Streamlining the End to End Collaborative Studying Experience
ROLE
UI/UX Designer— User Research, Wireframing, Prototyping
TOOLS
Figma, Principle, Photoshop
TEAM
5 Designers— Rebecca Chen Jefferson Yan Astoria Ho Andy Kang me
DURATION
Jan 2019 - May 2019
Students want to study effectively in groups, but it's difficult to stay focused and find peers who have the same knowledge as them in a course subject.
StudyBuddy is an app that helps users find other students and study groups, reducing social friction.
BACKGROUNDIn ITP 310 Design for User Experience course, we formed different project groups and developed our product StudyBuddy for our final project. Through this course, I became exposed to UI/UX design.
After taking the course, I further revised and developed the designs.
Understanding the Problem
We realized that a lot of college students face difficulty in finding effective ways to study in groups. Often times, students take classes in large lecture halls, making it difficult for students to find other people to study with.
Usually, students only make the effort to actively interact with others when they have to work on a project as a group. If the course does not require students to participate in group activities, students often times only work with their friends instead of reaching out to other students.
How can students have a more productive group studying experience?
Research
Based on 15 interviews we conducted, we realized that there were many common difficulties that people face while studying in groups.
User Personas
I created two user personas to understand different user cases and identify pain points that need to be addressed.
Julie, 21
Julie is a senior studying Economics at UCLA. She has a close group of friends she studies with, but she gets distracted while studying with them. This semester, she'll be busier since has to balance her internship and coursework. She wants to find an effective way to study by joining a new study group. However, she's not sure how to connect with new peers without feeling awkward and avoid the hassle of scheduling study sessions.
Ben, 18 Ben is a freshman at USC studying Biology. As a freshman, he doesn't know most people in his classes. However, since he's struggling in his Human Biology class, he wants to find a group of friends to study with. To study more efficiently, he wants to study with individuals who are at the same or better knowledge level as him in a course subject.
Objectives
Through interviews, we discovered that an ideal study session for students would be studying with a peer who is at the same knowledge level as them in a course subject while avoiding scheduling conflicts.
To achieve this, StudyBuddy focuses on 1. effectively coordinating schedules by identifying open study session times for users 2. reducing social friction by encouraging the use of collaborative study tools 3. building credibility by using Badges and Reviews as a way to validate effective study experiences
Main Features
Search for StudyBuddys
Schedule Study Sessions
Create Collaborative Flashcard Sets
User Flow
Final Prototype
Moving Forward
This class has a very special meaning to me because I was first introduced to UI/UX design through this course. Taking this class has helped me build a strong foundation; I got to learn about fundamental concepts of design thinking and key steps in developing an idea into a product. I also got to work with an amazing team of driven individuals. We constantly gave each other feedback and bounced off ideas from one another. Without the team, the product would definitely not have been as fully developed as it is now.
