User Experience Research

The Princeton Companion

a product designed through inclusive research to make Princeton University resources accessible to students of historically underrepresented backgrounds and to address inequality in higher education.

Background

As a first generation student and mentor of graduate students at Princeton, I realized that a giant void existed between students of underrepresented backgrounds and knowledge of University resources. This experience motivated me to design the Princeton Companion to guide students through the intricacies of graduate education.


Challenges

  • To gain an understanding of disconnect between users and the University's resources, programming attendance, organization of online content,

  • To identify how users look for resources, if they know about them

  • To identify needs of users and propose a platform that centralizes information of resources and guides users through video and written content

  • To build partnerships between multiple stakeholders at the University

Role

As head researcher my responsibilities were to:

  • Create a timeline to define main goals in each phase of the development process.

  • Write research proposal and reports

  • Present findings with stakeholders.

  • Conduct mixed methods research

  • Recruit interviewees

  • Lead UX strategy and design.

  • Work with Senior Staff in the Princeton University UX Office. I worked under the mentorship of Dr. Charlie Kreitzberg.

Stage 1: Exploration

  • Conducted 1:1 interviews with graduate students and alumni from different departments, affiliations and associations at Princeton University.

  • I conducted the interviews in English, Spanish, and Portuguese

  • Conduct heuristic evaluation

  • Recruited and moderated focus group

  • Performed a rapid interaction scan with the current information architecture and paid special attention to students of underrepresented backgrounds to determine the process they followed to seek university resources.

The exploration phase aimed to:

  • understand the shortcomings of the current information architecture

  • better comprehend the needs and concerns of students.

Stage 2: Ideation Workshop

  • Communicated the findings from exploratory phase with stakeholders from the Princeton University Graduate School.

  • Created a brainstorming and remote card sorting session with stakeholders to identify matching priorities with users.

  • Conducted remote card sorting session with users to identify priorities in information architecture

  • Guided client to strengthen relationship with students through new content.

Stage 3: Design and Heuristic Evaluation

  • Designed low-fidelity prototype to conduct usability testing

  • Created wireframes to perform heuristic evaluation with the help of Senior Staff. Assessed the value of each feature and of content crafted in wireframes.

Stage 4: Testing

Conducted usability testing in three languages: English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Included feedback in new design and reiterated testing



The Princeton Companion's design depicts the principal features that best represent the needs of users.


FEATURES:

Short videos featuring graduate students and alumni to guide users through some of the most puzzling questions of graduate school. Users can learn from a wide arrange of testimonials to take full advantage of resources and opportunities. About 90% of students interviewed stated that they trust "advanced graduate students" about information of university resources. Less than 40% of them stated they had a relationship with an "advanced graduate student" in their first year of study. The short videos feature provides advise from "advanced graduate students" and points them to peer-mentorship programs.

Make an appointment: users can make an appointment with an expert in grant proposal writing, a trained wellness advisor, their librarian, or a specialist in career development. According to data collected, ~70% of students never met with their librarian, ~60% never attended a grant writing workshop, ~30% never met with a career development advisor.

Personal support: users are exposed to resources that may help them in their personal lives or in times of crises. Majority of interviewees stated that they were unaware some of these resources existed. Resources include: course book discount, mass transit subsidy program, grievance processes, legal help, family focused initiatives, and many more.

Stage 5: New findings and Roll-out

  • Provide the client with a report on some of the most important concerns expressed by users that could not be addressed by the Companion

  • Provide suggestions to client about roll-out of product based on data gathered from interviews. Propose inclusion of new advocates in the University to promote platform. Craft short video to inform students of new platform.

*This stage is in currently process