-up interview after the tasks were completed.
Here are some insights we found:
1. Students want a more direct way to connect with club members.
2. Humans are visual animals and love graphics (such as icons).
3. With the help of Uclub, students think they can learn more about clubs with less effort needed.
For our next steps, we would consider diverse ways students can connect in this space, and try to bring in different perspectives such as the club exec team. Of course, we will continue polish our prototype. Stay tuned!
Takeaways
Be aware of established habits
Some of our evaluation participants misunderstood options with numbers as input keyboards for a similar layout. When designing interfaces for users, we should make sure the form we present to the users follows the intended function.
Prepare for the changes
Our user journey started rather simply, focusing purely on future-ready students. As we continue building our solution, we realized that bringing in perspectives from multiple user groups could help our design becomes more concise and inclusive.
