Project / StudyMate
PROJECT OVERVIEW
For my Customer Experience Design course, I teamed up with 5 other students in diverse programs (Engineering, Design, Business, and Computer Science) for our final industry project: design a brand-new business solution that adds value to a certain customer segment and offers a good market fit. We collaborated through asynchronous communication and weekly standup calls to check in on our progress, provide feedback, and finalize project deliverables.
DESIGN SPRINT SKETCH
Individually, we completed a mini design sprint sketch and customer profile (aka user persona).We each selected a different topic, technology, and customer to produce 6 unique sketches. Our team voted on one idea to proceed with for the final project, and my idea won!
RESEARCH
We conducted a mix of primary and secondary research, using the following methods:
- Scholarly articles and studies
- User interviews
- Surveys (Google Form)
- Competitor analysis
To summarize our key research findings, we created a customer profile and customer journey map to delve deeper into the user and problem space.
Customer Profile (User Persona)
Customer Journey Map
PROBLEM
Post-secondary students struggle to identify their optimal learning methods and study effectively. Although there are existing study tools in the market such as ChatGPT and Quizlet, all of them are missing certain features that students could benefit from. Based on our research, customer profile, and journey map, we narrowed down our target customer and target event to focus on for our product.
SOLUTION
StudyMate is a comprehensive AI-powered study tool designed to help students learn and study productively. Unlike other platforms, we understand that each student learns differently and faces unique challenges. Hence, our platform provides tailored learning experiences and accessible resources to cater to diverse learning needs. By prioritizing the individual learning journey of each student, we aim to empower them to succeed academically and achieve their full potential.
Value proposition: StudyMate offers a comprehensive and personalized study experience that caters to individual learning styles
Competitor Analysis
There are many players in this space, but none of them address all of the user needs. We pinpointed the key areas where our competitors are lacking and incorporated these features into our product, StudyMate.
- Quizlet does not have built-in integration with note-taking apps
- Notion does not have flash cards and practice quizzes
- OneNote does not have interactive learning experiences
- ChatGPT does not have a file organization system
IDEATION
To kickoff the design process, we had each team member draw lofi sketches of the prototype so we could critique it and ensure we were on the same page before collaborating on the design of hi-fidelity screens in Figma.
Given our timeline of 3 weeks to design the MVP prototype, we prioritized features of our webapp by level of importance and divided them into the following categories: must-have, should-have and won't have.
Must-have features:
- Uploading course materials (i.e., lecture slides, recordings)
- Folder and file organization
- AI summarization, flash cards, study sheet
- Integration with note-taking apps
Should-have features:
- Learning style quiz
- Upcoming due dates
- Practice exams/quizzes
- Audio summarization
Won't-have features:
- Grade calculator
- Pomodoro timer
- Reminders/notifications
Our team decided to design a vertical prototype, instead of horizontal, to focus on the functionality of our core user flow rather than a broad overview of all the features on our app. We wanted to prioritize showing off how students would understand their learning style, upload notes, choose AI-generated study materials, and complete the study process, since this is a critical user flow that students would take while using the app. 4 of our team members worked on the prototype designs, while the other 2 members worked on the pitch presentation slides. Among the designers, we split up the workload so that each person was in charge of one flow.
- Login/signup, learning style quiz (Simran)
- Onboarding tutorial (Deepika)
- Homepage, profile settings, file organization, upload files/notes (Grace)
- AI study materials: flash cards, study sheet (Clara)
EXPLORATIONS
Throughout the design process, we had many iterations and changes. These are some of the old iterations with reasons to support our design decisions.
FINAL DESIGNS
Design System
Hi-Fidelity Screens
Below are some of the high fidelity screens I designed for the core flow.
Prototype
Prototype Demo
This was the prototype our team submitted for the final project (due April 10, 2024) and we got 98%!
Pitch Presentation
This was the presentation our team submitted to pitch our product idea to stakeholders (professor and TAs). We received a grade of 100%!
MY IMPACT
- Designed the visual identity and core components/assets which served as a baseline for all designs.
- Actively sought feedback from team and users to improve designs and validate ideas.
- Resolved design inconsistencies among 4 different designers to create a cohesive product.
LEARNINGS
Collaborating with other designers:
A challenge I faced was collaborating with 3 other designers, as we worked on the prototype asynchronously and each took ownership of different flows/screens. This resulted in inconsistencies across the product as a whole that made it obvious different designers worked on different screens. Although I fixed some of the more critical inconsistencies among buttons, pop ups, and other components, there was not enough time to make visual improvements to the signup/login, learning quiz, and onboarding screens. I weighed the tradeoffs between functionality and visual design, and determined that functionality of our vertical prototype was more important than perfecting the UI design of all screens, so we focused on functionality first and iterating designs in the time we had leftover.
Defining product requirements and feature prioritization:
Another lesson I learned was how important it is to define product requirements and conduct feature prioritization, as the designers were initially misaligned on the strategy of our product and how the core flow worked. For example, there was confusion on whether the files stored in StudyMate should contain the AI generated study material or the source material, or both. Questions like this should have been discussed earlier on in the design process, had we created an in-depth product requirement document.
