Thesis Project

UX/UI Design, User Research, Visual Design

Objectives:

• Find an existing problem space and conduct research into its background and prior solutions 

• Ideate a practical solution, create a rough prototype, and perform user testing for further refining

• Develop a high fidelity prototype, and create a brief proof-of-concept video of your solution   

Topic Ideation and Research

This was my thesis project for my last year of Interaction Design. As stated above, the details of the project were to find a problem space, ideate a solution, and create a prototype of your solution.

For my problem space, I decided to look into stress and anxiety for post-secondary students. In my user research, I found that stress, anxiety, feeling overwhelmed, etc among students has increased over the years, while academic services for these issues are losing funding and personnel. Additionally, as someone who had several anxiety and confidence issues during my school years, I felt a passion to tackle this subject, and try to come up with a way to give people with the issues I faced a better chance to move past them than I did.

My initial solution was to create a communicative app that allows stressed users to text one another, additionally, if a user wishes to, there would be an option that allows them to quickly and efficiently schedule a meeting with counseling at their school. I assumed this would be a practical solution based on the idea that the users would be talking with someone who can understand what they’re going through and could help each other. After running this idea through counselling at my campus, I decided to pivot, due to complications such as people with stress possibly feeding each other more stress, moderators of chats having to be available around the clock, what to do if the users are in a personal crisis, etc. However, my idea of a quick and efficient scheduling for counseling was really well received, so I decided to build off of this concept.

Topic Pivot and Development

My idea would then evolve into an application within the desire2learn software, which is an online tool used by schools in Canada. This application would be designed specifically for students when they are facing stress and anxiety and school, and would direct them to other services should they enter ‘crisis’ mode. As I continued making additions to the concept, I would meet several times more with counselling to gain further input.

I would then work on creating a prototype of the application, which I had named Student Support, as well as the logo of the application itself, as seen below. The logo was meant to invoke the idea of a pathway, with the two S’s connected together with a circle to act as ‘point of interest’. Additionally the logo is meant to take on the main colors of the school that is using it; as it is an application available to all schools, it should be able to fit them in terms of color. Since my school was Sheridan College, I gave the logo the two blues of Sheridan.

My idea was split into 2 main segments, the first being a survey segment, and the second being the solutions segment. The survey segment asks users questions such as what issues they are currently going through, how long they have had these issues, how much these issues have affected them, along with options where they can type out there issues in as much detail as they want. These questions are meant to both allow users to vent their issues and emotions as well as filter the results in the solutions segment based on their answers. The solutions segment gives the users a number of quick and practical solutions based on their situations as shown by their answers in the previous questions, these solutions including emails to teachers with specific tags to inform them of the seriousness of the situation, quick and efficient scheduling for counselling, as well as various peer support options such as messenger, video call, and phone support dedicated for their program. These options were meant to tackle as many possible situations and needs students might have in their situations, and give them practical solutions when they need them, rather than long after the fact.

I also wanted to give users some emotional support and confidence, to reassure them as they go through the application. Given that this scenario is entirely digital, I had to find a way for the application to provide what I felt was meaningful reassurance to the user. I would conduct further research into reassuring language and test a variety of mockups I made for different portions of the survey section. In the end I decided on using the language in the picture below, where instead of trying to go as far as possible in an attempt to support the user, I tried to give the user some motivation to move at their own pace forward without ‘coddling’ them.

Finalization of Thesis

After editing my prototype multiple times based on my research, both on language and user testing, I had managed to create a functional prototype of my vision. Afterwards, I needed to create a proof-of-concept video of my application; I decided to do a motion graphic using the assets of my application, which can be seen below.

After working for a year on this project, I have learned a lot as my thesis grew, from the subtle effects of language on people, to the natural progression of my application as I built and the positive response it has received. It was here where I felt everything I had done in my program had come together, and it felt amazing to see how I had grown as a designer since then.

If you’d like to access my prototype, click here.