Problem

CUNY students are busy, many also have jobs. Their work schedules often clash with their classes and assignments. It is stressful to juggle between the two. Students need an app to assist them. CUNY has a few apps for students, however many of them aren’t particularly useful.

Target users

The target users are CUNY students.

Why did I want to solve this problem?

The feeling of stress is far too common among students. I wanted an app that showed their class information in a clean and simple interface that also offered other features to help ease the students experience in college. The campus was the ideal location where I could conduct my research for the project, and students offered the best results.

Competitive Analysis

Insights

My research on phone usages among college students highlights the importance of having a dedicated app to improve students productivity. After analyzing CUNY Queens College’s app, it fails to provide students with many valid functions, other than the useful map function for the campus.

User Research

I interviewed 4 full-time students on campus, 2 of them had part-time jobs. My goal of the interview is to find out what kind of features the students need and how an improved app would impact their education.

Interview Questions

1. How often do you use the CUNY apps?

2. What features need improving?

3. What features would you like to see on the apps?

4. How often would you use the app with improved features?

5. How would an improved app help you?

Insights

Students rarely used the existing app, with one student not knowing it even existed. The interface needs improving. Most of them would like to see alerts and email features in the app, it will help they keep track of classes and important information. 3 out of the 4 students used the word organize. Organization is important to most of the students.

Personas

2 personas were created based on the user research. One persona of a student who works and who of a student who didn’t work.

User Flow

Wireframe Prototype1.0

The set up screen was designed for the users to select their CUNY institution so that they can import their current semester schedule directly into the app to save time versus other apps that need the class information to be typed in manually. I wanted this app to have the look and feel of a planner because organization was important to the users.

User Testing

After testing the prototype, some of the users wanted a faster way to take notes. They are usually zipping through campus because of their busy schedule and they want to record any last minute notes quickly while they are running out of class.

User Journey Map

User journey map of a user exploring the main features of the app.

Wireframe
Prototype 2.0

Using the journey map, I added a feature that allows the user to take quick notes and view tasks from the main screen, it saves them one extra step. As a college student, it is imperative to write down important notes and tasks quickly before they forget.

UI Kit

I opted for a lighter variety of colors to compliment the dark blue that is associated with CUNY. The desaturated colors contrasts well with the primary dark blue color and creates a balanced interface.

The typeface Avenir is clean and easy to read in all size and weights. Legibility and spacing is important for a student to quickly input and find information.

High Fidelity Prototype