UX Design Critique on TALAB and its Enlistment Process

And Why Design Should Matter

The enlistment experience for Ateneo’s Talakayang Alay Sa Bayan (TALAB) program was crazy.

Students had to stay up past 12AM after Valentine’s day — a school night, mind you — for a free-for-all enlistment just to discover that there weren’t any constraints to the number of classes that we could get. Let’s not forget that the whole thing was paginated, and made it impossible to Ctrl+F the whole thing for the classes we wanted.

And of course, there were even people who were unaware of TALAB’s existence that they only found out minutes before.

It was worst for the people who started enlisting after 12:20 because ALL slots for all classes were out by then. What’s more ridiculous is the fact that there were people hoarding classes. There was even one student with 47, and we don’t even know how he managed to get all of them in such a short span of time.

In general, there was much outrage, and it wasn’t much of a surprise that when User Experience Society surveyed a stratified student sample the next morning across all years (first 40 respondents for each year), TALAB got an average score of 3.19 out of 10 (highest) for how well enlistment was implemented, an average score of 4.47 out of 10 (highest) for how well TALAB was promoted.

But here’s the big question: who’s really at fault? On whom can you pin the blame of a horrible experience? The people who hoarded slots? Or the overall system?

The Story Behind TALAB

Before we even begin to discuss who was at fault, it’s a good idea to know what TALAB actually is.

The idea of dedicating one day to unconventional classes all started after the Martial Law era as the Alternative Class Program (ACP). It began as a means of tackling social issues. Over time, ACP started to just get filled with classes that made it seem like a day off for people. ACP had classes like rock climbing and scuba diving, which made it sound like a day just filled with recreation instead of a day of social discussion. So ACP was stopped. It happened again and again starting 2006 up to 2009 for the same reason

And now that we’re in a very turbulent sociopolitical landscape again, wherein controversial national issues like EJK, Tokhang, the lowering of the minimum age of criminal responsibility, reinstatement of the death penalty, and the burial of a dictator are taking place, our university’s vice president, Dr. Ma. Luz C. Vilches, suggested the program within the current school year.

By Nov 10, 2016, the admin decided that ACP will be revived. On the same day, it was also decided that it will be held during the week of the EDSA People Power Anniversary (February 20–25 2017).

Things got further heated because the admin was discussing it with student leaders when Marcos was suddenly buried on November 18, 2016, further motivating their reasons to bring back ACP. Appropriately enough, the theme of the event was decided to be about the constitution.

Scope and Time

On December 5, Dr. Dela Cruz and Mr. Tats Quiblat, head of the Office of Student Activities, made more plans after the surprise burial and presented it to the VP’s council. The organizers initially proposed February 22 during the November 18 meeting, but the VP’s Council finalized the date of ACP as February 21. By then, the event was officially approved, and it was to be called TALAB — Talakayang Alay sa Bayan. Furthermore, the organizers were aware of how challenging the project will be.

Big Scope

TALAB, again, was originally formulated so that there can be a discussion and a reflection on various social issues on the students’ end. Take, however, the total number of students in the university, 8125, and you might have a problem obligating them to go. From past experience, ACP has always been a requirement for ‘homeroom’ classes (InTACT, NSTP, Philo, Theo), but the decision to credit non-attendance to the event as one cut for those classes only came more recently.

But once you consider those 8125 students, and assume a requirement of three hours and an average of two hours per event, you end up having 16,250 slots.

16,250 slots to create, manage, and fill.

Though not really a problem as the organizers have cited, a larger scope makes projects more difficult to handle amidst pressure, and more vulnerable to risk.

Limited Time and Limited Resources

TALAB was only officially approved on December 15, 2016, and because it was already time for the holidays, not everybody was responsive. Students were hard to mobilize. Companies were on vacation. As such, preparations could only be done in full force in January, when classes resumed. Knowing that the event was approved to take place on February 21, there was less than 60 days to implement and plan TALAB , which definitely caused them a few compromises.

Risks Coming Alive

Because of the shortened time and the huge scope, a lot of unforeseen risks definitely came alive in different ways.

Problematic Promotional Reception

There were a few cute advertisements for TALAB before enlistment launched.

Here’s our favorite:

Their advertisements were pretty appropriate for the season, and, at the very least, it put a smile on our faces.

But did it put a smile on the student body’s faces?

Well, no, not really, because they probably didn’t even see it. The promo we showed only had 12 reactions.

How did TALAB do overall for their promotional scheme? Although their social media pages were set up roughly 3 weeks before the actual event, based on our survey results, 66% of the student sample found out about the event just 1–3 days before enlistment. For some, they only found out minutes before.

It doesn’t really come up as a surprise though, since the organizers only released promotions just three days before enlistment. It’s something they already know they can improve on for the next year.

But how effective, really, was TALAB’s social media efforts?

If you’re going with the research, only 35.62% of the stratified student sample found out from social media — 18.75% from Facebook, 10.62% from Twitter, and 6.25% citing ‘social media’ in general. A majority found out from their friends, and other personal connections.

We speculate that it’s probably because they only started promoting TALAB actively by February 12, mere days before enlistment was to take place.

Slots Running Out

The organizers of TALAB never really thought that the alternative classes would get so much traction. And that’s the prime reason why there weren’t any imposed constraints to the number of classes that a student could get, and one of the reasons why there were less slots at the first chance of enlistment.

And so, at some point it can be considered that the ‘massive dissent’ of the student body after enlisting as a success, because people did actually apply for TALAB using the system. The Office of Management Information Systems (OMIS), however, knew that there were still points for improvement.

But of course, they had their own sort of dissent to deal with. Teachers and students alike, at this point were wondering why some students were hoarding so many slots when they could’ve just opted to sit-in.

And others replied by telling them it was the system’s fault, not the people.

OMIS and the Enlistment System

Do you happen to be one of those blaming the system for being more flawed compared to regular enlistment?

If you’re inclined to say yes, well here’s a story.

TALAB’s enlistment system was only developed in the span of two weeks, but if you talk to OMIS, they think the problems are rooted in far deeper.

1. Communication Issues: Communication between OMIS and TALAB’s organizers happened remotely instead of face-to-face. Furthermore, system specifications and requirements (how the system’s details are supposed to be) were delivered to OMIS through messages and calls instead of by file, making understanding what is needed slightly more difficult than usual. OMIS had to talk to the organizers to understand what the system needed to have so that it could be functional.
2. Massive influx of students: AISIS crashed repeatedly due tot the massive number of users entering the system. OMIS originally allocated enough server power to accommodate at least 4000. Due to the unforeseen amount of students actually interested in TALAB, the system was not prepared to handle numerous people using the system. Nor did the organizers expect that there will be people signing up for numerous classes (like the student with 47 TALAB classes).
3. Lack of Time: They had two weeks to figure out a system, and put it into the old code that AISIS was made with; a feat in itself. This was also the reason why enlistment was also scheduled for 12AM. From a 5AM schedule, they set it to 12AM because they didn’t know if it was currently in the means of the system’s intricacies to set it to a decent hour as the TALAB enlistment system isn’t the same as our regular enlistment’s.

Silver Linings and Other Nice Possibilities

Despite all its intricacies and stumbles, TALAB turned out fine.

There were a lot of good things that came out of it too!

1. One-click Enlistment: Now that enlistment and TALAB is over, we just discovered the benefits of having a hassle-free one-click enlistment. Despite the pagination and the crashes, it was pretty easy and fast. Maybe this could serve as inspiration for future enlistment processes.
2. AISIS Horsepower: Well, now that we’ve experienced what a true free-for-all (read: hunger games) is like, we know AISIS’ servers handle a lot of users at the same time. Knowing that the FFA scheme caused a lot of crashes, AISIS, at best right now, can probably support one whole year level. With that information, maybe we wouldn’t have a batch 1 or batch 2 for enlistment anymore someday.
3. Most Importantly, Happy People: Based on a short survey (stratified sample across all years, but only 40 respondents), we conducted after TALAB, people really liked what TALAB had to offer as 80% answered positively. The talks were good, and some people appreciated the breaks according to a few interviews. More than that, the issues discussed were interesting and the speakers were high profile, entertaining and inspirational, like our Vice President Leni Robredo. Overall, people really enjoyed what the event had to offer!

But now that we know what the organizers had to go through just to get this event running, it’s praiseworthy that they managed to make an event as large as TALAB. With what the organizers had to begin with and with what they had to face, it was amazing that they managed to fit a bulk of the preparations and operations usually done in a year in just a month.

Now, if you’re going to ask who’s to blame for the bad enlistment experience — there isn’t really anyone to blame.

It’s not solely the system. Nor is it the people who use the system.

It’s all about design education.

TALAB as a Design

If there’s one thing we can pick up from TALAB, it’s that design matters, and it isn’t just a matter of making it pretty and functional. Design can be processes. Design can be why a door’s handle isn’t placed at the very top or bottom of it. Design is all about making a purpose real. It’s about identifying what needs to be done and in what manner. It’s about making people’s behavior more intuitive by making the right way prescribed by the designer to be the simplest way for the user to achieve their wants.

Design is about making the right way, the easy way. It’s about making things easy-to-use with purpose.

With that said, the organizers managed to make the enlistment and how they planned TALAB functional in the sense that it hit its objectives, but it wasn’t completely able to deliver the happiest experience to the students. Surely, based on our surveys, people were happy with the actual event, but one cannot separate the experience they had with enlistment from the actual event proper anymore. Since this is the first time the current student body has experienced TALAB or any alternative class program in general, that first impression of a bad enlistment will last for a significant amount of time both for everyone that has experienced it.

And given that experience, most of us have said our piece:

We keep on saying that “this X can be improved” or even “this Y feature sucks” because inside we know things could be better designed. And it’s not just contained in the realm of technology. We hear it from politics. We hear it in our projects. We hear it from our parents and teachers.

But the question about this is, do any of us know how to get there? Do any of us actively realize that we want to get there the easiest way possible, while also providing that same ease to all who interact with us and our creations?

And this is why we at User Experience Society want to call the university’s attention to look more into providing a better focus on design, both for the administration and its students, no matter what the field of specialty. With that, we hope that Ateneo and its students may experience its endeavors better, whether that be new systems, new events, new posters, or new projects.

Because with design, you can take those steps efficiently and effectively, and finally end with making that right way that you’ve envisioned to be the easiest way for the user to achieve what they want and need.

Thank you so much for reading this article! For more information about what User Experience Society does, check out our blog here at Medium or our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/UXSoc/