CO.

A UX research and app collaboration project

the problem

Since the GBDA (Global Business and Digital Arts) program is at one of the University’s satellite campuses, students would often find it difficult to stay connected with other facilities from the main campus to collaborate on various projects. Students were challenged with working in a narrow environment with the added frustration of the lack of communication.

the solution

CO. is the application our team developed that encouraged cross-faculty collaboration and networked using an innovative gamification approach.

CO. was the name we chose that easily represented co.nnection, co.mmunication, co.llaboration, and a new co.mmunity. It’s an app that lets you post and discuss ideas, while also allowing you to manage projects and grow your outreach to people with similar interests to create professional growth.

who we were designing for

Our target audiences were the students in the GBDA Program at the University of Waterloo in Stratford Ontario, as well as other faculty students outside of our satellite campus. These were individuals passionate about their professions ready to work with students in other fields of study.

Project Duration

This project was completed over the course of four months.

Tools used

Adobe Illustrator
Figma
Slack

THE PROCESS

To start off our project we interviewed various students from other faculties as well as other GBDA students to pinpoint what students exactly needed for effective cross-collaboration. We also sent out short surveys using Google Forms to gain a general understanding of our target audience. The responses we received mainly focused on the need for a project organization platform that could also be used for the purposes of networking.

Our next step was to create an Ecosystem Analysis for our project manager. This analysis was to grasp the market for our problem, the various competitors, and the implications it might create. In addition, our team also created various user personas to better understand the users we are designing for by examining their goals and challenges based on our initial survey and interview research.

Some of the challenges established in our personas were troubles students had attending events due to social anxiety and effectively working with developers and designers outside our given faculty.

Creating an application that allowed for effective cross-collaboration and networking was our solution to solve these challenges. A platform students could use to step out of their comfort zone and build connections with the students in the GBDA program as well as various students on the main campus.

Experience Mapping

In order to map out our application experience, we mapped out one of our persona’s journey to gain insights on how to make more interactive, encourage collaboration, and motivate its users to reach out and network at various events around campus.

Gamification

Establishing a reward system was key to this project in creating an engaging environment for users to navigate through. Every time a user completes a task or attends events it gives them a chance to gain new features and perks boosting their personal brand. In addition, a rating system after completing every project was included as well, to ensure an effective feedback system.