seats
Vaikundh Jagannathan
Defining the Problem:
Finding a place to study should not be difficult. It is something so essential to college students, yet all over campus we find study spaces that are cramped, crowded, or have no space at all. This makes the search for study spots difficult and time-consuming. How might we help students find an ideal study space on-the-spot?
User Research:
After surveying and interviewing Berkley students, our target audience, these are our key findings:
- majority of students heavily prioritize ease/convenience of location, access to power outlets, noise level, internet reliability, and the ease of finding vacant spots when finding a study space
- 80% of respondents were interested in real-time updates on certain criteria of each study space
User Persona:
Name: Ava
Description:
- Senior studying data science
- Belongs to a sorority; very extroverted and craves social interaction
- Lives in a house with 7 girls, where she has difficulty focusing
Context
- When she doesn’t have too much work to do
- Needs
- Social interaction
- Wants
- To know where her friends are studying
- A study spot where she can study & chat with friends simultaneously
- When she has to focus
- Needs
- Minimal distraction
- Wants
- To know which study spaces have room/open seats
- A quiet, isolated study spot where she can get lots of work done
Ideation:
Here are 10 ideas to get closer to the ideal solution:
1. Available study space filtering
2. Data collection app for optimizing study spaces
3. Wi-Fi enabled power strips
4. Weight-sensing chairs paired with real-time-updating app for occupancy
5. Social media for study spaces in groups
6. Public transportation map with all nearby study spaces
7. Virtual study space for effective home studying
8. Off-hour classroom reservation system for studying
9. Smart tables with noise-level measurements and live updates
10. Subscription-based study spaces for dedicated students
Low-Fidelity Prototypes:
Mid-Fidelity Prototype:
Mid-Fi Usability Testing:
From usability testing of the Mid-Fi flow, there were many vital insights:
- Seat sensing already exists in cars and other places, it is unnecessary to redesign.
- From the home page, it is unclear what the app does more than just a map of libraries
- "...not sure what more this does than Google maps"
- Map & Libraries are self-explanatory
- UI needs better indication of which page is being used
- Account information needs to be clear in the 'me' page
- UI could be reorganized to be slightly neater/less boring
High Fidelity Prototype:
Here is 'seats', a free smartphone app paired with smart chairs to enable effective studying and accessible study spaces!
