The first thing that needs to be done before anything is the research. There are two ways to approach this; analyzing college applications and user feedback from that and investigate online mentoring, or e-mentoring as it’s called. The first piece of information I explore is the type of apps college students use to contact others. The most common site used amongst campuses is Facebook and some “campus communicator” apps; specialized apps that offer college organizations to luxuries of a “school app” without coding needed. Sometimes, this option can work for a smaller school organization but students, “expect their colleges to be tech-savvy”. Meghan Bogardus Cortez, an associate editor with EdTech, mentions in an article, “When universities and colleges use this technology to support their students, usually in the form of an app, some big benefits are found. Centralized mobile apps from their schools eased the transition to college for 85 percent of respondents and it helped 73 percent become more involved on campus.”

It appears that college apps can be supportive. However, students find college apps depersonalized. Students surveyed by Ellucian said, “…of all of the entities they engage with, their college is furthest behind in using tech to personalize their experience. About three-quarters of the students surveyed want their colleges to use their personal data like businesses do. Students want to see data-driven customization in four areas: Career preparation, such as job assistance and interview training, Finance support, such as tuition and financial aid, academic support, such as course registration and grade tracking and Student life, such as housing and student organizations.

When it comes to students receiving online mentoring, it appears to become a growing fad and as a viable alternative for young people. It’s especially effective for students, who’ve mentioned in past surveys that, “it’s less intimidating than a formal sit down session”, thus making it easier for more people to participate and engage with mentors. A group of researchers from Drexel University used the I Could Be program, (a student-geared mentor-ship program encourages public high school students in the US to choose their mentors) to study the efficacy of online mentoring. In the study, they say, “Online mentoring can serve as an effective and viable option to the more traditional face-to-face model… organizations could seek to implement e-mentoring programs as a cost-effective and timely alternative to the traditional approach."

So from what I learned from In-Person interviews, articles and online forums, users seem interested in having a “communications” app but either struggled with what their college app offer, either the app doesn’t work in general, some users don’t see the point or they’ve had so much information being thrown at them all at once. And when it comes to mentoring online, users have said, “I can connect with someone for help or just ask advice”. Some users even mention the anonymous aspect of it, I have less fear knowing that they don’t quite know who I am”.

With this information in mind, I begin creating my user personas, which will help me to understand my users’ needs, experiences, behaviors, and goals they wish to accomplish with this app. Comparing info from the project brief and accumulation of research, the primary persona will be Adam; an 18-year-old Architect Student who is willing to learn and ready to jump into the college community but has some anxiety about it.

At this point, I need to start getting a footing for my application. From the personas, I start working on my user flows for each object defined, optimizing each of the tasks flows to make them as easy and efficient for the personas as possible. This process helps to brainstorm some ideas for the wireframe screens as well. I created a site map to help keep order amongst the different screens. Once I had solid groundwork begins the low fidelity wireframes. Always start with pen and paper, trying to focus on the essential structure, quick and painless navigation and the basic functionality. From here, I move onto my mid-fidelity wireframes and a click-through prototype so that I can run a usability test and see if the basic functionality and overall concept created at this point is working or not.

Moving onto the usability testing, I decided to do In-Person testing so that if they had questions, I could be there to answer and also so that I can observe their actions and reactions to the prototype. I had simple goals and objectives for my testers; is the app easy to use/understand? Can users maneuver throughout the app and come back to the starting point? Emotionally, how do they feel about using this app to connect with mentors? Possible functions can be added or taken out?

Some of the feedback was easy to fix whereas some aspects of the app needed to be reworked completely. For instance, all 3 testers were confused about the Clubs section and that it needed to be reworked because they did not understand the purpose of it. Also, connecting with mentors and sending messages and replying to them was a challenge to find, which will also need to be reworked. Other than those few changes, users were pleased by the concept (“it’s more than just some communications app” and “feels personal, like a dating app”) and also mentioned that it was simple and easy to understand.

From here, I reworked some user flows and my sitemap. User feedback was very helpful in creating the High Fidelity Wireframes and moving forward with the final UI design. Not wanting to visually go overboard with it, I decided to make the UI as “soft” and professional as possible. Since some of the users expressed having some anxiety about either starting college or when they completed their first day. So the mindset for the colors of the app was like a robin’s egg blue to help bring a sense of peacefulness. Same thing with the typeface, using Georgia as the body copy and Verdana as the header will add not only a professional look but a content feeling.

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