RIT Event Finder
A mobile application that hosts all the RIT events happening on campus. Users can search, save, register, get notified, and navigate to the events through this application.
We don’t want students to miss out on any of their college memories.
Duration: 3 months
Team: 4 Master Students
Skills: UX Research , Information Architecture, Prototyping
Tools: Overflow, Figma
CHALLENGE
“How can we create a seamless user experience for RIT students and faculty to find and attend their events of interest ?”
RIT students and faculty receive event updates through emails, mobile apps, and social media. With information scattered across platforms, it becomes challenging to stay updated and keep track of upcoming events.
SOLUTION
To address this challenge, our team designed a one-stop mobile app for RIT students and staff to discover, manage, and attend campus events. By consolidating features into a single platform, we aimed to simplify the experience and eliminate the need to juggle multiple apps and channels.
USER RESEARCH
User Research
Interviews and Affinity Diagramming
To glean more information about the challenges faced by users while trying to find events and to get an idea of the users’ expectations from an event-finding application we conducted user interviews.
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Participant Demographics: 12 participants which included undergraduates, graduates, and faculty members.
Goal: To glean more information about challenges users face while trying to find events and to get an idea of the users’ expectations from an event-finding app.
​We analyzed our interview data using the affinity diagram. We wrote our atomic data points from interviews into yellow post-its and started to cluster them as patterns were observed.
Key Insights
Users followed different platforms to look up for events such as emails, app and social media. 8 out of 12 participants relied on emails to get to know about events.
Users were worried they were not finding out about events they could be attending.
Reasons for not attending/missing out on events included
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missed out on an event update
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not a convenient way to explore events happening on campuss
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no reminders
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conflicts in schedule
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lack of company
Additional comments - Users wanted to network with others and attend events with friends. Users faced issues navigating to the event location.
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USER RESEARCH
Personas
Using the key insights from our affinity diagrams we created user personas to formulate the goals, needs, and pain points of our users.
Personas helped us uncover user challenges, identify needs, and design features that improved the event experience while aligning with expectations.
Targeted Pain points
Hard to explore events of interest
Missing out event notifications
Scheduling conflicts
Lack of company
Difficult to locate an event
Suggested Features
Search and filter , Engaging Map View to explore events
Customised Notifications and Reminders, Save events
Add events to your calendar application.
Share events with friends, Know if your friends are attending any events.
Map to locate and lookup for current events happening around.
Ideation
IDEATION
Scenario Mapping
Based on our personas, we created user scenarios to brainstorm on how our users might act to achieve their goals using our suggested features. User scenarios were designed with respect to each of our persona descriptions.
​It gives an overview of when, where, and how our users can use the suggested features of our applications.
Scenario 1 & 2
Scenario 1 and 2 explain the Search feature and the Live Map feature of the application. The Live Map gives user the information about the event happening nearby with respect to the user’s location in a map view. This gives users an opportunity to explore the campus and events around.
Scenario 1
Victor Lowe arrives on campus, on a Monday at 9:00 am, excited for his first day of college. He wants to make his way to his first orientation event, but he’s unsure about where and when exactly it will be held. He decides to try the RIT Event Finder app to find out.
Scenario 2
Victor has just stepped out of an informative, but long orientation session. He notices that it is almost lunchtime, and he is feeling pretty hungry. He remembers that his roommate had seen some information about an event on campus where they’d get a free slice of pizza on the Event Finder last night.
Sketch
Similar to Scenario 1 & 2, we sketched out user flows for Customization of Notifications and Reminders, Scheduling events and Sharing events. You can view the the rest of the scenarios with their sketches
IDEATION
Information Architecture
After deciding on the possible features of our application, I created its information architecture to visualize the structure of the app content and work on it further to make the design simple and intuitive to navigate.
Information Architecture Diagram
Feature Prototyping
The hierarchy guided the prototyping and creation of high-fidelity designs. I developed the application step by step, focusing on user flows and prioritizing the functions that users would interact with most frequently.
Explore Events – View, Filter & Save
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The ‘Events’ page gives a complete list of events happening highlighting the necessary information such as day, time and venue.
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To easily find an event of interest, users can filter out the list or search through all events.
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Save the events that interests you and want to revisit
​Add to Calendar, Set Reminders and Share Events
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Users can keep track of the events saved and registered by adding to the calendar and setting reminders so that they do not miss the event due to their busy schedules.
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Users can share events with friends on multiple external platforms to network and enjoy together.
Live Map
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A Live map is a handy feature for the freshers on the campus to navigate to different events within the application and explore the events happening around in a fun and engaging way.
Notifications and Settings
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Users get notified when an event of interest is updated.
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Users can select the type of events they would like to notify from the settings section.
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Settings give users the flexibility to set their frequency of notifications, reminders, and their default calendar.
Interaction flow
Project Takeaways
Diverge and Converge
I had the chance to collaborate with a team, share my design ideas with colleagues, receive feedback, and learn collectively. Initially, we each focused on our research and collected information independently. Later, we convened to discuss our discoveries, which allowed us to minimize bias and expand our perspectives. Collaborating with diverse researchers enabled me to see outcomes from various angles.
Figma Interactions
This project allowed me to enhance my interaction skills. It was my first experience creating a fully interactive prototype in Figma where I learned to utilize Smart Animate feature to record and showcase my prototype. I feel that interactive elements truly brings designs to life and brings them closer to the product.