Elizabeth, Vincent, David

Elizabeth, Vincent, Dave P.

Table of Contents

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• Executive Summary, Section 1

• Competitor Analysis, Section 2

• User Interview, Section 3

• Affinity Mapping, Section 4

• Personas, Section 5

• Story Board, Section 6

• User Needs Vs. Business Needs, Section 7

• Why A GA App?, Section 8

• Problem Statement, Section 9

• Problem Statement, Section 10

• Analysis of Portfolio Management Sites, Section 11

• Feature Prioritization, Section 12

• Tech Spec, Section 13

• Sketches and Ideation, Section 14

• User Testing, Section 15

• High Fidelity Annotations, Section 16

• Next Steps, Section 17

Executive Summary

General Assembly is a pioneer in education and career transformation, they specialize in today’s most in-demand skills. The leading source for training, staffing, and career transitions, they foster a flourishing community of professionals pursuing careers they love. General Assembly has 15 locations around the world, 25,000+ alumni community. 250 + expert instructors and began as a co-working space in 2011 has since grown into a global learning experience.

In this Technological age, Having a mobile presence is the norm. General Assembly leverages the latest technological tools to provide their students with an engaging, blended online and offline learning experiences, yet they do not have a Mobile App. This is truly a missed opportunity. The General Assembly App can foster the great community that it has by offering the same kind of positive experience it does in classrooms. It gives students a safe space for sharing their work, cultivating a positive feedback community, building new relationships and staying informed.

Our process consisted of user research techniques like competitor analysis, affinity mapping and user interviews. From our research we were able to address the needs of the user which is a mobile app that aims to foster the community that General Assembly has. It creates a safe space for it’s students and is a convenient way to engage and stay informed.

GA and NY Code+ Design Academy have a website but not a mobil app. Consistent and prominent use of imagery are prominent throughout the companies.

COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

General Assembly and Flatiron School have the higher tuition. General Assembly offers the most services.

COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

• GA and Coursera have the easy navigate websites because of their organization information.Branding and imagery through all the competitors are consistent.

• All competitors except Flatiron have international campuses which allowed them to have student from all around the world.

• Their alumni have a good portfolio placement, which makes it appealing for perspective students and employers.

• Through all competitors only GA and Flatiron school offers introductory classes, which helps new students make decision about applying for the course.

• Even at the higher tuition fee, GA offers quality services and features which makes them stand above another competitor.

Key Takeaways

Method ( Screeners )

As a team, we set paramaters of who we want to reach out to. In this case we wanted to interview anyone who had a connection with General Assembly. We reached out via, General Assembly Slack channels, Linkedin and through personal connections. This screener showed us general demographics, preferred mobile device and insight on roles and disciplines.

Responses

54 Participants.

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1.8%

USER INTERVIEWS

Participant Data ( 54 Participants )

What Campus are you associated with?

• New York City • Atlanta • Seattle • London • Santa Monica • Austin • Sydney • Washington DC • Boston • Chicago • San Francisco

USER INTERVIEWS

MethodAfter our screening, we selected willing participants from a variety disciplines and roles across General Assembly. We wanted a sampling response across disciplines. Before the interviews, we wrote down what we wanted to find out and which questions to ask in order to get there. We recorded the interview sessions and toke notes on the responses.

Phone Interviews ( Not Pictured )

• P ( Alumni, ADI ) • T ( New Student, UX) • BJo ( Teacher, WDI) • PP ( Teacher, UX/VD )

11 Participants

USER INTERVIEWS

MW ( Alumni, UXDI) M ( Alumni, WDI) JE ( Student, UXDI)

F ( Alumni, WDI) JA ( Student, UXDI) D ( Alumni, UXDI) JK ( Student, UXDI)

Findings and Takeaways

11/11 Participants

“ I have no idea what people outside of my Cohort are doing…”

“ I barely know, maybe just in passing…”

“ The community is my favorite part of General Assembly.”

10/11 Participants

“ I would love to know what others are doing.”

“ I’m too focused on my own work to find out what others are doing, but if I had the time, I would.”

7/11 Participants“ Feedback is great, I’d welcome it…”

“Only certain feedback, I only want feedback from people I trust.”

From our User Interviews, we found that a lot of the subjects that were interviewed had similar pain points about General Assembly. All Alumni and even a teacher were concerned about finding a job after graduation from the course. Other trends surfaced were that many are willing and able to give and receive feedback on their work. Almost all participants want to meet other people and learn about the cool projects that people are working on. Overwhelmingly positive feelings towards the community at General Assembly.

USER INTERVIEWS

6/11 Participants ( All Alumni ) “ I wish we had more Outcomes support after we graduate, they kind of just dropped us…”

MethodAfter our User Interviews, we wanted to gather the main trends that our participants mentioned. We wrote down quotes from our subjects and started to make an affinity map. We separated the map into four quadrants: Pains, pleasure, behaviors, and context. Our goal is to uncover common trends that our participants share.

Findings

The main trends that we gathered from infinity mapping were that students felt disconnected with one another. They love the community that General Assembly offers, but finds it not accessible because of time and workload. They also feel abandoned by General Assembly after graduation because they don’t offer much support. Communication from the Administration is inconsistent.

Key takeaways

• Feedback source and context is important to me. • Getting and giving feedback is positive. • General Assembly Community is very important to students. • I haven’t seen other students work/ I don’t know what is

happening. • I use Slack as a main communication tool. • I don’t have time to consider other’s work. • Post graduation communication and support is lacking. • Administration communication is inconsistent.

AFFINITY MAPPING

PERSONAS

Ben Age: 29 | Profession: GA Student

Terrance is tired of his career path and is looking for a change into the creative tech field. He enjoys technology but does not have a lot of experience with how it’s created. He is well- educated, motivated, passionate, cultured and open-minded. He is a risk-taker and comfortable with uncertainty.

Bio:

“I feel disconnected from entire GA community ”

Needs Pain Points

• No Time • Disconnected from community • Feeling abandoned after graduation

• Connect with fellow students and alum• Being able to control feedback• Better support after graduation.

Cares about

• His future• His craft• His community

Terrance

PERSONAS

John Age: 28 | Profession: GA Student

GA Student from NYC. He spends a lot of time at school and loves short breaks because he can talk with his classmates and people from other groups. Ben is on his final project at school. He is so busy, and never has time for outside of his school work. Every morning, he finds time to read news and chat with his friends. Ben is also busy with his job search. He thinks he can find a job quite fast.

Bio:

“Short breaks are the best part of my day ”

Needs Pain Points • Not enough time• Difficulties with job search• Doesn’t like feedback from people he doesn’t know

• Find time for chatting with his friends • Stay connected after graduation.• Has an quick and easy way to find info, news and announcements about events.

Cares about

• A great portfolio• Share ideas• His community

SamanthaAge: 25 | GA Student | Atlanta

She just quit her psychology job and is so excited to start a new career. She is an introvert. This is her 2nd week of school, she loves the teachers and the program. She prefers to work at home or at the park which is a block away. Everyday she grabs coffee and does her homework at the park. Samantha is very good at design and analysis.

Bio:

“I like to work on my projects in quiet places ”

Needs Pain Points

• She doesn’t like to talk with people outside of the class • She doesn’t like feedback from people she doesn’t know

• Safe place where put all documents and sketches• Share the projects with her close friends and get feedback from them• She would like to see schedule on the web and add it if she needs to

Cares about

• Don’t be disturbed by other people

“I am a GA student and feel disconnected from the entire community, especially once I graduate I had love a place to communicate and get feedback from the whole community.” 

“Feedback source + context is important to me.”

STORYBOARD

Terrance waits for a bus on the way to school.

The only free moment he has during his busy day, he checks GA App for Announcements.

He also views other people’s work and leaves feedback.

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User Needs Business Needs

• Customer Satisfaction • Quality & Quantity of

Customers • Sell More ( Classes ) • Positive Reputation

( Reviews ) • Job Placement ( Outcomes )

• Job Placement • Course Options • Convenience • Quality & Quantity of Work • Community • Staying Informed

• Work Sharing • Feedback • Job Placement • Announcements • Supportive Community

Features

MethodDiagram to compare User Needs and Business Needs and trying to create features that will address Both needs.

Key Findings

Features that address both needs: • Work sharing and Feedback • Announcements • Fostering a supportive community • Job Placement

USER NEEDS VS. BUSINESS NEEDS

• Student/ Customer Satisfaction

• Supportive Engaging Community

• Positive Feedback Culture

• Quality of Work • Job Placement

• Positive Reputation

• Increased Enrollment• GA App Investment

Method

Diagram that illustrates the benefit of creating this App.

WHY A GA APP?

Problem Statement

As a GA student, I want to feel more connected to the entire General Assembly community. I would love a safe space to share and discuss projects, view relevant course information, and keep me connected after my course is over.

Opportunity

There are many inspiring projects and ideas created by General Assembly students from all disciplines and campuses around the world. Currently, General Assembly doesn’t have an easy way to view projects that other students in different cities, cohorts, or courses are working on. With an app, students would be able to share their work across disciplines, communicate, and submit to have their work featured in the app. Additionally, the school would be able to push schedule notifications, and instructors would be able to publish schedules. The main feature would be project sharing, but could expand to be a full featured all-in-one GA education management experience… Schedule, group communication, discipline cross-pollination, & even an alumni support network.

MethodWe determined one of the key function is a work/portfolio like management feature. We studied mobile apps that have similar features to help inform us during the design process.

Portfolio

Behance

Key Findings

Striking images should be prominent and the key focus.

Descriptions of projects should not be too long, but specific and to the point so users will not lose interest and not detract from images.

Prominent and easy to understand navigation that does not confuse the user. Functionality for users to comment and share to increase engagement.

ANALYSIS OF PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT SITES

MoSCoW MethodTo determine which features to include, we used the MoSCow Method. We determined which features we must have based on User and Persona needs. We determined that Sharing work, receiving/ giving feedback, Announcement are Must Features. Since students don’t have much time, checking announcements quickly will allow them to engage the app and allows them to stay in the app. They can then engage the community by viewing and sharing work, give feedback which strengthens the community of General Assembly.

Feature Prioritization

Must Share work| Receive+give feedback| Announcements| close network

Should Filter feedback| Integrate code|Google doc, Github, etc | messages (Slack integration)

Job board | Reward systemCould

Won’tSocial Network|one-offs|Instructor flow

TECH SPECIFICATIONS 1.0

Possibilities & Limitations

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API’s

The General Assembly application will be constructed as a native iOS & Android application. The App is intended to be very gestural making use of multitouch & swiping which are much easier to construct natively. Also, having access to the device’s functionality could prove to be useful for possible future features (Apple Pay, Camera for documentation, etc.)

The limitations are obviously that it will be restricted to mobile and not available to be accessed on desktop. This could be limiting to some users who do not user iOS or Android, although our research shows that nearly 98% of GA students are on either iOS or Android.

The primary function that will need access to API’s will be the creation flow (where a user creates content to be shared on the platform). For this function we will need access to:

- GitHub API - Specifically use of the Webhooks functionality, which will allow us to pull in code from GitHub and import it into our app for feedback. It’s even possible to pull in existing GitHub comments, or add comments created in the app to GitHub

- Google Docs API (Example use case from Google’s Drive API Documentation):

Additionally, for the Dashboard screen, we’ll need access to the Google Calendar API to pull in information.

TECH SPECIFICATIONS 1.1

User & Content Database

The main technical functionality will be storing and accessing user profiles and user submitted content. The content would require its own database entries somehow connected to the student accounts. For the user database, we would need to plug into the existing GA Profiles database to pull photos, descriptions, student information, etc.

Design Standards: iOS Human Interface Guidelines

Some ways we adhere, pulled from Apple’s iOS HIG:

- First Launch Experience - “Launch time is your first opportunity to onboard new users and reconnect with returning ones. Design a launch experience that’s fast, fun, and educational.”

- Gestures - Our design utilizes the Flick, Swipe,

- Strive for realism and credibility. “If someone reveals a view by sliding it down from the top of the screen, for example, they should be able dismiss the view by sliding it back up.”

- UI Page View Controller “A page view controller provides a way to implement linear navigation between pages of content, such as in a document, book, notepad, or calendar. “

SKETCHES & IDEATION

SKETCHES & IDEATION

MethodAfter sketching ideas on paper and testing paper prototypes, we created Medium Fidelity Prototype and conducted User Testing. Our goal is to find out the usability of our concept. We were mindful to test non- UX Designers to get a fair result.

5 Participants

USER TESTING

Positive Feedback

Medium Priority Issue

✓M✖ High Priority Issue

“ Why doesn’t this work?”

5/5 Testers

✖

USER TESTING

Positive Feedback

Medium Priority Issue

“ This is great…”

✓

✓

M

M✖

“I Like this! Very useful…” ✓

“I’m unsure what this does…”

High Priority Issue

3/5 Testers

USER TESTING

Positive Feedback

Medium Priority Issue

✓M✖ High Priority Issue

“ This is way too small.”

“I missed this, I would make it bigger.”

5/5 Testers

5/5 Testers

✖

✖

USER TESTING

ONBOARD

Continue

Welcome!

Thanks for joining the community here at General Assembly.

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This is the initial signin page.User will need to log in with theirGeneral Assembly Account so thesystem can load their profile.

After signing in, users will swipe through 4 screens of onboarding to explain the purpose and functions of the app

The final onboarding screen is just a big button that the user clicks to be dropped into the app.

A ring is animating left to indicate that the page is intended to be swiped through.

DASHBOARD SCREEN

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Modular content boxes. This is the key feature of the dashboard. Boxes are able to display different information depending on the type of user.

For example, a current student might see their daily course schedule, while an alumni might see a relevant featured job post from the GA network. They can even just house daily inpsirational quotes for a little surprise and delight

Screens are able to be swiped for navigation, but there are also FABs (Floating Action Buttons) which take users to the Profile page (left) and Browse (right

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PROJECT LIST SCREEN

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Each content container contains a hero image of a community member’s submitted project. There is also an overlay of the community member’s profile picture which takes the user to their profile when tapped.

This is the add project button. Tapping it takes the user to the create flow (not covered in this scope).

The filter drawer brought down by the GA Button (#8). Users are able to filter the content of the feed by field of study.

A GA Gear acts as a button which brings down the filter drawer (#10) when tapped. The gear animates in 180 degree rotation as it drops.

P3 Yelp PrototypeDavid Plakon

Spotify / Blendr WireframesVincent Lai

Kindle PersonaElizabeth Kulikova

P3 Yelp PrototypeDavid Plakon

Spotify / Blendr WireframesVincent Lai

Kindle PersonaElizabeth Kulikova

UX Design Web Dev PM

Android Dev iOS Dev Marketing

FILTER BY:

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PROJECT SCREEN

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Comment drawer button. Tapping it brings out the comment drawer ( #14). There’s also a notification displaying how many comments this piece of content has received.

Comment drawer. Users are able to view and add comments on the submitted project piece.

Content display area. This is where the user can display their work. Users will be able to upload pictures, google docs or import code from GitHub. 11

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SEND

Awesome work!

What about the User?

Can this be built?

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Granular

• User Test • Refine profile page. • Iterate filter bank information • Fix Spacing

Conceptual

• Teacher version of the App. • A look at how we integrate instructors.

Short- Term

• User Test • Build out Favoriting and commenting options. • Research Filtering or Flagging Inappropriate Content. • Creation of work Flow

Long- Term

• Flesh out all the features on the App • Android App

NEXT STEPS