strategy | human centered design | innovation
RE-IMAGINING STUDENT EXPERIENCE SPACES
exploring how student facilities might be better designed for improved student experiences
Red Team: Ideate|Iterate|Dominate
"A problem well stated is a problem half solved"
-John Dewey
GOAL
university administration sought to upgrade certain student facilities
our team was tasked to focus on the legacy student center
How Might We: improve the student experience at the legacy student center?
APPROACH: STEP 1
observations
Through detailed observation of the space, our team noticed students seemed to gravitate to certain areas more than others, perhaps for specific social needs
APPROACH: STEP 2
user interviews
from our observations, our team decided to focus on understanding how the environment and services contribute to the student social experience at the legacy student center
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we then conducted 15+ qualitative interviews and I developed an interactive game to understand users expectations, delights, and needs from the space
SYNTHESIS
data > behavioral modes
our team combined our qualitative data to develop user behavioral modes, or the transitory differences in the way people make decisions or interact in a certain context or environment
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We identified needs, values and pain points for each mode (intentionally social, accidentally social, or socially agnostic), and I drew the user journeys based on their key behaviors in the space for each behavioral mode
RESULT
From our research and data synthesis, our team recommended tailoring the design of the legacy student center (or future facilities) to the specific needs of each behavioral mode
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Discussions for upgrades and renovations were still ongoing at the time of this post
LESSONS LEARNED
key takeaways
open-ended questions and interactive games were crucial to truly understanding the users, context, and situation to properly frame the problem
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additionally, even though the predominant user personas were similar, they behaved very differently based on which behavioral mode they happened to be in
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Red Team: Me, Brian Vogt, Kinsey Hart, Raphael Rangel, Alex Zimmerman