Welcome to Prime
Discovering a new welcome gift for Full-stack students at Prime.
Project Overview
Client
Prime Digital Academy in downtown Minneapolis is an immersive job training program offering both a UX Design program and a Full-stack program.
Image via Prime’s Facebook
Problem
At the start of each program, students receive a welcome gift from Prime. These gifts were found to be impersonal and poorly received from students from the Full-stack program. Prime was looking for an alternative welcome gift for them.
Photo via Prime’s Facebook
Solution
After a heuristic analysis, research, and evaluations it was uncovered that Prime’s Full-stack students shared 4 key values. They are brand, collection, creation, and community. The best way for Prime to provide value to their students in a meaningful way was to gift an object that appealed to those 4 values. My solution is a vase.
The best way to bring value to our users is to uncover what is most important to them
The Journey
Heuristic Analysis
After contemplating the details of the project, the first step I took to find a new recommendation gift to welcome Full-stack students to Prime was a heuristic analysis of their current welcome gift. The current gift is a stainless steal water vessel.
The current gift for Full-stack students at Prime, a metal water bottle.
The Heuristics I measured for were:
Visibility of system status
Match between system and the real world
User control and freedom
Consistency and standards
Error prevention
Recognition rather than recall
Flexibility and efficiency of use
Aesthetic and minimalist design
Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
Help and documentation
Bellow you can see 3 examples from my Heuristic Analysis of the original gift. Click the button below to download the full report.
Task: Leakproof
Task: View contents in cup
Task: Sanitize/Clean
This Vesel did pass our Heuristic Analysis, which indicated that the reason our users did not find value in it was hidden in a deeper layer. We needed a better understanding of our user.
User Goal:
Our User is new Full-stack student at Prime,
Who wants to receive a personal welcome gift from their new Academy
Research
I had two tools to use for research to better understand my users. Touchtone tours of user’s study space and a survey of past full-stack students.
Touchtone Tours
While I watched these videos, I took special note of patterns that emerged. I gathered quantitative data, like how many of the users had plants, multiple monitors, and how many had ergonomic chairs. When users had collections of thing, (plants, tchotchke or books) I categorized that data by size of collection. I also gathered qualitative data, taking special note of the way that users described the objects in their study space.
Survey Results
I also had access to survey results for new students at Prime. As I analyzed the data, I looked for patterns in their answers. I took inventory of how many students commented on a variety of subjects and noted either a positive or negative association to them.
The results of my research
Research Findings
After combining my findings, I came up with the following 4 values that our users held.
Brand: Our users care about Prime’s Brand. They want to engage directly with it and show others they are part of it.
Collection: Our users had collections of objects and those collections brought them lots of happiness.
Creation: Our users are in a program where they build something new using code on a computer.
Community: Covid-19 has changed lots in things in our world, in this case the way that people create and maintain community. This community is important to our users.
To provide value to our users, we need to find a new welcome gift that represents these 4 values.
My Favorite data has both qualitative and quantitive components.
Prototypes
To fulfill those 4 values for our users, I needed to design 3 different design concepts. I made sure each design fulfilled the needs of Brand, Collection, Creation, and Community. I sketched out a vase, a book of Alumni Letters and a desk cube.
Proposal 1: Vase
Proposal 2: Alumni Letters
Proposal 3: Desk Cube
Prototype for Evaluation
After a round of critiques with fellow UX Designers, I moved forward with the vase proposal and created a low-fedility prototype for evaluation. This vase was selected as a welcome gift for several reasons. Assuming users want to feel connected to other students, this vase serves as a physical manifestation of their class. It serves as a totem for users to form an emotional attachment through. Assuming users curate collections of objects in their study space, this vase was selected to be included in such a collection. At its core, the full stack program is about creating, this vase can be used in a variety of ways, allowing users to create their own use for it.
Evaluations
I had the opportunity to interview 3 current Full-stack students at prime for 15 min each.
I had 5 keys goals when I was developing my script.
Understand the connection users feel to the Prime Brand.
Understand the relationship users have with their collections
Learn more about how creating things does or does not bring value to our users life.
Understand how the users participate in community in the age of COVID.
Understand if our vase proposal achieves our coal as a good welcome gift for users.
To help me understand my users, I interviewed 3 participants over slack and recorded our session.
Evaluation Results
I was able to achieve my goals during my evaluations.
For example, the following pieces of data were very significant to me.
3 of 3 participants choose to go to Prime because it had the best reputation.
3 of 3 participants had collections in their home.
3 of 3 participants liked creating websites.
3 of 3 participants liked feeling connected to classmates.
Client Pitch
At the end of the project I had the opportunity to give a brief 5 minute presentation to the Leadership at Prime to persuade them to move forward with my proposal.
My proposal had 3 main elements.
Journey:
I wanted to show the audience how I acquired my data. Before I presented my discoveries, I wanted to explain how I got there. Not only to establish my own credibility, but to reinforce the credibility of my data.
Results:
This is what I discovered. I wanted a dedicated section in my presentation just to focus on the results of my findings. Each value I uncovered Brand, Collection, Creation, and Community received their own slide and special attention. If were were to achieve our goal, my research said these are the 4 values our gift must fulfill.
The Gift:
In addition to debuting the prototype of the new gift, I returned my results to the screen and explained how each pice of data I collected was represented by this prototype. I showed that this gift was the path to providing value to our users though these 4 values.
A copy of my presentation deck and a video of the presentation are available by clicking the buttons below.
