Waggle: App Design for GT students to find
On-campus Assistantships
Overview
Problem Statement: How might we simplify the process of finding on-campus assistantship positions for graduate students?
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Timeframe: August-December 2019
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Solution: Waggle: a mobile-based application for helping students find jobs and systematically prepare for them
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Teammates: Candice Butts, Yash Lara, Gurudutt Perichetla, Yangyi Xu
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My Role: UX Researcher
Process
Generative Research
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Surveys
Interviews
Synthesis
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Affinity Mapping
Descriptive Statistics
Storyboarding
Design
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Ideation
Wireframes
Low-fi Prototypes
High-fi Prototypes
Interactive Prototype
Evaluative Research and Iterations
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Expert-based Testing
User-based Testing
My Contribution
Generative Research: Devised Research plan and timeline, literature review, recruitment of participants, designing of survey plot and interview questions.
Synthesis: Analyses through affinity mapping and descriptive statistics. Helped brainstorm and create storyboards.
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Design: Drew design implications from the research findings, participated in brainstorming and ideation.
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Evaluative Research and Iterations: Conducted and analyzed four heuristic evaluations and two user feedback sessions and drew design insights for further iterations.
Generative Research and Synthesis
Generative Research
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Surveys
Interviews
Synthesis
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Affinity Mapping
Descriptive Statistics
Storyboarding
Design
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Ideation
Wireframes
Low-fi Prototypes
High-fi Prototypes
Interactive Prototype
Evaluative Research and Iterations
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Expert-based Testing
User-based Testing
To understand the breadth of the problem space as well as the depth of the issues that are typically faced by graduate students, we decided to gather data through surveys and interviews.
Surveys
Rationale:
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Online surveys were used to get a general background about how the process of finding on-campus assistantships is perceived to be and what experiences graduate students have had with this process.
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Sample:
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51 responses were obtained from graduate students at Georgia Tech who held an assistantship, those who were looking, and those who were not looking but were interested.
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Analysis:
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Sample questions and responses
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Findings:
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Most students reported finding assistantships upon talking to professors directly and/or volunteering in a lab.
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68% of students reported that they found the process of securing these positions to have a moderate to a high level of difficulty.
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There was a unanimous feeling of prevailing confusion with regard to the process of securing these positions.
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Some students reported applying but not hearing back.
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82% of the respondents reported wanting some help or assistance with this process so it can be more centralized and systematic.
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Rationale:
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To gain an in-depth understanding of graduate students' experiences, beliefs, and perceptions of the process of finding assistantships, we used interviews.
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Sample:
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10 graduate students from Georgia Tech were interviewed, which included students who held an assistantship, those who were looking, and those who were not looking but were interested.
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Analysis:
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Pain Points:
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Issues with how to communicate, whom to communicate, and what to communicate about.
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Confusion about the kind of work to be done, the skills required, and match of interests.
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Unclear guidelines about where and how to find these positions.
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The application process seems to be decentralized and esoteric.
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Lack of adequate information on lab websites/ professors' profiles.
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The application process is unsystematic and varies for each application.
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Interviews
Research-Informed Design Insights
Design
Generative Research
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Surveys
Interviews
Synthesis
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Affinity Mapping
Descriptive Statistics
Storyboarding
Design
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Ideation
Wireframes
Low-fi Prototypes
High-fi Prototypes
Interactive Prototype
Evaluative Research and Iterations
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Expert-based Testing
User-based Testing
Divergent Designs
Design #1
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The first design incorporates a job board that allows applicants to easily search for and apply for GRA/GTA positions. Our research showed that there was not a centralized repository for jobs and information about these jobs, and this design will allow the students to see the list of job postings in one place and easily apply.
Design #2
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The second design incorporates a peer-to-peer connecting platform that allows students to easily search for and apply for assistantship positions based on their skill. We incorporated a simpler way to apply to jobs by just swiping. We came to this solution after finding that students wanted an easier way to apply to positions within three clicks.
Design #3
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Our third design incorporates a familiar platform that allows applicants to easily take up courses before applying for Graduate Research Assistant and Graduate Teaching Assistant positions. Our research showed that students often face a trade-off between interest and skill set.
Convergence of Designs
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Presented the designs to the faculty members and students of Georgia Tech in a poster session and gathered feedback.
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Conducted surveys that asked the users which of the three design ideas they liked, which features of the design ideas they liked, etc.
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The hybrid design we eventually narrowed down to was named “Waggle”, which is a platform to simplify the process of finding assistantships for graduate students of the Georgia Tech.
Final Design: Waggle
Evaluative Research and Iterations
Generative Research
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Surveys
Interviews
Synthesis
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Affinity Mapping
Descriptive Statistics
Storyboarding
Design
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Ideation
Wireframes
Low-fi Prototypes
High-fi Prototypes
Interactive Prototype
Evaluative Research and Iterations
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Expert-based Testing
User-based Testing
Expert-based Testing: Heuristic Evaluation
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Heuristic evaluations carried out with five experts in the field of HCI and UX.
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Based on the applicability and relevance to our design, selected 10 heuristic principles, on the basis of the heuristics laid out by Nielsen and Molich (1990).
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Recruited Human-Centered Computing Ph.D. Students and HCI Faculty to perform heuristic evaluation and a task-based think-aloud session.
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We received very positive feedback from the experts, especially in ‘Usefulness’ and ‘Ease of use’, they all gave the highest score, while ‘Predictability and Consistency’, ‘Low Error Rate and High Error Tolerance’, and ‘Clarity of Tasks’ are the three heuristics with the greatest usability issues.
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Able to identify the usability errors in our design from an expert’s point of view. We received feedback about the “Alerts and Notifications” screen that it didn’t offer a lot of interactivity since it would open up external links through Outlook and not within the app itself. The users felt that it would be more appropriate to send messages within the app.
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Based on the feedback we received, we redesigned and changed various features of the app to maximize the usability of the app. After our redesign, the app was considered to be easy to navigate and aesthetic with minimalist design.
User-based Testing: Task-based Think aloud Sessions
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Students from the HCI, Computer Science, Industrial Design and Digital Media graduate programs were recruited to participate in a task-based think-aloud session. After the session, we handed out a System Usability Scale (SUS) Evaluation form and words list to select the words that were most descriptive of their interaction with the app.
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Two key findings from user-based testing were: A SUS score of 90.83/100 Most participants chose the following words: Convenient, Innovative, Clean, Effective and Comprehensive.
Design Implications
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Present a welcome message for onboarding.
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The ‘Get Started’ button could only be kept at the end of the onboarding pages.
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The labels ‘Hide’ and ‘Explore’ could be renamed to match something that the users would expect them to mean. Swiping feature and its functions could be shown through a small video tutorial for easy navigation.
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Skills and Interests should be based on a predefined list that might be best to eliminate the explosion of words that have been misspelled, etc. Re-label Tags to be Skills in job postings. Provide an x/y modules completed label instead of xmodules completed. Change the “Learn” label to something that is more self-explanatory.
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Some description about the “Courses” section could be added again on the main page of “Courses” after the onboarding. Filtering alerts might be useful if people are trying to look for certain emails. Editing of name, email address, or photo should be allowed.
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Add an “Other” option to add a different asset - may need to offer a way to include more than one “other” asset. Add a small customizable description about self when making the profile.
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Identify information that job posters and students want to know. Provide functionality for a job poster to close a job so that students cannot continue to apply.
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A back button could be prudent so that people can track their path through the app.
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Make the colors consistent.
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Remove the arrow (the maximize function) on the top or make its function clearer.
Iterations
Future Directions
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App design for faculty members and a hiring portal.
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Integrating existing campus resources into the process of finding assistantships.
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Incorporating other stakeholders (faculty members, directors, online students, alumni, etc.) into the process.