Team

Charles Meng, Allison Tanaka, Anita Rani, Himani Kumawat

Role

UX Designer

Duration

11/2024 to 12/2024

Tools

Qualtrics, NotebookLM, Figma, Slack

Improved event communication

Fragmented communication creates challenges of staying informed about events and announcements. It comes at a cost.

This case study showcases our design process, key findings, and prototype ideas for a solution aimed at enhancing communication at the Silicon Valley Campus.

Context

We targeted an internal issue my colleagues and I faced. With my team, we directly communicated with students, faculty, and researchers - among other methods - which informed our approach.

My Role

I led the team in conceptualizing potential solutions—designing frameworks and prototypes, and creating the user testing protocols.

Timeline

This was a 5-week endeavor, checking-in with various stakeholders (faculty, and students) for feedback and direction. ~1 week dedicated for design, 2 days for testing and 2 days in between for reviews/revisions.

Background

University of California, Santa Cruz’s second campus, the Silicon Valley Campus (SVC) comprises a dynamic hub of four main programs:

  • Human-Computer Interaction

  • Natural Language Processing

  • Games and Playable Media

  • Computational Media

Problem

Despite its vibrant community, members had concerns of fragmented communication channels — creating a pattern where critical information (class announcements, social events, financial info.) gets buried, and programs miss opportunities to connect with each other.

Research

Given the scope of the project, and time constraints, we utilized cost-effective approaches to get the most outreach within the community.

  1. A survey meant for all user types at SVC, including students, researchers, professional, community managers and faculty.

  2. Literature Review of relevant studies.

Goals

  1. Learn behaviors around event engagement

  2. Gauge satisfaction with current communication channels

  3. Understand the importance of certain communication features

Insights

Surveys

Organizers currently using 3-5 different platforms to broadcast events.

Slack and word-of-mouth were the most used platforms for announcements and discovery.

Literature review

Through synthesis of various articles, and from our surveys, we came up with a set of communication guidelines.

"It would be great if it was all in one place."

Literature Lessons

01

The desire for cultural exploration could be additional factors that directly or indirectly impact a student’s decision to attend a university event.

(Harb et al., 2021)

02

In events related to innovation, education, and training:

  • Maintain effective communication with participants

  • Allocate sufficient and effortful preparation time

  • Facilitate communication, collaboration, and event documentation

(Jurascheka et al., 2020, as cited in Antineskul et al., 2023)

03

Consider distance learning students:

  • Lots of coursework - can be difficult to maintain studies and manage communications.

  • Fear of Missing Out

(Masrek & Baharuddin, 2023)

Data → Designs

Recommendation

Don't make an app. Leverage existing platforms!

Slack Calendar

Slack is the official communication channel at SVC, so what if there was a separate, internal channel displaying these events?

Different view types

We explored different types of calendar view types (weekly/monthly), and event views to provide users with more flexibility with accessing information.

Usability Testing

Procedure

We had students, and community managers test our working Mid-Fi prototype. Testing involved a supervised observation of the participants actions, and patterns, combined with a think-aloud protocol.


After a total of 6 tests, we noticed some consistent behaviors and attitudes.

While participants appreciated the interface of Slack Calendar, they were reluctant in deciding whether they would switch over from competitors like Google Calendar.

Students and community managers felt that there was little distinction between this and Google Calendar. What's the draw towards Slack Calendar? To our participants, it felt like another calendar app to onboard users to.

New Recommendation

  • Many members at SVC use Google Calendar

  • Look into the Google Calendar Slack integration

HiFi Explorations

Even though we scrapped the original solution, the insights were still helpful - it gave us ideas for how different features would look.
For example:

  • Different Calendar displays

  • Event view details

  • Filters and tags

  • RSVP methods

Thank you!