Project Principles
The process starts with identifying the problem. Once the problem is identified, core principles are established to guide the project along. These principles are ideas that the team believes are important to a successful project. The principles are initially vague, then defined later.
The Story
University staff had little to no means to support or aid the development of student operations. Resources such as space and capitol were scarce. Even worst, marketing opportunities, such as flyers or web announcements, required prior approval from the University Student Operation Staff, resulting in long delays. When finally approved, students lacked proper methods of communication to accommodate their busy school and work schedules. Their was no infrastructure to support students in creating a community to socialize or network.
The 2017 survey conducted by the Student Government from Harrisburg University polled 50% of all undergraduate students. It suggested students were most likely to attend an event when their friends spread the hype to them through word of mouth. Future events could further raise awareness through social media influence by sharing photos from recent events. The biggest influence was the mention of "FREE FOOD", with 100% saying they would attend in their free time for free grub. This reflected the attendance results from the 2016 academic year, which correlated "Free Food" or "Tournament Prize" tripling the attendance. Like wise, the monthly attendance record from the Development club, along with their initial debut, reached the second highest attended club; the Asian Culture Club being the first. This was due to their word of mouth campaign and facebook page.
To best address the problem, students must first improve their marketing techniques, then a revision of the Universities Protocols, finally an implementation of a communication tool to make information more accessible. Due to the time constraints of this project being carried out by busy students, the project will be carried out in three phases. Phase 1, improving the marketing skills of the clubs, demonstrate the idea of accessible information, and test it live. Phase 2, develop the communication tool based on the results from the demo, and user test. Phase 3, implement and support.
User Interface Design
The UI design provides a mobile first strategy. This is because students tend to have easier access to phones when looking up information than their personal computer. Some students also use the computer, but generally for writing, developing, or designing. The general student body will be retrieving information frequently, while rarely updating it themselves.
Results
Phase 1 ended at the end of the 2017 academic year. Student engagement was at it's highest, with club rosters doubling in size and event turnout almost tripling. Compared to previous years, Freshman in particular were the most engaged; normally they were the least.
Project Challenges
There were three challenges for this project, instructing fellow university students to market effectively, how to provide accessible information in one place, and to leave intuitive development instructions for the phase 2 teams. The two most difficult were instructing the university students and intuitive development instructions. Frankly, because university students are quite busy between school, work, and finding time, at some point, to sleep or socialize. As the semester progresses, the latter decreases substantially.
Luckily, Phase 1 started in the first semester of 2017. Clubs and events have yet to begin creating their monthly schedules. Both myself, and the President of the SGA, met with each club for their first officers meeting to discuss methods on how to improve their attendance. Almost all clubs agreed and adjusted their schedules to allow one month in advance for critical events, three weeks for main events, and 1 week for minor. This was two allow students maximum amount of time to adjust scheduling conflicts with work or other obligations. All clubs where also asked to submit their schedules to SGA monthly, and apart of a monthly SGA meet.
While working with the clubs, and interviewing random students, the Student Government believed a social media like site would offer the best solution for accessible information. This would also allow the school to continue monitoring and evaluating student activity, help with their marketing, and drastically decrease the approval process time since a lot can be automated.
Lastly their is the intuitive development instructions. To over come this the best idea was to create a fully working prototype to demonstrate how the application would work using AdobeXD prototype and share functionality. Document instructions will then be provided as a high level guide.
