Overview
The Problem
Note-taking at the college level is very limited in access. Most are taken on pen and paper and paid services that help to note take are expensive.
My Role
Project lead with an emphasis on late-stage prototyping and user research on a team made up of students from across the country
The Goal
Using universal design principles, create platform that compiles various note taking methods into a single application and database
Scope
A 5-week design sprint
The Process
Research
Prototype
Solution
Discover
Seeing the Problem:
Paired with college students from across the country, we teamed up together to find common pain points within our experiences. We all agreed that note-taking was an area of struggle for us, and decided to look further into the issue. Interviewing our peers, we came up with particular personas that had a need for a universally accessible note-taking app.
Research
Seeing the Market:
Knowing our user base, we took a look at note-taking apps that had already existed to see what was available for college students. We identified many different services, all with different capabilities and levels of access for particular user subgroups.
Prototype
Taking Our Progress Further:
Seeing the holes in note-taking services, we caught out to create an app that offered students different styled notes to promote universal design practices. This platform would offer users the choice to view class notes at any time in any platform of their choosing, from an audio file to a plain text file to better fit their individual needs.
Solution
Building Something New:
Designed by myself, our team created a high-fidelity prototype that illustrated the design principles and tools we had sought to produce a better learning experience for college student facing a variety of different needs.
Project Learnings
What I Know Moving Forward:
- Universal design promotes better products for all. Creating a note-taking tool centered around the idea that people learn differently helped us to expand possibilities for what a user’s needs might look like. Having a variety of learning methods available through this app showed me the power of inclusion when introduced at the start of the design process.
- Working with people from around the country works. Being at the start of the pandemic, I was skeptical of the effectiveness of our team, as we were from different parts of the world in different time zones. Once working with the team, I found our strengths came in our ability to communicate our work through a structured plan and platform.