<p>Published on <a href="http://ift.tt/2pQCmek">| Prototyping: From UX to Front End &mdash; Medium</a> Ankita Dhyani </p>
<h3><strong>Remodeling, once in a lifetime journey of finding masters abroad</strong></h3>
<p>Design team: Myself and <a href="http://ift.tt/2p384lM">Berkay</a> | Timeline: 4 weeks</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://ift.tt/2pQwe61">New search experience..</p>
<p>At StudyPortals, we are working towards making the roller coaster ride of finding your next master’s degree more relaxed like dancing with the waves. To make this possible, we are listing all English taught masters around the world on our website, <a href="http://ift.tt/RhMOo9">MastersPortal</a>.</p>
<p>We aim to reach a state that, if a course is not available on MastersPortal, it does not exist. However, by conducting <strong>usability testing</strong> on our website, we learned that although users feel confident looking at the number of studies on MastersPortal, they often struggle to narrow down the search results to few courses that they would want to apply for.</p>
<h3>The Outcome</h3>
<p>After intensive rounds of stakeholder interviews, prototyping and constant feedback integration from students, we created a solution that <strong>helps the user in searching more efficiently and feeling in control.</strong> We brought the website <strong>closer to the user’s mental model</strong> by giving the users the freedom to choose how they want to shape their journey of finding a master’s degree that matches their needs. If you are interested in this topic, you can have a look at the <a href="http://ift.tt/2pQwfa5"><strong>interactive prototype</strong></a>.</p>
<h3>The Process</h3>
<h4><strong>Inspiration</strong></h4>
<p>The inspiration phase of this project started with interviews of stakeholders and expert. These interviews helped us in <strong>understanding company vision</strong> about ‘Search’ as the core functionality of MastersPortal.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://ift.tt/2p344S5"><img alt="" src="http://ift.tt/2pQwge9">Stakeholder and expert interviews at StudyPortals</p>
<p>Our <strong>main insight</strong> from these interviews was that even though MastersPortal has lots of content to educate the user, it is difficult to find the information at relevant time. We also learned that the hierarchy of disciplines and sub-disciplines defined on the website increases the memory load for users. Our next step, was performing a competition benchmark to understand how other platforms with vast number of listings help users to find what they are looking for.</p>
<h4>Ideation</h4>
<p>Initially, we sketched an idea around <strong>tag based search</strong> to make information more searchable and thus easier to find. One idea involved <strong>keyword and faceted search</strong> to guide students looking for specific courses. Another idea revolved around giving the user an ability to <strong>explore</strong> available predefined disciplines and sub-disciplines at any point of time.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://ift.tt/2p2M5vq">Paper prototypes to test in a co-creation session with students</p>
<p>To test and develop these ideas in depth, we created a persona and organized a <strong>co-creation session</strong> with students. We believed that the session will give our thoughts right direction at an early stage. Apart from the co-creation session, we also had six users visiting us to test the concepts. We conducted <strong>one-on-one</strong> <strong>interviews</strong> with these users and walked them though the prototype. These sessions gave us qualitative insights about user expectations and pain points with regards to each concept.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://ift.tt/2pQyGJz"><img alt="" src="http://ift.tt/2p38WH3">Co-creation session with students</p>
<h4>Prototype</h4>
<p>The Prototype phase began by presenting paper prototypes along with user feedback to our development team. This led to open discussion among the team about technical feasibility of each concept. We took all these insights and created an <a href="http://ift.tt/2pQwfa5"><strong>interactive high fidelity prototype</strong></a> in InVision. Usability testing of the prototype with six users, backed us in constantly iterating and integrating feedback. Then, we created the next steps towards implementation of the prototype.</p>
<h4>Implementation</h4>
<p>The elementary question in the implementation phase was, whether we make a substantial change or break down the design into smaller stories. As we believe in an agile way of working, we decided to roll out smaller changes spread across number of sprints. This segregation will give us the flexibility to detail out features and test them as we go!</p>
<h3>Role in Team</h3>
<p>At StudyPortals, the UX design team is experimenting with pair designing and as a part of that we, me and <a href="http://ift.tt/2p384lM">Berkay</a>, got together to remodel MastersPortal’s search process. My responsibility was to bring a fresh perspective in conceptualizing an experience that gives the user full control of how they want to find their next master’s degree.</p>
<p>This was my first big project as a UX designer, getting hands on experience with design thinking. Now, I have a better understanding of why we as UX designers should think about the reasons behind a design decision, instead of directly jumping to Illustrator. I can proudly say that I learned the <strong>importance of following a process.</strong></p>
<blockquote><p>“Perfection is boring. Getting better is where all the fun is.” — <a href="http://ift.tt/2pQt6GW">Dragos Roua</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Hope you enjoyed reading and could find some learning points. If you like it, please click/tap on the heart icon. Also, feel free to comment and share your views.</p>
<p><img src="http://ift.tt/2p2M3Uk" width="1" height="1" alt="stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSou"></p>
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<p><a href="http://ift.tt/2pQHkHU">Remodeling, once a lifetime journey of finding masters abroad</a> was originally published in <a href="http://ift.tt/2cAqCpx">Prototyping: From UX to Front End</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.</p>


Remodeling, once a lifetime journey of finding masters abroad

Remodeling, once in a lifetime journey of finding masters abroad

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