Eventure
Eventure is an wayfinding clubs/events app that aims to address difficulties in navigating through extracurricular events at UofT. We envision a platform that enhances communication and promotion of UofT club activities to the student community.
Clubs and event information at UofT are scattered across various channels.
Create a centralized platform for students to better engage in the student community through club and events.
OCT -NOV , 2023
User Researcher
Design Thinking
Wireframing
Protoyping
Figma
Miro
Balsamiq
UI/UX designers
Secondary Research
Our secondary research provided insights on both event-planning and on-campus apps. Overall, these sources emphasized functionality, structured schedules, user-friendly interfaces and collaboration tools as important strategies.
Primary Research + Data Analysis
Using both quantitative and qualitative data collection, I conducted interviews and surveys as two primary research methods. The questions were formed based on my secondary research which focused on centralized platforms and ease of navigation.
The participants of the surveys and interviews generally consisted of 3rd to 4th year UofT students and the questions focused on wayfinding methods, satisfaction level, identification & communication methods.
Survey Data Analysis
Out of the 53 participants, only 37 were currently involved in an extracurricular event. The frequency tendency measures from our excel data indicate that students generally have a low confidence in their level of information about on-campus events.
Average Rating Received:
Social Media: 4.06
Word of Mouth: 3.82
Club Fairs: 2.79
Posters: 2.15
When asked to rate the four methods, social media was the most preferred while posters received the lowest rating.
We also found out that the most common motivation for participation were social gatherings and professional & career development outlining the main motivations for students which were:
Networking
Acquiring New Skills
Establishing connections
Interview Data Analysis
After collecting all of our interview data, we came together and organized all the outlined points into an Affinity Diagram. Summarizing the 25 interviews we’ve conducted, some main challenges noted were:
To conclude, our primary research supported findings in our secondary search and emphasized the importance of the digitalization of extracurricular information at UofT. From these secondary and primary findings, we were able to create our persona to empathize with our users.
User Persona
Nailah Networker
Goals
Meet new people from different backgrounds
Professional development
Career opportunities
Personal Info:
Age: 19-20
Work: BCom Student @ Uoft
Major: Management
Location: Across Campus
Needs
Access info in one place to see club data easily
Get club updates to stay on top of her Schedule
Learn about clubs’ past events to help her decide
Customize preferences to sort through info
Desires
Desires:
Networking
Transparent information of club info
More efficient/private networking experience
Meet new friends
Obstacles
Obstacles
Opportunities are not widely advertised
Too many conflicting club schedules
Too many irrelevant promotions
Research process is time consuming
Unsure if clubs fit her personality/ skills
Taking on Nailah’s perspective, the As-Is Scenario outlines the current journey for students to get involved in on-campus events.
With red dots as votes,
the main pain points outlined were:
Scattered info
Where do I see all the details?
Lack of personal fit
Does this club fit my interests and skills?
Obstacles in event follow-ups.
How to keep in touch?
Translating them into user needs, Nailah would want ways to:
Access information in one place (see all club data easily)
Get club updates (stay on top of her schedule)
Customize her club preferences (sort through information)
Understand clubs’ past events (decide if they are worthwhile)
Ideation
Based on Nailah’s pain points, we grouped all our ideas into the three categories of ‘Efficiency’, ‘Customization’ and ‘Feedback’.
After each of our five members placed our four votes for both impact (yellow) and feasibility (blue), we placed them on a prioritization grid.
From this grid, we can see that Club Updates and Discovery are our ‘no brainers’, and we’ve decided to pick one ‘Big Bet’: Communication channel, and one ‘Quick Wins’: Customize Event Schedule.
With these four main ideas in mind, we began our low-fi prototyping process.
Prototyping & Evaluation
After experimenting with rough sketches of the app interface, we’ve grouped them into three features for better navigational purposes.
The ‘Discovery‘ feature will include a home page that provides a horizontal and vertical scroll of clubs and events. It will also incorperate a map page displaying interactive location pins for specific events.
The ‘Communication’ feature will allow students like Nailah to see their ‘saved clubs’ and ask questions or network with the organizers through a chat page.
Finally, the ‘Organization‘ feature will have a calendar that outlines the list of events Nailah has signed up for that day and offer details about the event once she taps on them.
Lean Evaluation
A Lean Evaluation was conducted to collect initial feedback of our sketches. The feedback from our Lean Evaluation suggested issues such as design inconsistency, unclear iconography and repetitive functions. As a result, we enlarged the icons and made sure they were consistent throughout the app by having standardized and recognizable visual representations.
A Lean Evaluation was conducted to collect initial feedback of our sketches. The feedback from our Lean Evaluation suggested issues such as design inconsistency, unclear iconography and repetitive functions. As a result, we enlarged the icons and made sure they were consistent throughout the app by having standardized and recognizable visual representations.
High-Fidelity Prototypes
As the term ended, I further developed our previous wireframes into high-fi prototypes in figma, addressing comments collected from our usability testing including:
intuitive icons
cutting down cluttered phrases
clear app interface
Discovery
Communication
Key Insights
Throughout our successful collaboration, I recognized the importance of consistent communication, and having an iterative mindset by constantly reviewing our previous work. Initiating constructive feedback and having varying opinions were also crucial because it was not only fun and exciting to hear about each others’ visions, but it was also what fueled our reflective and open-minded attitude towards improving our research methods and designs.
What to Improve
Due to some limiting factors such as time, we could only focus on one specific aspect of the user journey. To encompass a comprehensive understanding, it is important to also investigate the perspectives of the event organizers and school officials. In addition, further research need to be conducted related to some of the unintended consequences related to accessibility and inclusivity that could potentially arise.