A Product that makes Student campus life painless
What is NUGO?
NUGO is a mobile application that was built for students of Northeastern University to stay connected to the Northeastern through the mobile device. Students can access their course schedules, check grades, and get in touch with their advisors.
Role:
UX designer
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Conduct usability research
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Visual and interaction design
Duration:
12 weeks
The Problem
Students need a platform which can make their campus life easy for them, but most students of Northeastern University felt the application was difficult to use as the users couldn’t find the required information instantly, they have to put in the effort to find certain information and they were not aware of the features of the application.
Project Goals
Improve Information Architecture and UI to make all features visible and accessible to the users
Current Design
User Research
To fully understand how users utilize the application and what are their pain points, I conducted user interviews with 30 students to understand their experiences. The purpose of this interview was to gather insights on the product from a user's perception and to discover what makes a great or bad experience for the students while using the app.
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Users are not aware of all the features of the application.
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Users are confused by the Information Architecture of the application. They have to think and search for features before they select one.
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Users feel the application has a lot of information and it looks overwhelming.
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Users feel the application looks outdated
Research Insights
Persona
The users I interviewed had such consistent answers, traits, goals, and frustrations that I felt confident in developing one persona.
Ideation
User Testing
User testing was conducted in-person with three university students for a total of 30 minutes each. I had students sit in front of me and go through the prototype. I asked participants to continuously speak out-loud about what they were seeing, doing, and thinking.
Key findings
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Users were able to find all the features of the application.
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The Homepage dashboard was very efficient for users.
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Users found the application to be useful and usable with the redesigned Information architecture.
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Users do not want to go through the login process if they had some network issue, they preferred a Restart button.
Design
From the feedback, I got from the User Testing I incorporated the changes to Wireframes and applied the visual design as well to complete the Final design of the Mobile application
Quick Browsing!
Satisfying the goal to easily browse content, I added all the important features on the homepage. From the user research what I understood was Map feature was a priority to all the users as they struggle to find a way to different buildings on a huge campus area!
Recharging prepaid card
To make it easy for the students to buy meals and reload their Husky card (college card) I included a feature where they can buy meals in less than 3 clicks!
Find out what's happening around the campus
Students can search for the events they are interested in and learn about campus news
Find the best places to Eat around campus
Helps the students to find places around campus that accept their college prepaid cards for payment
Reflection
Working independently on this project was challenging but the results were appreciated by many which gave me confidence that I can excel in the Design field. Understanding and empathizing with users was very relatable, but while conducting user interviews I got insights that I didn't even think of, it taught me that every user's perspective is different. Each step of the design process was inspiring.