Universal Design
I developed a blended experience that improves student engagement with IADT supports services and simplifies the workflow of support officers. Project follows universal design principles and caters to all students with special focus on students with disabilities, impairments and/or learning difficulties.
Duration: 6 weeks
Context: College project with stakeholders (year 2)
Project Goals
Based on stakeholder interviews, student questionnaires, desk research, iadt website testing and competitor analysis, I derived this set of user and business goals.
Students (Users)
Create inclusive, accessible and easy to use products
Lower cognitive load and make finding information easier
Create a product that is a port of call for all students
Showcase all available supports and help
IADT Support Services (Business)
Create a robust information system that is easily editable
Allow fast and targeted communication with students
Improve student outreach and share resources effectively
Simplify appointment management and student contacts
Note: app search engine is meant to support intent recognition and use natural language processing to be as intuitive and accessible as possible.
IADT Student Supports App
App Walkthrough
Physical Aspect
Leaflets to be given out to first year students during induction and placed around campus for general promotion.
Delivering a welcome form the student support services and promoting "iadt got supports" app.
List giving an overview of all supports available to iadt students as well as relevant contact information.
Academic calendar included incentivizing students to keep the leaflet for when its useful.
On campus campaign promoting student services and “iadt got supports” app.
Integrating student app with support services
Booking system integrated with Outlook and MS Teams.
List of students availing of a given support makes contacting students or groups easier.
Adding resources to the app and using tags / keywords to aid app's search engine.
Send notifications to all students or targeted groups only, e.g., students on wheelchairs. Integrated database shows notifications that have been sent out from all student supports to avoid spam and repetition.
Update contents of the support service page shown to students.
Project Feedback
“Kacper's idea of using an app help us deliver our services would positively impact on how our students access what they need from within IADT student services.
The booking/calendar system is also something that would be extremely useful. This would benefit students in finding the resources that they need more quickly and where needed give them speedy access to in person support. All while helping us to reduce the workload involved in contacting and setting up student appointments.”
Colm Olwill, IADT Student Supports
“Kacper’s passion in the discipline of UX, his positive energy and the general ‘can - do’ attitude he brings to his work really impressed me.
His process, attention to detail, work-ethic and response to feedback were exemplary.”
Stefan Paz Berrios, Lecturer on Universal Design Module, IADT
“This project addressed a huge number of issues we are facing in terms of Student Engagement. The amount of research into what is happening for students at the moment in terms of the obstacles they must go through to find us online was thoroughly enlightening.
Kacper addressed both sides of the equation, end user and service provider, and created multi-faceted, bespoke and high-end solutions which could be rolled out straight away.”
Dawn O’Connor, IADT Student Supports
“It was an absolute pleasure working with Kacper throughout this Universal Design module. His process is very thoughtful, empathetic and comprehensive. In particular, his approach to research and the synthesis of his results went above and beyond, serving as a robust foundation for this excellent project.”
Sarah Fox, Associate Lecturer on Universal Design Module, IADT
Reflection
Although the project went very well and I am happy with the outcomes I generated in 6 weeks time, there are some things I would do differently and things I wish I did.
What I would do differently
Gather more data for quantitative research
Iterate through UI elements and layouts earlier and quicker to yield more refined results
Make the error prevention step “Just checking!” less confusing
I wish I did
App usability testing with students
Interviews and testing with IADT Student Supports to iterate the design further
Gathered feedback from classmates on how they find the flows / interactions right as I was designing them
That was a lot of scrolling, I know!
Big project 😅