Week 6 Tutorial: Lo-fi Prototype

Did not attend tutorial.

Week 5 Tutorial: Demographics, Psychographics and Personas

During this tutorial we looked at the importance of targeting our user precisely. I originally started with my target audience to be students who live far away from univetsity, or people who are unable to make friends in university. Since my website idea allows students to group together and discuss assignments online, which would ideally form it's own community as it looks like a majority of students would use it. However to actually be encouraged to participate within the website, this requires the student to be motivated enough about their work. Now to zone in on a particular target audience I am focusing on students who want to succeed in university, but they lack the connections to discuss ideas or share queries with.

We were told to design a persona who would use or product. After attempting this activity, it helped me to brainstorm the situations where my website would help solve the problems of the users. I tried to focus on the details that prevented students from participating in the community that UC already has. One example being students not being able to establish a strong enough connection with classmates to further talk outside of classes, this leaves them with no one to talk with as moodle's forum is seen as too serious to discuss little things.

The question of 'will it just be another Facebook?' Came up from the tutorial. To answer this my website will help to filter out all the unmotivated students, leaving only motivated students discussing, sharing, ideas and insights. Leading to a stronger community rather than just making a Facebook group around an  assignment. Also I need to figure out what type of problems online students experience, in order to further improve my website and distinguish it from regular forums.

Bibliography:

Marinersoftware.com,. (2015). Retrieved 18 March 2015, from https://marinersoftware.com/media/images/products/persona/persona-all.png

Week 4 Tutorial: User Expectations and Needs vs Wants

In today's  tutorial we discussed our ideas with fellow classmates, then moved on to pitching our idea to the tutor for feedback. My idea for assignment 1 was to create a place where students can discuss assignments with each other, as well as join or create study sessions. The idea was based around getting students to seek help without fear of embarrassment. Since the study help forum I would create would have a less formal feel towards it, encouraging more students to post questions or join in discussions as there will be group discussions related to particular assignments.

After bouncing my idea around and getting feedback, I found multiple things I had not took into consideration. I did not think about who will be posting on the forum as their is no incentive except kindness. Also my idea is heavily community based so without a solid community there is nothing to discuss. In order to gain a community I need a strong cause to bring people together for discussion. I need to figure out if assignments and general classwork is a strong enough cause to establish a community around my idea. Also I need to look into why students don't use the moodle forum. Is the format to formal for students to ask common questions? I still need to do more observing and researching, especially in terms of understanding what users want from my idea and how they will achieve what they want.

Bibliography:

P2cdn4static.sharpschool.com,. (2015). Retrieved 11 March 2015, from http://p2cdn4static.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_5439645/Image/Community%20Logo.jpg

Week 3 Tutorial: User Centric Design and Requirement Gathering

During this tutorial we discussed are ideas for the first assignment of helping university students adjust. A potentially effective idea was trying to get students to get more comfortable in class through more group activities, or more events to try and get people together. This idea can help ease the pressure of university as you get to meet people going through the same experience. Once we spilt into smaller groups, this idea developed into a anonymous forum where students do not feel scared to ask questions about the small things. This helps to fill in the gaps in knowledge that first years struggle to find. By making it anonymous it promotes more people to post on the forum as it does it come under your own name, therefore there is not embarrassment associated with your name.

However after discussing the idea further, the anonymous forum can be an addition to a larger idea. The intention of the forum was to help introduce new first years to university life, so this can be done much faster through creating something like a frequently asked questions page focused on first years. Then you can have a anonymous forum on the side of that page. In order to further develop this idea I am going to need to survey students what they want and expect from the frequently asked questions page. One issue I discovered with this idea is the longterm use of it, since it would need to be constantly updated with new information. This would require someone who has experienced the first year experience to provide detailed answers.Overall I have discovered that my simple idea needs more thought and research in order to develop. However I am trying to target what causes the fear or pressure that first year students experience, and then build something from that. As well as look into why people prefer being anonymous when asking questions and the power of being anonymous.

Bibliography:

Dyadmusic.co.uk,. (2015). Retrieved 4 March 2015, from http://www.dyadmusic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/UnknownCopyrightLicence.png