User Research using Design Thinking approach: uOttawa's prestige journey
Overview:
University of Ottawa is one of the prestigious bilingual universities in Canada, it offers a range of flexible courses for both undergraduate and Master's students of varied fields. However, we all students know the fact that a university has a lot to offer but it is still not recognized at the level it should be, there is always scope for increasing the prestige and getting it more recognized.
Research Goals:
1. To help increase the university's prestige, our areas of focus are uOttawa's Graduate programs, prospective and current students (the target audience for interviews and feedback) and the Definition of prestige per the user.
2. Furthermore, we will go through some workflows on the website and track the user clicks using loop11 software to understand the user's difficulties and how they can be improved.
Method and Background:
Method Chosen:
Design Thinking as it is user-centred and iterative.
Framing the Research:
Stage 1: Qualitative and Quantitative Approach to collect data - 2 surveys for prospective and current students. Interviews with students from different programs to understand different perspectives and their pain points. [Empathize]
Stage 2: Create user personas as per the key takeaways from the survey and interviews. [Define]
Stage 3: Brainstorm with team and come up with various feasible solutions in key domains. [Ideate]
Stage 4: As per the selected solution and targeted factors create a prototype plan. [Prototype]
Stage 5: By bringing the prototype back to the users for feedback, collect feedback with the help of interviews on protype. [Test]
Stage 1: Collect data (Qualititative and Quantitative methods)
Tools used: Google Forms, iphone (to record interviews), pen and paper (notes)G
Link to Google Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ipirCMB0kq-PSNQQZB3m-r4xUA1wWEvohRJ8BFlohxw/edit
Link for Interviews: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Gayz3yPY38LqRj8j8
Stage 2: Create User Persona
Stage 3: Potential Solutions
Stage 4: Prototype Creation
Stage 5: Test
Iteration and Lessons learned:
