Project name: UX & SoMe (Group)
Client: Study counselling at BAAA
Purpose: Create a solution that would help the students at BAAA with finding answers to their questions
Main role: Researcher, Collaborator, User Interface Designer (Wireframing, Prototyping)
The study councellor and the students needed help. Every year, hundreds of new students come to study at the Business Academy Aarhus. Normally, the majority of them have common questions that have been asked too many times before. In our capacity as Multimedia designers, we had to think of a solution that would help both the newcomers and the study counsellor.
Understanding the matter
To understand what difficulties does the student counsellor experience, we conducted an interview with her. She told us about who she is, what is her role at the school and how she helps students. She also mentioned that the majority of students often have a lot of common questions that are being asked on daily basis. To save everyone’s time, we listened carefully to the issues and started to carry out our plan.
Meeting the students
Besides telling us about the most frequently asked questions, we understood that there is a distinguishment between the students – they are separated into incoming/new ones and older/almost graduated ones. After setting a line between the knowledge that students have about the academy/their programmme, it was easier to understand their problems and what they are most likely to ask about.
Categorizing
We noticed that the questions can be sorted out in different categories. We made assumptions about what could be a way of structuring the information. However, before doing anything, we also conducted testing with our users. It’s them we were making the solution for and their opinion was important!
Mapping the solution
Following the most prominent answers from the card sorting, we did our sitemap. It represented the information architecture of the solution and where the students would be able to find the answer to their question.
Coming alive
After we had the structure, we needed the shape. We were designing for a kiosk screen which would potentially be in the Main building and The Golden Tooth. That way, students would go there and interact with the screen in real time. The design uses a lot of elements which are common for the Business Academy – the iconic blue and gray combination which immediately comes to mind when we speak about BAAA.
Social media campaign
We also came up with a visual identity for 3 different platforms – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. We kept the familiar, recognizable style of the Business academy and we applied it consistently across the platforms. Consequently, we made examples of posts that we could make on each platforms before & after the launch of the solution.
SMART goals
- Promote the solution and put it out there for potential students to see it. That way, they would be encouraged to try it out and find the useful information they might need.
- We would measure the growth by likes on Facebook. With our campaign, we aim to get 150 likes within the first month
- By the end of the 2nd semester 2020 we want to establish the solution as the main source of information. That way, Dorte would save time and energy and focus more on students who have booked meetings with her to discuss something different than the basic questions.
SMART goals
- Promote the study counselling and the digital & interactive display through various Instagram post showcasing the solution.
- In terms of reach & growth, our goal is to gain 100 followers until the end of May 2020.
- Increase the popularity and usage of the solution itself at the Academy by the end of May. The interactive screen is meant to be easily accessible, close at hand help that would answer the students’ basic questions.
SMART goals
- Further promote and encourage interaction with the new solution at the academy.
- Promote the services and show why this could be useful for the students.
- Growth goal: 50 followers until the end of May.