UMich Campus Navigation
Improving the University of Michigan's campus wayfinding app
Overview
ROLE:
UX Researcher
TYPE:
Class Project
TIMELINE:
4 weeks
Fall 2022
TOOLS:
Miro, Google Suite
Background
Our research question was preceded by the prompt 'UM would like to create a campus wayfinding app to help students'. To start our project, we began by evaluating the current state of the technology the University of Michigan offers to its students. We found that the apps made by the University were all very scattered, with lots of information spread out over several apps. There was a navigation app that did not function well, a campus acronym translator, a bus app, and several others unrelated to navigation.
My team of 4 total UX research students decided that we needed to conduct many types of research to assess:
How students currently get around campus
Students' navigational pain points
What technology is most frequently used
Therefore, we would be able to provide helpful recommendations for an app that would synthesize all the information across the multiple apps that the University currently offers.
What are the biggest challenges that students face in finding
what they need (e.g., classes, services, food) on campus?
01 / Research: Exploring User Needs
Overview
User Interviews
Surveys
User Interviews
Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria
We chose mapping for an interview activity; not because we thought we needed ‘maps’ of where students go around campus in the literal sense, but because we wanted students to have a physical outlet to actively think about their experience of getting around campus and be able to better communicate that to us rather than if we just asked them questions with no physical aids. We wanted to see which buildings students chose to draw while explaining their map, therefore showing us what their internal mental model of campus looks like, then draw a line representing their route and tell us in detail what things they experience on that route (ex. Construction? Shortcuts? Confusing classroom building hallways? Elevators? etc.).
This helped us learn both how students typically get around, their pain points with navigating locations they’re familiar with, and their mental models of how they get places they’re not familiar with and give us some ideas on how we can improve that experience. Link to the full interview guide.
Coding & Affinity Mapping
The first step in our research process was recruiting students to be interviewed so we could collect data. In order to make sure the data was relevant, we designed a set of inclusion/exclusion criteria to make sure we interviewed the right people. Our criteria were as follows:
After creating the interview guide, our team recruited and interviewed 12 students who matched our inclusion criteria to gather information. We then coded our interviews using “I” statements to parse out the useful points that were relevant to our research question.
Synthesizing our user interview data, including “I” statements and direct quotes, we were able to sort all of the information into categories pertaining to our research question (ex. walkability, technology usage, types of mental models, etc.) and create a Miro board to help visualize our findings.
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Criteria: Students who are not from the Ann Arbor area
Screening questions: What is your graduation year? Where are you from?
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Criteria: Students who are not from the Ann Arbor area who did not previously attend UM
Screening questions: What is your graduation year? What other Universities have you previously attended?
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Criteria: Students who transferred to the UM from a different university
Screening Questions: Are you a transfer student?
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Criteria: Students who are either admitted prospective students or just very interested
Screening Questions: Are you in high school looking to come to Michigan?
Key findings from user interviews
The vast majority of students get around campus by walking
Students tend to highly value efficiency, routine, and comfort when traveling around campus
Many have to use the bus system to travel to north campus, but dislike the bus app’s lack of usability and find the overall system frustrating and confusing
Students use popular campus locations like “the diag”, the union, major classroom buildings, etc. as landmarks in their mind to figure out where they are/where they need to go
Google and Apple Maps are the most popular technology resources that students use to help them navigate campus
02 / Define: Establishing User Needs and Problems
Overview
Persona Development
Experience Map
Persona Development
Bringing together all the data we had collected, I created the persona ‘Violet’ to represent and empathize with a potential target consumer of the app. Violet was meant to help us get a better understanding of the needs and goals of first-year students who may not be familiar with the UMich campus and would therefore use our app more than other types of students. The persona gave me a better sense of how my team could support students by looking their their goals, needs, pain points, and interests.
Experience Map
We then used our data to create an experience map for the experience of a typical student figuring out how to get to their class by locating the building, determining the route, and locating classrooms.
03 / Reflection: The Outcome
What I Learned
Since this was a UX research class and all of our class time was fully dedicated to working on a single research project for 9 weeks, I was able to dive really deeply into the process and learn so much about UX research. I had never done affinity mapping or experience mapping before, so those were completely new (and very helpful!) skills that I was able to learn, but I was also able to sharpen my user interviewing skills. My biggest takeaway was how much my user research has lacked in the past– since this project, I've incorporated even more research into my routine when I work with freelance clients, and I'm much more thorough.
Looking Back
If I could go back and do things differently for this project with fewer time constraints, I definitely would have liked to spend more time prototyping a final solution after all that hard research work. It wasn't part of our assignment, but I think it would have been a great way to provide our final recommendations for a new campus navigation app!