63% of college students not involved in extracurriculars find it difficult to make friends, according to Inside Higher Ed. We focused on helping students stay motivated and engaged in campus life, especially those struggling with their time management and social life.
Our solution? A reward system that encourages students to show up, be productive, and make connections along the way.
UX Designer, Researcher
Figma, Balsamiq, Lucidchart
14 weeks
September-December
My team and I interviewed six University of Memphis students to better understand the challenges they face. I personally conducted two interviews, and my team collaborated to pull recurring patterns.
From these patterns, we developed three personas to guide our design decisions.
The Club Member struggles to manage her time and wants better ways to promote her club.
The Transfer Student feels isolated and hopes to make new friends by becoming more involved on campus.
The Ex-Club Member gave up on joining clubs due to schedule conflicts, but still wants an easy way to find events that fit his schedule.
To test early concepts, we ran six speed-dating sessions, where we pitched different app ideas to users and gathered immediate feedback. I conducted 2 out of the 6 sessions. The clear winner? UOM Rewards.
Before jumping into wireframes, we created a user story map that helped us figure out which features to prioritize and streamline our design. The map helped us visualize the user journey with features such as creating tasks and redeeming rewards.
User Story Map
I led the design of the low-fidelity wireframes using Balsamiq to quickly map out the structure and layout. We conducted early user tests and heuristic evaluations with our peers, which helped flag usability issues, like no error prevention when deleting tasks and no visual confirmation after redeeming a reward.
We used that feedback to refine the experience and build a high-fidelity prototype in Figma. I led the design and interaction flow, making sure it was clean, consistent, and fully functional for the final demo.
Users complimented our app’s minimalist layout and intuitive flow. During our think-aloud usability testing, every participant successfully completed the core tasks without confusion, validating our navigation choices and minimal interface.
Looking back, I believe we could’ve better addressed the social anxiety and isolation students mentioned in interviews. One idea? Let users see what tasks or events other students are doing to encourage meetups.
Some users weren’t sure how rewards were earned. If I were redesigning today, I’d replace the vague progress bar with a more transparent point-based system to show progress and build motivation.
