ApolloSC
Timeline
6 Weeks | March-May 2024
Role
Product Designer, Front-End Developer
Skills & Tools
User Research, Product Strategy, UI Design
Team
PM - Fayzan Mirza
Dev - Tahlia Coleman
Dev - Tahlia Coleman
Challenge
How might we enable students to discover and collaborate with like-minded peers on campus?
College campuses are vibrant hubs of diverse skills and ambitions, with students eager to gain real-world experience through class, projects and potential startups. Yet, finding like-minded collaborators often hinders these aspirations. A solution is needed to provide intuitive tools for discovering teammates, fostering connections, and tailoring to campus dynamics. By empowering students to collaborate, we can help them turn ideas into impactful projects that enhance their learning and growth.
Research
INITIAL PROBLEM STATEMENT
Connecting with collaborators is often fragmented and inefficient, making it challenging to build meaningful projects.
Through my interviews, I discovered that users of similar apps and services were often frustrated by the difficulty of finding collaborators who were seriously committed to projects and as skilled as they claimed to be.
Painpoints
Many platforms don’t have enough active users, making it hard to find collaborators.
Searching for the right collaborators is often slow, unstructured, and inefficient.
It’s difficult to verify if potential collaborators have the skills or dedication required.
Students struggle to connect with others outside their immediate networks or disciplines.
User Personas
Zara: The Aspiring Creative
BIO
Freshman Graphic Design Major
Eager to gain feedback and improve skills
Eager to gain feedback and improve skills
VALUES
Learning and self-improvement
Receiving constructive critiques on her work
Connecting with experienced peers
Receiving constructive critiques on her work
Connecting with experienced peers
USER OBJECTIVE
Get valuable critiques on their work to grow and become a better designer
Ted: The Ambitious Founder
BIO
Senior Business Major
Experienced in leading teams and launching projects, including internships
Experienced in leading teams and launching projects, including internships
VALUES
Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Working with reliable collaborators
Turning ideas into tangible products
Working with reliable collaborators
Turning ideas into tangible products
USER OBJECTIVE
Assemble a strong team to develop his startup idea
Ideation
After research, I formed a clearer idea of the problem.
Revised problem statement
Students struggle to find collaborators due to decentralized methods of connection, inactive users, and unverified skills levels.
I used my core findings as a foundation to generate potential solutions. For each problem, I explored multiple approaches to identify the most viable and impactful options:
Decentralized Methods
Lack of Feedback
Skill Verification
1. The existence of the app does a lot to address this issue
2. Campus specific integration for registration and filtration of peers
3. Collaborative interest groups around shared topics (e.g., startups, design, sustainability) to foster interaction
1. Separate feedback page with a form
2. Require feedback in order to allow people to connect
3. Feedback buddies
1. Skill-based microtasks/certificates
2. Endorsement System
3. Interactive work samples
I also had two conflicting ideas for an ideal app layout that would funnel people to these features.
profile-centric design
separation of functions
Layout
Focus on user profiles as the central element, combining both networking and critiquing features on the same page
Two distinct tabs in the bottom navigation bar: one each for Networking and Critiquing
advantages
Allows users to network and critique simultaneously and offers a comprehensive view of each user’s contributions and skills
Clear division of functions makes it easy for users to navigate and allows customization of each section for its unique purpose
challenges
Requires strong organization to avoid overwhelming users
Users can feel disconnected between the two experiences and neglect one of them
As I learned through user research, finding collaborators or collecting meaningful critiques on your work can be overwhelming and disjointed. Knowing this, making an intuitive and seamless experience were top priorities. To ensure this, I created task flows tailored for each main user objective
Prototypes
I started the design process with some (very) basic ideas for the layout of key features to ensure their effectiveness in tackling the problems, and to allow our dev to start to build the framework.
How might we present profile information effectively?
How might we encourage users to provide feedback to each other?
Products
From there, I built out the rest of the app - check it out below!
Learnings
Use psychology to design incentive structures for engagement
Encouraging experienced users to give meaningful critiques is a challenge. Rather than simply allowing users to critique, Apollo should reward engagement, such as: Unlocking additional networking swipes for critiquing. Displaying reputation scores or badges for high-quality critiques. Highlighting top contributors in a visible leaderboard. Introducing an upvote system where users can “endorse” critiques to improve visibility and credibility.
Hick’s Law: Limit the choices users are given at once
If users see too many options at once, they may not take action. The critique request flow should guide users step by step rather than displaying an overwhelming form. Instead of showing all critique categories at once, the system could progressively reveal fields based on the type of work being critiqued.
Gradual Onboarding Eases Cognitive Load
Introducing mechanics step by step prevents users from feeling overwhelmed. Using sequential onboarding helps users acclimate to VR interactions without breaking immersion.
