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ROLE

UX and Product Designer

TIMELINE

10 Weeks

COLLABORATORS

Prof. Denise Pilar

OVERVIEW

SCADpro is an in-house design studio at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) that connects talented students with today's industry leaders to find creative and inventive solutions to real-world challenges over a duration of 10 weeks. It is led by senior professors who guide enrolled students to plan, execute and deliver an industry project.

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I researched the experience of SCADpro teams while working on the project by bring transparency, accountability and autonomy into their working process. I combined the rationale of Service Design with the principles of UX Design to deliver a collaborative experience that is intuitive and integrated.

RESEARCH • UX DESIGN • PROTOTYPING

Enabling trust and transparency in university student teams

The core user group for this project were students of the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), between the ages 21-35, who participate in SCADpro courses during their program of study. The overall user ecosystem consists of SCADpro Professors, Client Teams, SafeRide, Academic Resource Centre and the Jen Library.

 

My research participants for this project were SCAD students and course faculty. This mixed methods approach helped bring in qualitative and quantitative data that was used to fuel this project. Ethnographic observation showed behavioral cues which were validated or rejected by data from surveys and interviews. The types of research included

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  • Ethnography

  • Quantitative surveys

  • Qualitative probes

  • In-depth interviews

USER PAIN

The lack of trust, transparency and empathy within the team

69% students are not sure what they are supposed to do for their project, or how to do it.
SURVEY FINDING

Once it was clear what students and faculty feel about the projects, it seemed obvious that there was a lack of trust and dependability amongst team members. There usually remain a handful of students who take up responsibility for the project and try to work with everyone till the finish line. Some other surprising stats are

 

  • 38% students feel that their peers are not accountable for their own tasks.

  • 59% students wish that they contributed more to the project.

  • 1 in 2 students feel that a majority of their working time goes to waste.

" Everyone in my team sees me as a burden. I wish we could be more organized. "
USER QUOTE
92% students responded negatively when asked how their peers make them feel when sharing ideas.
CULTURAL PROBE FINDING
CHALLENGE

Quickly bringing the team together with unanimous goals and a proper support system

APPROACH

Redefining collaboration and support through a connected enterprise platform

" The best feature for me is the ability to take polls and votes when I'm confused about something. It's also nice to get presentation help from SCADamp. "

USER TESTING QUOTE
M 25, SCADpro Project Manager (Winter 2023)

SCADpro projects last only 10 weeks, which means that the team doesn't get much time to interact with one another and the project runs by very quickly. Moreover, students find the need to depend on the faculty for leading the project, which is not the expected practice for SCADpro projects.

 

I first dissected the current customer journey to try and find areas of opportunity and pain in different stages of the project. I then created a whole new customer journey from the student perspective that ultimately helps them become a better professional.

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  • How might we help students manage their tasks and goals in an organized way?

  • How might we easily give students the support that they may need during the project?

  • How might we make communication more transparent and effective for students?

1. A NEW CUSTOMER JOURNEY

Empowering the students to feel like creative professionals

I learned that students want to feel valuable, be seen and heard and be supported throughout any SCADpro project. This would ultimately empower them and give them the confidence and tools to take ownership and initiative in a safe and inspiring environment. The core user persona is depicted below

During a typical SCADpro project, students tend to interact with numerous people, departments, platforms and services. I designed a brand new integrated workspace that serves as a single source of truth for the students, faculty, clients and the university departments. This new tool taps into the co-creative and collaborative process and enables students to in the following areas:

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  • Task and People Management

  • Communication & Goal-Setting

  • Brainstorming and Decision-Making

  • Upskilling and Knowledge Management

2. A NEW PLATFORM

Bringing students, faculty, client and university on the same platform

The platform mimics the ideal process of any SCADpro project and divides them into 5 core categories of functions
 

  • Work - a shared dashboard that shows project status, team info, task lists and recents for all stakeholders

  • Meet - a pipeline of meetings, notes, calls and relevant details for any working session

  • Talk - a collection of channels for ideation, voting, conversations for big and small teams

  • Present - a schedule of presentations, scripts and collection of resources for effective storytelling

  • Files - a common database of all project files, links and inspiration from other SCADpro projects

All modules of this workspace amplified the same unanimous strategy - give everyone access to the same information, language, tools and resources so that there is clarity and transparency throughout the project. Some examples of this can be seen in user scenarios such as​

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3. A NEW LANGUAGE

Enabling transparency and clarity between internal teams

  • Instant access to meetings, notes and documents

  • A shared database for all project files, boards, links and documents

  • A shared board for uploading quick tutorials and educational content

  • Setting roles and profiles for every team member

After ensuring that the students and internal teams are empowered to set goals clearly and concisely, I thought about how I could make them feel supported at any point during the project journey. The goal was to prevent students from holding themselves back for getting the help and guidance they may need to become a good creative professional. Some things that helped with these are as follows
 

4. A NEW PURPOSE

Building a shared sense of trust and support at an individual level

  • Quickly connecting with SCADamp and Writer's Studio for presentation help

  • An open space for taking polls, votes and have informal discussions aynschronously

  • A timeline view of tasks and goals

  • A collection of previous slide decks, designs and strategies

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