RIT EVENT FINDER

RIT Event Finder:Top

PROBLEM STATEMENT

It is difficult for RIT onsite students to keep a track of ongoing or upcoming events (academic or otherwise) occurring across campus. Availability of several notification platforms for different events, has lead to student confusion and they miss out on important events.

This project was completed by me and my three teammates as part of Information and Interaction Design coursework between September 2019 and December 2019.

PROPOSED SOLUTION

A prototype of a unified platform called RIT Event Finder

in the form of a mobile application where students can find desired events easily and can also filter or manage notifications according to their preference.

Show Features >

METHODOLOGY

Milestone 1

QUALITATIVE

RESEARCH

>

Milestone 2

AFFINITY DIAGRAMMING

>

Milestone 3

BEHAVIORAL VARIABLES AND PATTERNS

>

Milestone 4

PERSONAS AND LOW FIDELITY PROTOTYPE

>

Milestone 5

HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPE

>

USER DEMOGRAPHICS

MILESTONE 1

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

We conducted Semi-structured Interviews with organizers, students, alumni and staff as mentioned in the User Demographics.

RIT Event Finder: M1

During the semi-structured interviews, users were asked open-ended questions about the events they prefer attending on campus, how do they find them and the challenges they face while doing so. They were also asked to interact with their preferred method of finding out about events.

Their actions, behaviors and reflections were then carefully noted.

MILESTONE 2

AFFINITY DIAGRAMMING

Collected data was analyzed using Affinity diagrams to identify user challenges.

RIT Event Finder : M2

Data collected from interviews was broken down into small chunks of individual piece of fact or information. These were then written on different post-it notes and pasted on a white board. Individual notes which were found to be similar after comparing to other notes on the board were then grouped into clusters.

Each of these clusters represented different methods employed by users to find events, the different challenges faced by them, reasons behind these challenges and their suggestions.

OUR AFFINITY DIAGRAMS

Yellow notes - Single observation, insights, concerns (primary level)

Orange notes - Specific issues in blue area of concern

Blue notes - Describes aspects revealed by yellow notes

Pink notes - Overarching area of concern (high level)

IT'S ALL ABOUT TEAMWORK !

My teammates and I working on the

Affinity Diagrams.

WRITE. COMPARE. GROUP. REPEAT.

Initial Stage

Grouping similar images

All about post its

Initial Stage

1/5

FINDINGS

Information about events difficult to find, lack of a single source.

Users worry they are not finding out about events they could be attending.

Users want to configure the way they see and access information.

Users want to better manage scheduling between classes, activities and events.

Users want to network with others in finding, sharing and attending events.

Users want to link information from different platforms in accessing information about events.

MILESTONE 3

BEHAVIORAL VARIABLES AND PATTERNS

Based on behaviors and attitudes, similar users were grouped into different types of users

RIT Event Finder : M3

Behavioral Variables - Aspects of behavior and attitude that differ between participants.

Example: Frequency, Goals etc.

Each participant is placed within each of these categories based on their responses.

Behavioral Patterns - Patterns are formed after grouping users within these variables(Clusters).

PARTICIPANTS

USERS ARE GROUPED TO FORM BEHAVIORAL PATTERNS

The interviews and affinity diagrams from the previous milestone gave us the following set of behavioural variables -

EVENTS

Cultural : Arts, Festivals, Traditional etc.
Fun : Freebies, Free Food, Crafts, Boardgames, etc.
Sports : Playing and/or Watching matches or tournaments
Academic : Networking, Guest Lectures etc.

REMINDERS

Less to more frequent.

FILTERING GRANULARITY

Coarse to Fine grained filtering of notifications

DIFFICULTY LOCATING EVENTS ON CAMPUS

Difficult to Easy

REASONS FOR MISSING EVENTS

Data about events hard to find.
Schedule or timing clashes between events.
Attendees may lack the motivation to attend a particular event, due to a lack of company or other social/mood dependent factors
Lack of Reminders.

PREFERRED MEDIUM FOR NOTIFICATION

More to Less number of platforms.
Automated notification frequency to Manually checking for information.

EXISTING MEDIA OF EVENT INFORMATION

Social media
Word of mouth
Emails
Applications/Website

BEHAVIORAL VARIABLES AND PATTERNS

REPRESENTATION

1

3

2

4

MORE VARIABLES

Proceed to Milestone 4 and 5 >

RIT EVENT FINDER

PROBLEM STATEMENT

It is difficult for RIT onsite students to keep a track of ongoing or upcoming events (academic or otherwise) occurring across campus. Availability of several notification platforms for different events, has lead to student confusion and they miss out on important events.

This project was completed by me and my three teammates as part of Information and Interaction Design coursework between September 2019 and December 2019.

PROPOSED SOLUTION

A prototype of a unified platform called RIT Event Finder

in the form of a mobile application where students can find desired events easily and can also filter or manage notifications according to their preference.

METHODOLOGY

Milestone 1

QUALITATIVE

RESEARCH

>

Milestone 2

AFFINITY DIAGRAMMING

>

Milestone 3

BEHAVIORAL VARIABLES AND PATTERNS

>

Milestone 4

PERSONAS AND LOW FIDELITY PROTOTYPE

>

Milestone 5

HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPE

>

USER DEMOGRAPHICS

MILESTONE 1

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

We conducted Semi-structured Interviews with organizers, students, alumni and staff as mentioned in the User Demographics.

During the semi-structured interviews, users were asked open-ended questions about the events they prefer attending on campus, how do they find them and the challenges they face while doing so. They were also asked to interact with their preferred method of finding out about events.

​

Their actions, behaviors and reflections were then carefully noted.

MILESTONE 2

AFFINITY DIAGRAMMING

Collected data was analyzed using Affinity diagrams to identify user challenges.

Each of these clusters represented different methods employed by users to find events, the different challenges faced by them, reasons behind these challenges and their suggestions.

​

OUR AFFINITY DIAGRAMS

Yellow notes - Single observation, insights, concerns (primary level)

Orange notes - Specific issues in blue area of concern

​

Blue notes - Describes aspects revealed by yellow notes

Pink notes - Overarching area of concern (high level)

​

IT'S ALL ABOUT TEAMWORK !

My teammates and I working on the

Affinity Diagrams.

​

​

WRITE. COMPARE. GROUP. REPEAT.

​

​

FINDINGS

Information about events difficult to find, lack of a single source.

​

Users worry they are not finding out about events they could be attending.

​

Users want to configure the way they see and access information.

​

Users want to better manage scheduling between classes, activities and events.

​

Users want to network with others in finding, sharing and attending events.

​

Users want to link information from different platforms in accessing information about events.

​

​

​

MILESTONE 3

BEHAVIORAL VARIABLES AND PATTERNS

Based on behaviors and attitudes, similar users were grouped into different types of users

Behavioral Variables - Aspects of behavior and attitude that differ between participants.

Example: Frequency, Goals etc.

​

Each participant is placed within each of these categories based on their responses.

​

Behavioral Patterns - Patterns are formed after grouping users within these variables(Clusters).

​

​

​

PARTICIPANTS

​

Schedule or timing clashes between events.