MentorUS
overview -
Mentor-US is an online portal where people who are applying to foreign universities can find help and important information regarding universities present in the US.
role -
researcher + designer
project duration -
6 weeks
tasks performed -
Understanding Problem Space, Observations, Interviews, Usability Analysis, Brainstorming, Ideation, Persona, Prototyping
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Project Background
Hundreds of thousands of students every year dream of and apply to universities in the States. Still, they find the application process many times confusing and hard to figure out certain things that they need to do during the whole procedure. Along with the problem of searching courses, they also encounter roadblocks during filling out the application form and are often confused about the deadlines and the documents that they need to submit to the university. Scenarios discussed above can affect the admission decision of the applicant.
How big is the problem?
1.1 Million
International student residing in the U.S.
300,000+
F-1 visas issued each year
$37 Billion
The amount of money international students contributed to U.S economy
The Challenge
How might we design a solution that helps upcoming students in their application process?
Main Features
Feedback on Application Resources
Users can submit their application documents such as LOR/SOP for review by past students. Their feedback and insights will help the users to prepare a better overall application.
Specific University Forums
If users have a question regarding a particular university, they can post it in that university's forum and the queries will be answered by current or past students of that university.
Information on Universities
Users can access information on the universities they are interested in applying to. The information about the university and courses will help the upcoming students.
Process
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Empathize
Domain Research
Observations
Interviews
Persona
Define
Ideate
Prototype
Evaluate
Affinity Mapping
Storyboards
User needs
Brainstorming
Finding Potential Solutions
Sketches
Low-fid Prototypes
Hi-fid Prototypes
User Testing
Heuristic evaluation
Cognitive Walkthrough
Research
To understand the problem space, we conducted literature review and competitive analysis. We talked to upcoming as well as past students on their experiences and conducted interviews. Performing domain research & user interviews helped us in gaining valuable insights.
User Interviews
To know more about the issues faced by international students, we interviewed potential, current as well as past international students. We conducted structured and semi-structed interviews to understand the difficulties and issues faced by them while they are or were applying to their dream universities. We tried to empathize with the participants and understand how the issues that they faced affected their confidence and university applications.
Key issues identified
Lengthy application process
Delay in response from universities
Expensive consultancy services
Confusing university applications
Need clarity on how to structure SOP's and LOR's
Not able to find alumni's or senior's to enquire regarding courses
Personas
Who are we helping?
Storyboarding
Here, Jack is confused about where to upload his portfolio while filling up the application form. So he decides to ask his doubt on Master’s query solver (a collaborative social student-mentor forum). A mentor (senior) replies to his query and guides him on how Jack can submit his portfolio. Jack is happy, as he was able to complete the admission form with the help of Master’s query solver.
Helen is getting confused in writing her application essay (SOP), she decides to take the help of a senior from the university she is applying. She uploads her essay at the Master’s query solver (a collaborative social student-mentor forum). She gets insight from multiple mentors (seniors) who help her in curating a perfect SOP.
Brainstorming & Ideation
Brainstorming was s great way to put out on a table the different ideas that came up while thinking of potential solution to the problem. After various brainstorming sessions, the final design solution that we thought will fulfill the user requirement was a web portal where the upcoming students can file their university applications, post the queries they have on a forum which will be university specific, and receive feedback from current students and alumni's on their SOP's and LOR's.
Low-Fidelity Prototypes
(Register as a student or mentor)
(University List)
(Send message to university)
Sketches provide a great way to visualize the design solution and map out the user flow. We created sketches of different screens that the user will use in order to solve their queries and problems.
(Enter Details)
(Select course from the university)
(Forum)
(Home Dashboard)
(University Information)
(Attach document and query for feedback from senior/alumni)
(Feedback from senior/alumni)
The Solution
Based on the issues identified, we decided to design a web portal that would address those issues. We believe that Mentor-US will create a collaborative system where seniors/alumni will be able to help applicants in solving problems which at one point of time they themselves faced. We believe that by implementing this solution, we can overcome and resolve the issues faced by the applicants faced during the whole admission process.
University/Course Information
University Specific Forums To Solve Queries
Timely alerts of reaching the safe consumption limit along with alternate beverage suggestions.
Guidance on SOP & LOR
Direct Contact With a University Official
Task Scenario
Jenna is a student at University of Arizona. She realized one month ago that she consumes excessive caffeinated beverages in her daily schedule. After realizing that, she is trying to cut down on her daily consumption and is using the ReduCaf app to monitor her daily intake.
Today, Jenna is having coffee while studying for her mid-terms and wants to add it to her daily consumption. She also wants to view her consumption history in the app.
Solution Overview
After sketching out the different screens of our final design, we started to create a high-fidelity design prototype.
Home Page
List of Universities
Posting a query on forum
Direct communication with university official
Forum list of different universities
Access resources and upload documents for feedback
Receiving feedback from senior/alumni
Questions & Responses in a forum
Frequently asked questions
Evaluation
User testing and evaluation is a crucial in order to recognize the flaws and plus points of the design. The feedback received can be used to improve the parts that while designing we might miss.
We conducted cognitive walkthrough with 6 participants. The users performed the assigned tasks and provided their feedback:
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Users were not able to properly navigate their way through the portal. There were less of visual aids than expected.
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The users could not understand the working of the forum. Did the universities or the courses categorize the forum?
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The resources section was a bit confusing as the users were not sure where to click in order to upload their documents.
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Users could not really figure out what the search feature did.
Evaluation by Experts
Expert evaluations provide valuable insights in terms of design and usability as they have prior experience in the field and have knowledge regarding how certain things work and what things might not work as a design solution. They also provide feedback on the aesthetic part of the design, which we might not receive from potential users. We decided to evaluate our prototype with four experts. Every user and expert were provided some tasks and after their evaluation, we conducted a post-task interview with the each of them to understand their insights.
Tasks given
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Check out information regarding a university and send a message to them.
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View a forum question and ask a question.
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Upload a document in the resource section.
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Send a message to a senior replying to your forum
Feedback received
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More of textual information and less visual aids.
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No feedback or acknowledgment for specific actions.
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Missing FAQ's section.
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Some sort of shortcuts for easy navigation.
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Improvement on resources page.
Learnings
I learnt a lot of valuable insights on how to collaborate with different people and working on a new design tool. I realize that there are some elements in the design that needs more work and I will me working on to make those changes. Overall however, I am glad that I got to work on a design problem I myself have experienced and am happy with the outcome the team provided being it only our 2nd project.
