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Design Document Team B: Helping Hoos

Abstract

Throughout UVA, there has been a disconnect between advisors and students. Many staff members have a wealth of knowledge to share, yet students continue to find themselves without the proper guidance when it comes to course scheduling and summer plans. In the process of multiple research methods, Team B noticed these gaps in knowledge. When students had questions about advising at UVA, many people didn’t have a peer to ask questions to, a mentor or an advisor. Instead of looking up who to ask a question to, their inquiries remained unanswered.

To combat these problems, Team B created an accessible platform where students, TAs, professors and advisors can ask and answer questions in a convenient manner. We are confident that with the implementation of our prototype, students can conveniently get answers to questions that they have had for a long time and create a more helpful and successful environment.

Empathize

During their first year, students are randomly assigned a faculty advisor. This advisor is responsible for ensuring that students enroll in the required general education courses as well as prerequisites for their major. Unfortunately, the advisors are often paired with students who are interested in a different department from their own. If a student has a question regarding the classes they are required to take in order to apply for or declare their major, they are often turned to the UVA website. Websites can be hard to navigate and oftentimes the importance of taking certain courses is lessened. Having personal, updated, and accurate guidance is far more useful. Academic advisement is not as accessible as it should be. Recognizing this problem, Team B: Helping Hoos reached out to friends and conducted professional interviews with experts to develop a solution.

Our research demonstrated a general frustration with academic advisement at UVA. While advisors try their best to provide tailored recommendations, they often lack the knowledge of the inner workings of majors outside their department. One student claimed she always turned to peer advice first because her adviser couldn’t answer her questions. Another noted that information regarding degrees and tracks is hard to find on the UVA website, as each department uses a different format to present this information. Our interviewees were searching for a better way to communicate their concerns and get their questions answered.

DEFINE

At the beginning of this project, we were given the topic of accessibility and were tasked with identifying a “How Might We” question regarding such. Through the ideation process, we brainstormed multiple user-oriented problems regarding accessibility, starting with the community of Charlottesville as a whole, then narrowing it down to the community of UVA, particularly first year/new students who may not be “in the know” of the ins and outs to the university. After going through several possible HMW questions, we finally settled on the issue of miscommunication regarding the operation hours of various UVA facilities for the brunt of this project.

However, after conducting user interviews throughout the course of the project, we took in their feedback and refocused our HMW question as an issue regarding the accessibility of information and how it’s not so well-known if people aren’t aware of the resources. This issue primarily takes root in the disconnect between students and their advisors who commonly specialize in a different major or field of study, making productive advising or guidance difficult to foster. From here, we were now able to begin working towards possible solutions to this accessibility issue.

Ideate

During the ideation process possible solutions that we explored were a randomized system to connect first years to upperclassmen in order to talk about their process, creating a space where professors and faculty could put tips and advice from what they have seen. We also considered a website with anonymous feedback and interactions for students to connect with advisor, a club that would enable people to complete a passion project with an older member. And lastly, creating an app or social media page that would help connect students to advisors and student advisees.

Prototype

We finally landed on our idea: Helping Hoos. This is an app inspired by Twitter and YikYak, promoting digital interactions for users’ questions to get answered. Our app would establish valuable connections among students and between advisers and undergraduates. Using Helping Hoos, a student can anonymously post a question, ask for advice, or even comment on others’ posts.

Testing and Iteration

What feedback did you gather?

Overall, our user feedback was positive. Users felt the app was friendly, professional, and felt similar to commonly used apps such as Twitter and YikYak. The functions of the app were overall positive but there was a suggestion to have swiping instead of tapping. Users also wanted the option to change their icon. It was also suggested that we change the contrast so that the app was easy on the eye. A night option was also recommend to adjust to the users surroundings or time in the day.

What improvement did you make or needs to be made in the future?

We listened to our users’ comments that there needed to be more contrast on our buttons. Previously, once a user pressed a button it would change from tan to brown. Now it changes from a light green to a dark green, a better indication of the app’s functions. We also heard suggestions for general improvement, such as adding the option for a user to choose their icon. In the future, we will elaborate on the methods we use to retain anonymity while simultaneously protecting other app participants.

Lesson learned by each member of the team:

Jade first-year College Student: “A lesson learned by working with my team is the importance of clear communication. Clear communication allowed us to effectively communicate with one another about our opinions and feedback during the design process. It helped us to fulfill our purpose in making our app. We were able to clearly communicate the why? which kept us motivated for the how? In the end clear communication helped serve the bigger picture of our design process which allowed us to make an app catered to peer advising, and our overarching goal of accessibility for all students. “
Laura, first-year College Student: “A lesson I learned throughout this project is to not hesitate to ask for help. I would generally not ask questions because I was confident I could work out a road block on my own, but from working with this team, I realized that we could get so much more done sooner by simply asking for clarification or guidance along the way. It’s not productive to try to fix an issue without a proper understanding of a solution, and by simply asking for help, we were able to troubleshoot a lot of miscommunications and issues with our app.”
Savannah, first-year College Student: “This program allowed me to unlock my creativity and realize the importance of a growth mindset. As a STEM major, I have always felt detached from my creative side. Through our readings, hard work, and seeing all of our accomplishments, I have discovered that anyone can be creative. Creativity, like any other skill, takes practice. Learning new technology requires patience, perseverance, and thinking outside of the box. I am incredibly grateful to my cohort and supervisors for facilitating a community where I felt comfortable enough to make mistakes and learn from them. I feel that because of this program I am a more patient, empathetic, and creative person.”
Jasmine, first-year College Student: “Through this project I have learned that the hardest step of completing a project is to get started. For the longest time, I have wanted to do all the things that I did in this program. I wanted to learn how to 3D print objects by myself, to create a product that would actually impact my community and to mentor younger students was a role model. Yet I never completed these goals before the Women’s Maker Program because I was nervous about the difficulty of the methods and the quality of the outcome. Since completing these objectives, I learned that 3D printing is not as difficult than it seems and that middle schoolers are actually excited to be mentored. Because of this program, I have found myself achieving more of the goals I have made for myself. I have also learned the power of teamwork as I have made a product that I feel proud about and new friends along the way.”

References

1. www.figma.com

2. www.canva.com

3. www.adobe.com/express

A big thank you to the students, teaching assistants, and accessibility experts we interviewed!