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User Interface Design
The Issue ~
Overview
The user research process in a university setting needs to be more accessible and widen the scope of research participants to foster greater design solutions that aren’t restricted to a local scope.
Our research findings affirmed the idea that studies are frequently conducted on university students, even despite the fact that these projects could be performed with other young adults. This is because a "important criterion for the selection of these participants is their accessibility or convenience". This practice is not without its concerns, however, as the ethics of student participation incentives, deception and subject pools are topical discussions. Student subject pools are usually considered as more homogenous samples that are less representative of the general public within and across countries.
Approach
Our final concept involves an app that filters and sends surveys to users based on their demographic. Users can complete surveys on the app to gain points which can be redeemed at kiosks across different campuses for goods such as snacks, drinks and essentials. Thus incentivising participant-survey activity.
Researching our market ~
We chose to use interviews as one of our research methods in order to investigate deeper into the barriers student’s encounter during the research process whilst also understanding the thoughts and feelings that arise due to this. Additionally we used contextual inquiries to help inform our understanding of the end-to-end process students were taking to conduct research. This allowed further analysis on the impact of the university environment.
We used an affinity diagram to collate all our interview and contextual inquiry data in order to assess the similarities, patterns and common themes that formed in our data collection. With reference to our background research to help inform our thematic statements, we were able to produce six main categories that our quotes and observations fit into.
Interviews
5
participants
Contextual Inquiries
5
teams
What did we learn?
Our Journey ~
Develop a Mid-Fidelity Prototype
Creating testable wireframes to connect users to our solution
User Testing
Engaging with real users, discovering insights and receiving feedback
Iterate and develop a High-Fidelity Prototype
By synthesising our insights, we developed iterations that later became our MVP
Our Solution ~
With our design goal addressed – “To explore the incentives and barriers for students when expanding the scope of their research participants”
The final solution is an app that filters and sends surveys to users based on their demographic. Users can complete surveys on the app to gain points which can be redeemed at kiosks across different campuses for goods such as snacks, drinks and essentials.
Sarah Samarasinghe
Sydney 2024