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Inspired Self-Exploration with Class Selection

Inspired Self-Exploration with Class Selection

Capstone project with local Pennsylvanian school district about encouraging course exploration in high schoolers
Capstone project with local Pennsylvanian school district about encouraging course exploration in high schoolers

Client

South Fayette School District

Duration

6 months

Team

4 member capstone project

Role

UX Designer

Task

Design a solution that inspires high schoolers to explore different classes during course registration

Project Overview

I worked as a main Interaction and Visual Designer for our prototype, mockups, and presentation design system.

the pdf in question

Initial Problem
South Fayette High School has over 500 classes, but they’re all condensed into a thick 200 page pdf. How might we inspire students to explore and take advantage of all the available classes?

the pdf in question

My team
My clients
And the solution is . . .

Future Frame

Future Frame

A prompted, digital vision boarding activity that encourages self-identity growth
A prompted, digital vision boarding activity that encourages self-identity growth
Want to skip to the finale?

Check out the final prototype

Check out the final prototype

Click to View

Click to View

How did this impact our client?
How did this impact our client?
Research Report + Implementation Guidelines
Research Report + Implementation Guidelines
Design solution for students to learn about themselves
Design solution for students to learn about themselves
New course registration procedures
New course registration procedures
Initial Research

Turns out the problem isn’t a long pdf.

Turns out the problem isn’t a long pdf.

From our research, I realized our opportunity space lied within how students made decisions and not how the classes were organized.
Over the course of 3 months and 30 student interviews, we gained more insights about how students currently choose their classes. Most students tend to rely on word-of-mouth or advice from people they felt were reliable.
Some of these main influences are:
Some of these main influences are:
Teachers
Parents
Friends
Many of our interviewees mentioned having interest in a career path because of family members or someone else in their close circle.
Although high school seemed like the perfect chance to explore, students also felt like they didn’t have enough space in their schedule to just ‘try different things.’
From the initial research, I discovered that . . .
Students rely greatly on others to help them make class decisions because limited time and space in their schedule.
Why is this an issue?
Although these influences are trustworthy and have the student’s best interest in mind, they don’t always represent what the student likes or wants to do.
Rather than finding a solution to help students make their decisions, suddenly the real question lies in finding how students can know themselves better in order to make those decisions independently.
Problem Statement

How might we encourage more self-awareness and sense of self in students so they may more confidently try things that interest them?

How might we encourage more self-awareness and sense of self in students so they may more confidently try things that interest them?

Research + Ideation
What UX research methodologies will help me define and clarify the solution?
Research Method 01: College Admissions Counselor Interviews
I spoke with 5 recruitment administrators from Carnegie Mellon to learn how a student’s actions and decisions in high school translate to college decisions.
Schools evaluate relevant Advance Placement (AP) classes.
Some departments will look at AP scores to see if students can handle the rigor of certain majors.
They want to see what students do with their interests outside of school.
Admins mentioned how it was more important to see how a student used their passion to impact and help their communities.
Incoming freshman are scared to make mistakes but not upperclassmen.
When freshmen see how 1 action doesn’t negatively affect them, they’re more open to exploring different classes and interests.
Research Method 02: Teacher and Administer Contextual Inquiries
In order to understand all of our stakeholders, I interviewed about 10 teachers and school administrators to get their thoughts about how students decide classes, their part in the course registration process, and what they think of it.
Teachers like seeing the long-term growth and progress of students.
Many teachers mentioned wanting to hear updates about past students and seeing how their advice helped them after high school.
They like learning more about the students but don’t want to ask about tough topics.
Teachers and admin want to know more to give better advice but don’t feel comfortable bringing up personal topics.
They don’t have a lot of time for each individual student.
Because of lack of time, teachers spend about 5 min talking to each student about their plans for next semester’s classes.
From there, I took our insights and brainstormed ways to get students to openly explore and express their interests and self-identity.
From there, I took our insights and brainstormed ways to get students to openly explore and express their interests and self-identity.
These are the different ideations.
Ideation Concept 01: Augmented Reality Exploration
Experimenting with spatial modality, our team set up AR exploration sessions with 30 students to see if students would find it more engaging to walk around and explore where their classes could be.
What I learned
This method helped students visualize possibilities in the moment but not remotely outside of school walls.
Ideation Concept 02: Avatar Creator
The avatar creator is a concept where students added different components such as clothing and props to visualize how they viewed themselves.
What I learned
This method gave me a better understanding how how students think of themselves but didn’t really get students to think about their future selves.
Ideation Concept 03: Course Mapping
Course mapping was a way to see how different methods of presenting information about classes would inform student’s thinking process better.
What I learned
This method was helpful to see how students organized and visualized class info but didn’t really help me understand the student themselves.
Ideation Concept 04: Vision Board
As a vision board concept, I asked students to use images that represent themselves and their aspirations and then to find connections between each image.
What I learned
This method got students to think outside of their current self-view and to think more about their future aspirations and how their current interests align with those goals.

Key Takeaways

Visualization helps bridge the gap between hoping a goal will be reached to believing a goal will be reached.
Solutions are the most meaningful when they reflect the student point of view.
Solutions should spark some connection to actionable steps or helpful resources.
From rounds of user testing, we concluded that the vision board was the best concept to relay those key takeaways.
The Solution

Future Frame is a web application that guides students to thoughtfully visualize their interests and short to long-term goals about various aspects of life.

Future Frame is a web application that guides students to thoughtfully visualize their interests and short to long-term goals about various aspects of life.
After multiple rounds of user testing, reiterated the Future Frame prototype until we reached the final version.
From these wireframes:
To these final mockups:
To these final mockups:

View the Prototype

Click to View

Click to View

Why Future Frame Works

Why Future Frame Works

Visualization is a familiar concept to a student’s current behavior

From decorating bedrooms with their favorite posters to pinning things inside their lockers, many students already embrace visualizing their likes and goals.

Nuanced method of prompting students to think about their lives

Future Frame provides guided questions to encourage deeper thinking about how a student envisions their ideal future self and life.

Ability for students to add onto and reflect about their goals

Rather than being a standalone activity done during course registration, it is encouraged to use Future Frame throughout the year to ensure students have actionable steps to their changing goals.

Conversation starter for students to talk about their goals

Using their Future Frame vision boards, students are able to lead and drive the conversatation about their goals and aspirations. Teachers are able to organically learn more about a student's life.

Things I learned

Stakeholders may not know everything about their users
In the beginning, our stakeholders already had an idea about why students didn’t really explore classes, but the reasonings were very different from what we learned after interviewing students.
A solution shouldn’t just make the current system more efficient
Although our main users, students, already had a working methodology for choosing classes through word-of-mouth, it doesn’t mean the design solution should be a more streamlined way of communication.
If there was more time. . .
I would interview a wider variety of students to ensure that they are able to engage and benefit from the current design solution.

Things I learned

Stakeholders may not know everything about their users
In the beginning, our stakeholders already had an idea about why students didn’t really explore classes, but the reasonings were very different from what we learned after interviewing students.
A solution shouldn’t just make the current system more efficient
Although our main users, students, already had a working methodology for choosing classes through word-of-mouth, it doesn’t mean the design solution should be a more streamlined way of communication.
If there was more time. . .
I would interview a wider variety of students to ensure that they are able to engage and benefit from the current design solution.

Things I learned

Stakeholders may not know everything about their users
In the beginning, our stakeholders already had an idea about why students didn’t really explore classes, but the reasonings were very different from what we learned after interviewing students.
A solution shouldn’t just make the current system more efficient
Although our main users, students, already had a working methodology for choosing classes through word-of-mouth, it doesn’t mean the design solution should be a more streamlined way of communication.
If there was more time. . .
I would interview a wider variety of students to ensure that they are able to engage and benefit from the current design solution.

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Index
Problem
Research
Solution