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Project overview
16 weeks
UX Designer
Project Manager
Figma
FigJam
Background
Discover the problems
When forming a team, the problems that exist among university students are related to two parts: Subjective problems and Objective problems.
Subjective problems
Language & culture barriers
Lack of icebreaker skill
Fear of repeating dysfunctional group experiences
Objective problems
Limited time to socialize
No effective icebreaking activity
Fail to understand assignment’s objectives and goals
Reinforce self-introduction to people in the same class
Tutor design and provide effective icebreaker activity easier
Gamify message interactions between students
Four purposed solutions
The Must-Have features
Build an effective and personalized self introduction
Game
Provide interactive icebreaker to support teachers engage with students in the class
Pool
Visualize interactive student groups in mutual interests and game result
The Should-Have feature
Chat
A chatroom for all the invite messages and team group
The Nice-to-Have features
Connect
Review the people who are looking for teammates
Improving the design for the real-world users
Usability Testing
The test has 2 phases: Before Exercise and After Exercise. Each phase has 3 tasks for the participants to complete.
Phase 1: Preparation
On week 1 before class, the teacher ask classmates to install IceMelting App to play the icebreaker game
1
Play the Big 5 personality test and answer the answers to complete profile
2
Play and complete the Icebreaker game on the App
Phase 2: Form Team
On week 1 to 4 before the deadline, the teacher ask classmates to find their teammates using the App
3
Interact with classmates using your game results
4
Review classmate’s profiles and invite suitable teammates
Profile iteration
Profile page is designed to mobile in the high-fi prototype to provide a better accessibility for students to use
Low-Fi
Mid-Fi
High-Fi
Game iteration
Overall game flow was trimmed and graphic was added to provide a better user experience
Low-Fi
Mid-Fi
High-Fi
Pool iteration
UX was improved by adding list components and organizing the tabs for a better visual hierarchy
Low-Fi
Mid-Fi
High-Fi
Final Outcome
The final touch for the outcome
Home
Home page is treated as a dashboard of the user status. Profile, Game and Team feature are arranged and listed to inform user important data and deadlines. On top, an IceMelting character is shown to tell users what’s their next step according to current time and progress.
Profile
Users must build their profile to unlock pool feature to view other student’s basic information. A Big 5 personality test and a few questions related to the course expectation must be answered to complete the profile.
Game
The Spark Note game collects student’s answers related to the final group project topic, and it spread the answers to all the students in the same class to interact with, which helps students know each other and build a health communication channel before the class start.
Pool
Pool page visualizes student groups from their expectation on their profile and game result, which helps students find others with mutual interest easily, and form a team that has a balanced teammates.
Team
On each team, teammates can decide their team name and slogan together. The team can be a public board that display the teammate’s comments and expectations in the course, which makes the team-forming and team-building process more enjoyable.
Chat
Chat feature can be used as a communication channel and the interaction tool for icebreaker games.
Try it yourself!
The challenges of IceMelting product is obvious: there are no reference products. The idea is brand new and, as a team of 3 design graduate students, we have to build the prototype from 0 to 1. There are three key takeaways below:
Consider all the stakeholders to design a vague idea
Game feature is proposed by our UX researcher after she conduct a solid desk research on university websites, student learning behaviors, and teacher’s pain points. I learned that, for the vague idea project like IceMelting, we have to consider all the stakeholders in the beginning and research for them.
The tester will feel it if you truly want to solve their problem
Our supporter Allie, who is a senior UTS teaching academic, is very helpful to guide us go through the problems faced by the university teachers not only during the interview but also the user testing. Once the participant find the idea is helpful for their life, they would love to provide their thoughts and experiences!
Project manager is not the design lead
As the project manager and UX designer in the team, sometimes I have to explain the UX design thoughts to the UI designer and tell them you must complete the result before deadline, which is very stressful. I learned that even if you think you are helping them, you still can not intervene other teammate’s job to help “speed-up” the workflow. Let it be and let it go!
Our final goal is to complete the project by making another teacher’s platform to cooperate with the student’s platform. Unfortunately, due to limited time and each teammate’s schedule, we end up making this project a casual study group form to suit our time. Hopefully, we will see IceMelting become live in the future!
