EasyPeasy

Developing a Mobile Technology that Facilitates International Students Settling in Weimar

International students often face problems in adapting with a new environment and study system. It is significant to study challenges faced by international students when studying in Germany, to find out how their difficulties are met through technology.

Problem

The most significant problems international students face are!

  • Differences between living in one’s homeland and Germany
  • Steps international students can take to prepare for studying abroad
  • Challenges and adjustments that international students face when studying abroad
  • The importance of technology for international students

  • Suggestions for making life easier for international students

Solution

After conducting a study on "How can the informational and social needs of international students be met through technology when arriving in another country?" I decided to design a mobile application that provides appropriate information to make it easier for them to study abroad.

Tools
  • Miro
  • Figma
  • Overleaf

Team
  • 1 UX designer/researcher
  • 2 Professor assistants
  • 2 Professors
Tools
  • UX design
  • UX research
  • Master thesis

Timeline
  • Overall: 6+ months
  • Discovery & Research:3 months
  • Design &testing:3months
Design Process
Research

A large number of international students participate in tertiary education in many developed countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States (US), and Australia. Therefore, I conducted extensive research on academic publications about international students, their needs, and their challenges. These challenges may happen due to the diversity of culture, environment, and system of study between their homeland and Germany. These problems could be solved by contacting other people or searching different websites. Indeed, the solution to problems is not possible without the usage of technology. In addition to that, the international students wish to have suggestions to improve the preparation steps for other newcomers. Hence, I derived design implications to support the international students better upon their arrival. The designed application would help all international students to make their plans to study abroad and prepare accordingly.

Interviews

During the ideation phase , I conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 international students at Bauhaus University from different study programs. The Semi-Structured interview was selected for this qualitative study because with this method I was able to go deeper and understand the underlying attitudes, beliefs, and cultural influences. It was quite flexible depending on the dynamic of the interview and the new directions based on new insights. After the transcription of the interviews, the analysis started. I followed thematic analysis because it is helpful to apply a set of texts. Such as interviews and transcription to examine the data to identify common themes, topics, ideas, and patterns of meaning that come up repeatedly.

Sketches

I began the design process with low-fidelity sketches and wireframes to accelerate decision-making through visualization without losing time. My sketches were based on the initial user interviews, and the heuristic evaluation. They each pointed to the fact that there were too many distractions in the flow. I came back to the sketches throughout the entire design process to make sure that I don’t lose sight of the primary goals and ideas.

  • In the design phase, after pencil sketching, there were some improvements to the design.

  • And the pencil sketch improved to digitalized sketch using miro.

Sketch of design
Usability Testing

I created the design of App with four iteration phases and a final evaluation of the fully-functional, high-fidelity prototype of the new flows using Figma. The users who tested App was five international students of Bauhaus University who took part regularly in different phases of testing.

issue 01
Home page and enrollment page made the users confuse. Therefore, the main sections of enrollment process divided in different section and designed as Home page.

solution 01
The main sections of enrollment process divided in different section and designed as Home page.

issue 02
The enrollment process should continue with a sequence, what if one want to complete a process not in a sequence.

solution 02
The user got access of “Force complete” to complete an enrollment process not in a sequence.

Enrollment Process with a forced complete step
UI Design Iteration following User Centric Design

Once the usability issues were resolved, I moved on to design the App in Figma. My goal was to create an App that solves the international students issues, and should have a user friendly visual design. Also, I’ve checked the competition and took a deep dive into my catalog of references for inspiration.

  • According to researches the light visual design which has been selected for this App is a symbol of calmness and helps the product designers make it easier for users to take the decision of buying a product.

  • For the guideline I did research on different applications of universities, like “UniNow” also the IOS was a good Styleguide.

  • The final testing of last design was much user-friendly and understandable for the users.

The final design of home page
Final Prototype

Once the usability issues were resolved, I moved on to design the final and functional screens in Figma.


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