UniCompass: Helping High School Students Find the Right College Major
My Role
x
Team
5 research members (Include Design), 1 supervisor
Skills
User Research, Wireframe + Prototyping, Usability Test, UI iteration
Duration
Sep, 2022 - Feb, 2023 (6 months)
Summary
Goal
This project aims to support high school students in Taiwan’s high-pressure, exam-oriented educational environment, by offering support and resources to help them uncover their interests and potential career paths
Solutions
College Matching - Finding the appropriate major and comparing universities and departments
Acquiring Experience - Obtaining valuable information from university students' personal experiences
E-Portfolio Planning - Receiving advice on building Academic Portfolios
Contribution
Led the user research and participated in the overall development, conducted 4 user interviews and 3 usability tests
Collaborated closely with team members to execute research methods and main design processes
Conducted UI and Design System development, ensuring design consistency throughout the product
Impact
System Usability Scale increased by 17.2%, and task completion reached 97.6% with a 12.6% success rate improved
User satisfaction improved by 35%, with a CSAT score of 4.3 and a SUS score of 78.9
This project was accepted by ACM CHI, the most renowned in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) conference, and invited to present the projects at the event
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Problem
High school students in Taiwan fail to explore their aspirations, leading them to follow the blueprint.
Goal
Create a platform to help high school students navigate college majors and ensure access to inclusive, fair, and high-quality education.
User Research
Interview
To better understand the challenges high school students face when selecting career paths and majors, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 7 university students.
Data Analysis
By using the affinity diagram to analyze the transcripts of these interviews, we identified several key findings.
Key Findings
“I think although the official website of each school may have information, but suppose I have 10 different departments to understand, I have to go to 10 different websites to find the correct information. This is very troublesome.”
P02
“The seniors are not easy to get to know, but those who do are the greatest source of information.”
P06
Persona
Click the link to access the behavioral spectrum
Design Process
Design Requirement
Based on the characteristics and patterns of our personas, we have defined two key requirements for the product.
Sketching Ideation
We conducted sketching ideation based on key design requirements, proposing 1-3 concepts variation for each. After comparing and discussing these concepts, we created prototypes and refined them based on feedback from each iteration.
Additional Insight Discovery
We recruited 11 participants to test our prototypes. The information gained from interviewing the participants after testing provided valuable insights, leading us to expand our design requirements.
"Preparing for the GSAT while also preparing my academic portfolio didn't allow me to focus on one thing at a time."
U06
At the beginning, when I didn’t know what to prepare or what to include, it was very frustrating, and I questioned why I had to do it.
U04
Solution
College Matching: Find the Right College Major and Compare Information
Matching Result
The matching results page shows the best college majors based on the student's interests, recommends suitable options, and lets users save favorites for easy reference.
Department Comparison Form
The table lets users compare programs from different universities side by side, with a dropdown menu to customize the comparison criteria.
Acquiring Experience: Obtain Information and Ask Questions
College Forum
The Forum allows users to share information, ask questions, engage with comments and emoji reactions, and efficiently search for relevant content.
Chatroom
The messaging enables users to connect with college students and ask specific, personal questions not covered in forums.
Portfolio Suggestion
The Suggestions page offers advice for creating Academic Portfolio files, providing clear directions that users can explore further to enhance their portfolio.
Schedule Preparation
The Schedule feature allows users to efficiently plan their time, explore university departments, and organize their Academic Programs with to-do lists and deadline reminders.
Validate
We recruited 7 high school students to evaluate the platform. Participants completed six tasks, including exploring departments, assessing suitability, using the Forum and Chatroom, and planning their academic portfolios.
All six tasks were completed successfully, with a 97.6% success rate
The System Usability Scale (SUS) score of 78.9 indicates the system is user-friendly and easy to navigate.
Suggestion
Improve Efficiency
Enhance Information Integrity
Takeaways
Leadership, User Research and Empathy
In this project, the biggest challenge was how to effectively help students choose and plan their majors using a digital platform within the existing educational system. Since I am somewhat distant from the current education system, it was crucial to deepen my understanding of its operations and challenges. I did this by conducting preliminary interviews with students and analyzing secondary data.
During multiple usability tests of Unicompass, we discovered that the “Academic Portfolio” system was underdeveloped within our application. This led me to improve this section of the system and gain a better understanding of its significance for students. The main takeaway for me from this process is the importance of “iterating the product multiple times to validate assumptions.”
Fragments of the Design Progress
