Redesigning the GoSVA app
For my first project at the School of Visual Arts, the brief was to solve a design problem for any digital medium of choice. Two weeks prior to the assignment, the school sent us an email to download their new mobile app called GoSVA. GoSVA is for students to have on-the-go access to their schedule, grades and explore the campus. I was excited to try the app, but shortly after using it, I found the experience was underwhelming. I decided to redesign the app and dig deeper into what SVA students actually needed.
Understanding SVA Students
To gain a better understanding of students behaviors and habits, I utilized Typeform to conduct twelve user interviews. For my sample population, I interviewed students ranging from freshmen to seniors. I was able to gather in depth information on how students plan their school schedule, their interaction with the app, and what they would want from SVA to make their lives easier.
Findings
- Ten out of twelve students have jam packed schedules that involve going to school full-time, accompanied with a part time job or internship.
- Accessing school resources such as their schedule or grades was cumbersome due to the non-intuitive experience on the SVA website.
- All the students unanimously complained about how difficult it was when it came to registering for courses every semester.
GoSVA App Feedback
I conducted one-on-one interviews and had my classmates test out the current GoSVA app. Below are quotes of what they had to say about GoSVA.
“Too much to digest. Getting hit with a million of options.”
“What is Canvas LMS? Does this help me register my courses?”
“Nothing in particular draws me in. Is this even an SVA app?”
“I’m so confused. Why does it keep linking me to another site?”
The high volume of options and how information is presented is leaving students confused and unable to utilize the features that are offered. By focusing on improving quicker access to a student’s schedule, an enjoyable registration, and staying up to date with school news and events, this could be the answer to a better experience for myself and my classmates.
Personas
Three personas were developed from the interview and observations. I began to narrow it down to one persona by combining all the painpoints my classmates had experienced.
Based on Lana’s needs, a redesign of GoSVA app will provide a more efficient way to organize her schedule, simplified process for registration, and make it an effortless way to stay immersed with life on campus.
Design
Navigation Structure
When students started to navigate GoSVA, tapping on the hamburger menu overwhelmed them with the amount of information, settings, and actions the app offered. Students became frustrated and quit halfway before fully exploring the app’s features. From the survey results, I’ve based my design decisions to focus on four main categories/features.
Features
- Identification Card: Lets you verify your information by scanning a code before entering campus.
- Schedule: This allows you view your daily schedule and grades.
- Registration: Makes it easier to find courses based on your requirements for each semester.
- News & Events: Helps students to stay connected to SVA & campus life.
Wireframes
Using sketch, I quickly mocked up low fidelity wireframes. Then I prototyped with Principle and began testing on students.
Feedback
Each screen had too much chrome. Also, asking the users to tap multiple times on one screen defeats the idea of having simple and refined steps.
- The first thing you see when you open the app is the Identification Card. Therefore, it’s position on the bottom navigation should be the first one on the left.
- The Schedule Screen felt crowded. The hierarchy with the daily view & calendar view needs to be defined.
- Registration for courses confuses the students by offering two tabs, by course # & by instructor. Simplify it so everything fits in one screen.
- News & Events has too much chrome and it lacks the personality and attitude of the school.
Iterations
Feedback indicated that students were having issues, so the process was repeated until perfected.
- Navigation & Icons were missing the elements of SVA. The App felt generic and had no personality.
- Identification Card felt underwhelming and generic.
- Schedule colors needs adjustment. Date & Time is secondary to what you want students to discover so it should be changed to dark grey. Red is used sparingly, therefore it should prompt students to click the most important area(s).
- Registration for courses bar is not intuitive. Students questioned where to click. In the course information section the type size felt small and the register button should take up full width of the screen. Need to add recommendations for courses, information with instructor’s name, picture, and seats available.
- News & Events cards felt dated and crammed and homescreen icon is confusing since it’s not the main page.
Final Look and Feel
- Navigation & Icons are adjusted to fit the personality of SVA. The black navigation makes it easier for students to see where they’re tapping.
- Identification Card lists students major, current year, semester, email address, portfolio and additional features like grades and financial info.
- Schedule colors were adjusted, grey was replaced the red and red was used sparingly.
- Registration courses bar had a magnifying glass added so students were able to identify where to tap. Suggestions for courses were also added.
- News & Events cards were removed to become full bleed so the text had more room to breathe.
Since this was done in Principle, feel free to email me for the prototype!
Conclusion
Redesigning GoSVA was a fun problem to solve and receiving great feedback from my peers only fueled my motivation to design a better experience for them (and myself). Some classmates suggested to design a standalone app just for Registration for Courses. That’s definitely something I’ll work towards in the future.
Being a student is stressful as it is, so working on this project to help with the education process and life was awesome. If you have any suggestions or questions about my designs feel free to reach out at huongshirley@gmail.com!
