I helped an academic program find its identity among students and improved it through my research.
Project Description
I helped the University dig deeper in the perception of an academic major among students and provided actionable insights from the research data to improve it.
The research and suggestions helped the University significantly improve the way they promoted their academic program among students and its structure in the next academic year.
CLIENT
College of Information Studies, UMD
Role
UX Researcher
Team Size
6 members
Project Year
2021
Research & Tools
Miro
User Interview
Affinity Diagram
What is InfoSci?
The Information Science program, also known as InfoSci, is an academic program offered by the University of Maryland.
At the time of this project, InfoSci was a newly introduced major at the university.
The University's Goals
Rapid Growth
In what ways can be better adapt as the program grows?
Differentiation
How can we set InfoSci apart from other academic majors?
InfoSci Identity
What is the major's identity as seen by the student body?
Digging Deeper
To answer these questions, we performed contextual research among the students in and around the program.
User Interviews
We interviewed six students of varying demographics about their thoughts on the academic major.
Interpretation Session
Our team held interpretation sessions to understand the participant data and the key pain points.
Affinity Diagram
After understanding the data, we grouped it into an affinity diagram to look at the broader picture.
Key Issues
Academic Value
Many students failed to see the academic and career based value that InfoSci offered
Lack of Understanding
Students outside the InfoSci program weren't completely sure about what it was about
Course Improvement
Despite being happy with the program, students believed the course could yet be improved
Identity Model
We created a contextual model that depicted the various identities of the students around the academic major, and what they wanted from the program.
Relationship Model
We created another contextual model with the research data that depicted the relationship of the students with themselves, the academic major and the world.
Final Handoff
We handed research data and actionable insights in the form of affinity diagrams, identity model and relationship model to the College of Information Studies. Using our research, they made improvements to the course structure and the promotion of the program among students in the next academic year.
The Results
5
Major Pain Points Discovered
120+
Yellow Note Research Data
1600+
New Online Impressions
400%
Outreach Improvement
Reflections
This was my first research project, and the first time I interviewed anyone. I discovered that people give richer data when they become comfortable. People also love talking about themselves, and would give quality inputs the longer they are uninterrupted in their chain of thoughts.
What would I do differently?
Take more initiative. I was quite passive as a teammate in the beginning of the project and would wait for someone to delegate a task to me. Once I started being proactive, the project felt much easier to complete.
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