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Role: UI/UX Designer
Tools: FIGMA, Adobe Suite
Duration: 8 months
Finding the best events to attend on campus can be a difficult task for students, as most universities rely on a basic calendar system or email newsletter to share upcoming events.
Major Map is a mobile application that makes event discovery easier through a comprehensive filter system, map navigation, calendar integration, and event sharing.
For the Major Map design process, a Goal-Directed Design (GDD) approach was used to better understand students and help them achieve their goals when interacting with the app. GDD also helped keep the project on schedule. Qualitative research methods, especially user interviews and testing sessions, were highly effective in shaping the prototype and informing design decisions.
In order to build a strong foundation, it was important to review how prominent university websites and apps inform students about events and where they fall short. With feedback from interview participants, the team identified which features were most effective and how they could be improved. A competitive audit revealed that none of the existing solutions combined all of the features students wanted into a single system.
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| Map Navigation | |||||
| Event Filter System | |||||
| Calendar Integration | |||||
| Event Sharing |
Occupation: Student Traits: Adventurous, Disorganized, Creative
NarrativeDue to being a transfer student, Chris has a difficult time finding his classes on campus. Finding the best events to attend is an even greater challenge for him. He is tired of searching his cluttered inbox for school newsletters on events. He needs to effectively discover events based on his interest while on-the-go.
Occupation: Director of Student life Traits: Leader, Organized, Tech-savvy
NarrativeSamantha loves being the Director of Student Life. Although she loves sports, she would like to see a higher attendance rate at non-sporting events. She feels posting events on the school calendar and sending out newsletters is not enough. She needs a better way spread the word about the broad selection of events available.
After hours of research, the team gained a clearer understanding of student goals and was able to define project requirements. To prevent delays, features were prioritized using a plotting chart, which helped identify which elements were most crucial and which could be added as the app evolved.
A user flow was developed to visualize how students would interact with the application. This framework helped maintain focus on user needs while leaving flexibility for details to be refined later.
Users are given a broad selection of filters to find events based on their interests.
Via the map view users can find specifc events in close proximity to their location.
The in-built calendar enables users keep track of their daily schedule for events.
The Major Map GPS system will give users step-by-step directions to the event location.
On the Profile page, users are provided with data of their event attendance and event type.
The in-app chat system enables users to contact friends regarding upcoming events.
As someone who enjoys attending events, working on Major Map was both meaningful and engaging. The project provided an opportunity to experiment with new Figma features and refine the design process. Additional features are planned for future iterations, along with ongoing refinements to the overall experience.
