Designing a college campus-based Noticeboard Android app

Why android app when there is a web app?

Since the Noticeboard web app can only be accessed through the intranet of IIT Roorkee, students very often missed notices like that of the placement test and interviews, scholarship applications, or guest lectures.

Hence an app was needed which could be accessed outside campus or without intranet. The Noticeboard Android app was launched in 2010. The existing app has by far 5000+ downloads since it was relaunched in December 2016.

Understanding the users

Noticeboard is used by all the students as well as faculties, deans, director, and sometimes staff.

Users can be divided into two significant cohorts:

• Students (B.Tech, M.Tech and Ph.D.’s)
• Admins ( Faculties, Deans, Director, and others)

User research for the web and android was done simultaneously. You can refer to Noticeboard Web for the details

Why we don’t need admin on android

Most of the notice posting work occurs from various offices around the campus, and many a time, it also requires certain documents and approvals. All of this would be difficult to do from a mobile application. So we decided to exclude this from the android app.

How are user needs and frustrations different from the web application:

• Most of the time, users are using their phones while working or in simple words, mobile conditions.
• Users tend to share screenshots of notices, which also takes phone memory. Sometimes it is frustrating for them.
• Too many notifications all the time from various applications.

Insights from User Research

The interviews and reviews help a lot in finding out the user goals and problems; the following are the insights I drew from the research:

Comparing possible solutions

We discussed two possible approaches;
1. Categories and a separate date filter (similar to the existing app)
2. Filters for types of notices and date.

Solutions for respective problems

After selecting the proper approach, we moved on to decide the details and make the components. While designing components, it’s made sure that all the problems are addressed:

Conclusion

It was an incredible experience for me while working on this project. This helped me a lot with my flow making and UX skills. I also learned about analyzing different solutions and maintaining iterations. The app is now developed and will be launched very soon