Objective
In this stage of the design thinking process, my goal is to understand what makes our competitors’ websites successful or unsuccessful and how different user groups would interact with a Visual Communication website. To meet these goals, my teammates and I researched the graphic design programs for our competing institutions and conducted interviews with various individuals from different
user groups.
Competitor Analysis
Comparing different competitors’ websites and exploring the positives and negatives of each website was incredibly insightful in brainstorming design and feature ideas for our website. This process is important because it helped me understand how potential users would interact with our website, generate ideas about how to stand out and be engaging, and avoid any mistakes.
While looking at other universities’ graphic design websites, I took note of some positive features to add to our website. Features include a more detailed explanation of our Visual Communication program, a run-through of what courses students might be expecting, student work showcases, alumni spotlights, in-depth faculty information, and animated aspects of our design.
Interviews
My teammates and I collectively interviewed about 11 individuals. Of those people, some were prospective students, current students, faculty members, parents, advisors, and graduates with experience in graphic design. Having various user groups is vital because we want to gather multiple different perspectives. We recorded voice memos of our interviews to generate sticky notes from their responses. Then, we put those responses into empathy maps organized by what our interviewees said, did, thought, and felt. All of our sticky notes were then put into their respective themes in the form of an affinity diagram.
Our main concern was gathering insight about what challenges they had without having a dedicated Visual Communication website, what information prospective students would look for, and how certain design choices affect the users’ experience. During my interviews, I also had them navigate through our current sub-website and some successful competitor websites to learn about their thoughts about our website and what they enjoyed about the competitors’ web designs and information.
I learned that most students were not aware that we had a sub-website, and found most of their information through peers and their advisors. Many students felt as though they would benefit from knowing about the BFA interviews, the costs of the Adobe suite, different specific career paths, course expectations, and past student works.
The 8 different themes in our affinity diagram include: Visual Communication information needs, navigation expectations, technology information, professor information/contact, events and opportunities, student work/portfolios, application information, and visual design expectations. Organizing the sticky notes into an affinity diagram it helped me group together repeated responses. I was able to clearly visualize the main themes that users desired with a
VisComm website.
Challenges
I feel like the biggest challenge that I faced within this process was organizing
the interviewees’ responses into empathy maps. I had difficulty finding responses to place in the ‘does’ and ‘feels’ quadrants. I eventually gained a better understanding of the responses from individuals when the sticky notes were separated into the different themes in the affinity diagram because I could visualize the common needs and pains from the participants.
This process has contributed to my growth as a designer because it made me realize how powerful field research can be. Because of my challenges, I learned that I understand information better through affinity diagrams than empathy maps.
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