NUShare

A central web portal for Northeastern students

New students enrolled at Northeastern University have many queries related to housing and feedback on different courses. They don’t have a centralized platform where such queries are answered.

I worked alongside my teammates to gradually and iteratively build a prototype from ground up, that solves the above mentioned user problem. This is a comprehensive look at our UX Design process, prototypes, user studies and analyses.

Note: This project was part of our course curriculum and none of it was ever implemented and shipped to the actual NEU student portal.

CHAPTER ONE

Elevator pitch and User analysis

Elevator pitch

NUShare is an online portal designed for the students at Northeastern University to connect with other students on campus and help to ease their study-life. It is a customized form of social media with features that enable students to have easy access to multiple resources in a quick, organized and efficient manner. The two main features we propose and implement here are Book-Share (for sharing books between students) and Housing Reviews (reviews about housing locality nearby university campus).

User analysis

Who will use this product? -> The users who will use the website are the students of Northeastern University. The target audience for the website will be majorly the new students joining the university, so that they have a portal to connect with current students and post any queries related to subjects, accommodation or commute etc. or ask for help in any situation they come across.

Demographic of the users? -> As the targeted audience for this product are students, the age group might vary from 22 - 35 years. Due to its simple interface, students who are familiar with social media websites will be able to use it with ease. The only requirement would be that they are enrolled in a course at Northeastern University and have a husky e-mail id.

CHAPTER TWO

Storyboard

Storyboard for book shareStoryboard for carpoolStoryboard for housing reviews
CHAPTER THREE

Paper prototype

CHAPTER FOUR

Pilot User Study

(SURVEY, QUESTIONNAIRE AND DATA ANALYSIS)

    Following was the task list the participants were asked to perform for the study:
  • Editing their profile
  • Follow other users
  • Finding and creating new circles
  • Find and click on NUShare
  • Search for books on Bookshare section
  • Search for a locality on housing reviews
  • Post a comment in the forum
  • Access the quick links
  • Click and view the HELP section
  • Logout at any point in time

This was the survey that the participants were asked to fill out:

This was the questionnaire that the participants were asked to fill out:

DATA ANALYSIS

Summary from QUANTITATIVE data collected from the Questionnaire

    Positives:
  • No major pre-requisites required! The users could navigate through the portal with the minimal awareness of the use of websites
  • Simplicity of the system was a big plus point, as the users’ ratings leaned towards the system being simple
  • Users were happy to recommend the system to others which would help reach the tool to a greater audience
    Negatives:
  • The user’s were slightly leaning towards not using the system very frequently (but this was expected as the target audience was to help students who are new or just starting their new semester)

Summary from QUALITATIVE data collected from the Survey

From the survey we got the data that most of the users need to go various portals in order get access to books and any reviews on housing, below is the statistics

Another statistic showed that the students had to get housing reviews in person (after being locally here on the campus). This suggests that current existing platforms for housing reviews are not providing the exact details which the students are looking for and they need more information through different means, as in this case they need to connect to various people who have already stayed in different areas

We see that the students almost never find the book which they require from the library!!

Conclusion

    What went well?
  • As per our metrics previously, we could get the results on the positive side
  • Of total 10 tasks each 83% were successfully completed without any hassles or any assistance
  • Total time taken to use the portal and use its features was less than 5 minutes, which is under the threshold
    What can be improved?
  • There were four errors which could be handled better in our system:
    1. Book-share description was misconceived to be a hyperlink :: Can be resolved by making the text fonts and colour different from links
    2. The results in Book-share were expected to be hyperlinks :: Can be resolved by making individual textboxes for each result returned, so that the relevant options are present within the same box
    3. Circles concept was not clearly understood :: Can be resolved by putting a header of description once into the circle page
    4. Housing reviews didn’t have apartment names/numbers but only locality :: We can sub-divide locality with popular & unpopular apartments
  • Frequency of use of the system can be improved by promoting circles feature where students can frequently use it to connect and interact with other students
  • Recommendation to others received a positive note but once we eradicate the errors we should aim to reach 100%!
CHAPTER FIVE

Wireframes

CHAPTER SIX

Medium Fidelity Prototype

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