UX Design, Brand Identity, & Marketing
Elevate Consulting was created to help bridge the gap between higher education and current students who are trying to navigate resources and gain mentorship. Elevate's mentorship seeks to connect students with other peers or professionals that share the same interests, studies, and more.
By researching users' pain points and understanding what university students' needs are, I was able to design a site that was inclusive to the target market.
Incoming students at the University of South Carolina are currently struggling to find all the information they need in one central resource hub.
Create a resource hub that links relevant information to questions incoming/current students often struggle with and the opportunity to gain mentorship.
Features
Research
To better understand what pain points there were, I had to use my experience as a University 101 Peer Leader (for the First-Year Experience) as a starting point. Through being a U101 Peer Leader, I was able to bring various perspectives from 16 of my freshman students, other Peer Leaders, university professors, University Orientation Leaders, other upperclassmen, and alumni's perspectives on various pain points that they faced while navigating the college experience.
After interviewing 23 individual users, and receiving feedback from 17 peers, I was able to gain insight in designing a more holistic platform for users.
Here was some of the initial research I did.
Four Key Stressors
Based on the preliminary questionnaire form, there were 3 main stressors that students faced during this time. Their concerns were about:
How students were going to make friends/meet new people while following social distancing guidelines.
How to adjust to working and being in college (ie. time management, work/life balance).
How to adapt to campus life as a student in college.
What resources are available and accessible for students to use.
Personas
After conducting the initial user research, I found similar themes that many of the freshmen in my survey were concerned about. Through these reoccurring themes, I created three personas that would reflect upon the target audience that Elevate would cater to.
Design Iterations
Creating sketches and designs to help address consumer needs and making improvements based off of user feedback.
Design Iterations and Feedback
After the initial sketches, I interviewed 3 other users across age, gender, and majors for their feedback and consolidated the interviews in separate findings.
Summary of User Feedback
Positive User Experience
Positive reaction to the color theme
Enjoyed how holistic it was in terms of different perspectives represented
Liked the simple design layout and intuitive usability
Negative User Experience
Users want an easier way to get to resources immediately and more
Users wanted a chat box function that would help guide them through the resources available starting on the landing page
Mockups
Creating prototypes based off of final design iterations and creating deliverables.
