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ClassMate

Upham Hall at Miami University is an academic building holding many historical and architectural values. However, its layout is confusing and lacks navigation instructions in the building. Therefore, we created ClassMate, a navigation app that helps college students find their classrooms promptly, decrease their frustration and confusion, and ultimately enhance their wayfinding experience.

  • Timeline: Oct - Dec 2023 

  • Duration 8 weeks

  • Tools: Figma

  • Role: User Research, UX Design, Prototyping, Usability Testing

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About The Project

Upham Hall, a renowned building at Miami University, is known for the Upham Arch tradition, symbolizing eternal love. Housing six departments, labs, and classrooms in its U-shaped, 4-story structure, it faces challenges due to its design and inadequate signage. Our 5-person team dedicated 4 weeks to researching and addressing these issues, utilizing secondary research, stakeholder interviews, and in-person observation, followed by 4 weeks of solution brainstorming and prototype design.

The Problem

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Confusing, illiterate and inconsistent signage

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Lack of accessible entrances and routes

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Inconsistent room numbering system

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Inconvenient bathrooms and elevators locations

Project Goals

1) Understand Experience Design and Wayfinding

2) Identify Upham's user's problems

3) Provide appropriate solutions to the problems

Design Process

Primary Research

To explore the problem sources, we interviewed the staff and faculty working in Upham Hall

Upham Hall originally was 3 separate buildings merged into one, creating a U-shaped architecture. This explains why when walking from the North Wing to the Center Wing, and Southeast Wing, the wall height changes, and there are stairs and ramps in between. This leads to an inconsistent room numbering system throughout the building. For example, there is room 167 on the first floor, but room 267 does not exist on the second floor. With the lack of patterns, users find it challenging to find their destination in Upham 

If the numbering system is confusing, then why don't we change the signs? According to our interviews with Dr. Scott Brown, Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Gerontology, Miami University no longer had its sign shop, and getting sign services from external sources is very expensive. Because of this, many departments had to change the signs on their own and use their budgets. In addition, Steven Sullivan, Director of the Hefner Museum, had to make his signs to help his visitors find the museum.

Fly-On-The-Wall Observation

As a team of 5, we scattered around Upham and observed the flow of the building during class transitions. We found that:
 

  • The Arch is the busiest area. Most students enter the building through the arch.

  • Students prefer stairs to elevators.

  • Depending on the students' classrooms, they enter the building through the destined entrances. 

  • When exiting Upham, students go through whichever door is the closest to them.

  • Students with different majors have different navigating patterns.
     

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Anthropology students go to different places in Upham. While Business students only have one place to go then leave the building.

Personas

Then, we identifies 4 main user groups and created their personas:

Ethnographic Video

To gauge a better understanding of Brian's user journey when navigating Upham Hall. we created an ethnographic video.

Point Of View (POV) and How Might We

find a faster way to move around Upham to save valuable time through the use of shortcuts.

Anthropology Professors

find pathways to classes through shortcuts to get in and out quickly to maximize their time.

Anthropology Students

need to locate classes reasonably by needing to only look at point A and the exit of the building.

All Students

Stakeholders' POVs

How Might We...

find wayfinding shortcuts for all users of Upham to help them get to their destination more efficiently and in a timely manner?

How Might We statement

Wireframing

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Our team brainstormed and proposed different ideas for the prototype

First Prototype

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Usability Testing

We interviewed 6 students and asked them to experience the prototype.
 
    1) They were asked to get to room 389 on their own
    2) Then, we gave them the app prototype and asked them to use it, repeat the process

We observed their behavior and time to perform the tasks. During the process, we followed along but did not interfere. We recorded their feelings, thoughts, and actions. 

Pros:

  • Easy to understand and follow along

  • Aesthetic user interface

  • Would actually use the app

  • 3 minutes shorter when using the app

Cons:

  • The map is confusing and hard to navigate

  • Lack of accessible options

Final Prototype

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Key Learnings

This project has taught me how to collaborate successfully with a team. It is very important to work interdependently towards a common goal, which is the users of Upham. Working as a team has its difficulties, such as miscommunication, and different levels of skills, but that also means we have to understand each other's strengths and delegate the tasks from there.

As an individual, this project has helped me better my prototyping skills in Figma. One thing I learned is it is very important to pay attention to small details and maintain consistency throughout the screens to ensure the user's experience inside and outside of the app. Additionally, A suitable solution is rooted in user research and interviews, and as designers, we immerse ourselves into the user's point of view through the Ethnographic video, and the POV and HMW exercise. 

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