Grouper

Designing an extension for Learning Management Software (LMS) to introduce a more efficient group task administration
Project Overview
In collaboration with the Innovation Hub, a student-led initiative with the goal of designing a university for all, my team and I began the journey of exploring how to create and improve a comfortable environment for students to communicate and potentially build connections while working and studying together, where we came up with the solution, Grouper.

Grouper is an extension applicable to the University of Toronto's course management system, Quercus, that aimed to solve common usability issues surrounding tasks requiring group collaboration. The platform offers an improved experience through features including meeting rooms, shared calendars, and even teammate recommendations.
Team Members
Haochen Dai
Jalena Threatt
Mikayla Yiu
Fa Zhang
My Contributions
User research, Usability Testing, Wireframing, Prototyping
Tools
Figma, Balsamiq Wireframes
Timeline
October - December 2020 (8 hours per week)
Have you ever found reaching out to members for your school group projects cumbersome? With everyone using different tools for communication and the lack of uniform channels to efficiently follow workflows, managing group projects is no fun. There's also the cliché problem of enforced talking with strangers. Awkward smiles, reluctant number sharing, you know the story.

Meanwhile, workspace logistics is evolving, especially during COVID, apps like Slack and Microsoft Teams are seeing stronger growth than ever before. Could there be a parallel solution for education? To find out, my team of five designers and I deployed surveys, interviews with U of T students as well as other forms of research including competitive analysis and literature reviews to get a better grasp of the relevant problem space. I personally managed the evaluation of the findings, categorized into three specific areas as illustrated in the key findings.

For more detailed user research data, please have a look at our user research report.
Problem Space 🔍
who are we working for?
what is our goal?
With core user concerns specified, my team commenced to craft a persona and connected user journey. The two analytics were further utilized to solidify the needs statements, which were ultimately developed into directions for in-app features.
User Empathy đź’¬
who is our user?
what are they experiencing?
After defining and discovering the problems, we brainstormed general directions on how to address the user's pain points and selected the following four final ideas based on impact and feasibility:
  • finding group members by recommendations
  • networking with classmates 
  • displaying personal information on profiles
  • schedules showing available meeting times
Ideationđź’ˇ
what do we need?
what is our solution?
With core features established, it was finally time to visually draw out the imagined product. The prototype was developed in three stages, advancing from basic sketch to clickable mid-fidelity then finally to high-fidelity.

Prototype ✏️
Low, medium, and high-fidelity prototype
User storyboard
First, we decided to incorporate our solution into Quercus, the University's learning management system, as an additional service for U of T students. This way, target users would be able to come across and use Grouper under a more familiar interfacial environment in a unimodal fashion.
Solution Space ✨
how does our solution work?
how can we improve more?
Group Member Recommendation
User profile functionality was fortified with contents enabling skill-wise self-promotion to other potential group members. A survey tool collecting user preference on time availability as well as professional assets was further added into the system. The user could be then placed into a group based on the inputs, or receive the random designation.
Group Meeting Scheduler
Since the schedule of every member of your group is already put in, Grouper will do all the work and suggest available times for your group meetings. You and your members don't have to message each other back and forth anymore to figure out a time that works for everyone, which sometimes seems impossible to find!

Just within a few clicks, your group can efficiently and successfully arrange a group meeting so that you won't have to spend your precious time coordinating logistics for meetings.
Networking Opportunities with classmates
Do you feel uncomfortable reaching out to your classmates you don't know? Are you afraid of being rejected? Nonetheless, you still want to get to know your classmates, don't you?

Grouper helps you connect with your classmates by allowing you to join icebreaking activities without having to initiate contact! All you have to do is choose an interesting topic to join a chat that your classmates already created. Talk, discuss, and communicate with your classmates and get to know them more!
We tested our mid-fidelity prototype to seek preliminary feedback and investigate whether the core features of Grouper resolve our users' pain points with the following questions.
Next Steps ✔️
Takeways 🧩
what did I learn and realize?
what can I improve next time?
As my first UX design projects, there were a number of lessons and moments that taught me to think critically beyond the problem and from the perspectives of users . First of all, I realized how important it is to change assumptions into insights; until validated by user research, an assumption is nothing but a hunch, which can lead to wasted time and effort. Just because I thought students would find online networking desirable, that certainly didn’t mean the same for the users. I learned to observe and listen to the users so that I can validate assumptions and turn them into insightful ideas because I am not my user. 

Throughout the project, I kept reminding myself of designing the right thing and designing things right. However, I realized that communicating my ideas and designs to others, including my teammates and the users, is just as important. This is why storytelling is the key in UX design process. In fact, having a story about who our users are, what they need, and how we would provide solutions made it easy for everyone involved in the project to understand the problem. Storytelling guided us to focus on the users’ needs and values we wanted to bring through our product.
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