Role
UX Researcher
UX/UI Designer
Team
3 UX Designer
Tools
Adobe XD
Figma
Miro
Google Suite
Duration
1 Week
Background
BRIDGEGOOD 🌉
BRIDGEGOOD is a non-profit based in Oakland that provides resources and training for student creatives to prepare for their careers in tech. The studio is offered as a space for students to work on career development.
Currently, there is no formal way to reserve a seat at the community studio, students and tech companies would have to email Yudy, BRIDGEGOOD’s Program Manager, which is unmotivating, tedious, and unclear.
BRIDGEGOOD's studio
Solution
We decided to design a feature on the BRIDEGOOD website so it streamlines the process of registering a seat at the community studio and motivates more attendees to come to Open Lab.
Reduce the Back and Forth Communication 🔁
Save time and minimize miscommunication by streamlining the process through a reservation system.
Reserving a Seat for Open Lab
A Welcoming Community 🫂
Offering skills for early professionals eager to learn! Users can see attendees who also registered.
Attendee Lists for an Open Lab event
Unique Selling Propositions
Let's start from the beginning 🐣
User Research
Understanding our users 🧠
We began with Lightning Talks with the Program Manager and Executive Director. We learned...
Vision
The main purpose of the studio is for students to work on their communication skills, team building, and collaboration, and for mentors to drop by and help students.
Challenge
Although the purpose of the community studio seems enticing for developing professionals, not many students would show up to these open labs.
so...
Why don't many students attend open labs in the community studio?
Research Goals
Motivation 💪
What would entice students to attend open lab?
Consistency 🔂
Why didn’t students continue coming to open lab?
We interviewed two types of students:
Student who have never attended Open Labs
(why didn't they go to Open lab?)
Student who have been to Open Labs
(Why did they stop going?)
Insight #1
Lack of Attendance
Currently, the community studio is open for long hours with a few people attending the last few hours. For the organizers, this feels very exhausting and unrewarding.
Result: The feature allows you to reserve a time slot at the community studio so the studio will close during the times no one comes.
Insight #2
No Interest
Students expressed no interest in coming into the studio because they don't need the extra help.
Result: The feature displays the benefits and purpose of Open Lab on the landing page to make it more enticing and motivating to come. It also showcases a list of attendees to make the community studio less intimidating.
Competitive Analysis
Makers Workspace Landing Page
Scheduling Calendlar Layout of Calendly
Makers Workspace offers private studios available for rent where visitors can fill out their online application (Google form) if they're interested in a studio.
Calendly is the current top scheduling app. It allows users to reduce the manual labor of scheduling, making sure the users are never double-booked.
Low Fidelity
To the Drawing Board ✍️
Low-Fidelity Usability Testing / A/B Testing
Test for Success 🙌
Testing #1
Hero Image vs Carousel of Images
Users preferred the hero image because...
- Users prioritize the blurb about open lab over images
- Carousel of images would be distracting
- Eliminates banner blindness
Static Hero Image
Carousel Hero Image
Testing #2
Unique Selling Proposition (USP) Layout
Users preferred the horizontal layout because...
- It was more simple, concise and laid out in a digestible way
- It allowed for scanability vs readability
Horizontal layout
Bullet Point Vertical Layout
Testing #3
Landing Page Order
Users preferred the Landing Page where offerings comes before the events because...
- Users wanted to know about the program more before knowing about the events available
- The "offerings" section will build user interest
- Users won't want to attend an event if they're not initially interested or committed
Landing Page Where Offerings Comes Before the Events
Landing Page Where Events Comes Before the Offerings
Testing #4
Time Selection: Drop Down vs Slider
Users preferred the drop-down menu for time selection because...
- The drop-down menu focuses on the start and end times for availability which prioritizes the necessary information for reserving a seat at Open Lab
- The slider menu prioritizes the entire period of the time selected which isn't necessary for telling the organizers when you are dropping by and leaving
Time Selection: Drop Down Menu
Time Selection: Slider
Hi-fi Prototype
Improving the Work Flow of Reserving a Seat ✨
BRIDGEGOOD's Open Lab Landing Page
Reserving a Seat for Open Lab
Saves Time: The Calendar View gives an overview of all the seats available for each time and date so the user doesn't have to communicate back and forth with the Program Manager when finding a time to come in.
Attendee List: When selecting a date and time, the user can see attendees who also registered. This makes open lab less intimidating and more motivating to come.
Terms and Agreements: The rules when reserving the community studio are now clearly displayed on the Terms and Agreements and minimize miscommunication.
Reflection
Looking Back 😌💭
Prioritizing a Problem to Solve
After synthesizing our student and stakeholder interviews, we were passionate about solving the problems we discovered in our interviews such as (1) gaining more attendees to come to the studio and (2) gaining company sponsors and revenue to sustain the free community studio for students. Due to the time constraint, we were not able to tackle all of these problems. This led to a blocker because it was difficult to prioritize which problem we wanted to solve. However, by rediscussing with our stakeholders and reanalyzing our interview insights, we were able to pick a direction with this project.
Always Go Back to Your Research!
Throughout this project, we learned the importance of referring back to the research. Not only did our research help us overcome the blocker of not knowing which direction we want to go with the project, but we also utilized research to brainstorm features we want to include to cater towards the optimal experience for BRIDGEGOOD users.
Next Steps
If we had more time, we would conduct user testing to ensure that the user experience is intuitive.
We would also like to tackle our other How Might We’s:
How might we create a purpose for the community studio?
How might we attract more people to come?
How might we gain company sponsors and revenue to sustain the free community studio for students?
