UX Research and Product Design
UofT ClubHouse
Helping students discover their community, develop valuable skills and prepare for the future
While there are various tools available for U of T students to find clubs and student organizations, existing services do not provide enough information to inform their expectations before joining. As a result, students leave clubs prematurely and miss the opportunity to network and develop professional skills.
THE PROBLEM
OUR SOLUTION
UofT ClubHouse is a mobile platform designed for students to discover projects, events, and clubs that align with their interests. Students can become future-ready by building long-lasting connections with like-minded peers and tracking accomplishments and skill development over time.
OUTCOME
A high-fidelity prototype demonstrating the main features. The final designs are informed by two rounds of usability tests.
ROLE
Conducted User Research
Research Analysis
UI Design Prototyper
Conducted Usability Testing
COLLABORATORS
Rebecca Hsiung
Julia Rose Horn
Yunzhuo Ma
Kshitij Anand
TOOLS
Figma
Miro
TIMELINE
Sept 2022 - Dec 2022
Secondary Research
Clubs are an integral part of the student experience. Currently, there are over 1,000 clubs and student-run organizations across U of T’s three campuses.
RESEARCH
The goal of our secondary research was to contextualize how students prepare for life after university through extracurriculars. We investigated the current tools available for U of T students to find information about various clubs and student organizations, such as the Student Organization Portal and the Student Life Website. We learned that student’s join clubs for three main reasons:
But why do students join clubs to become Future-ready?
Work-integrated learning programs such as co-op and student internships are limited and not accessible to everyone. An alternative way for students to gain practical experience and foster connections with like-minded individuals is through participating in club projects and events.
Primary Research
Our team wanted to develop a more in-depth understanding of student experiences when searching for information about clubs, their motivations for joining a club and the obstacles that keep them from engaging in the club.
We did this by sending out an online questionnaire to collect a sizable amount of attitudinal data and capture a comprehensive picture of the larger U of T student community. We also conducted semi-structured interviews to capture detailed experiences and opinions from a smaller group of participants.
From our questionnaire, we found that
When asked about clubs in regards to becoming future-ready, students said
“I was able to learn how to communicate with people.”
“People usually join the executive positions so that they can learn leadership skills.”
“It looks good on applications, whether you're applying for funding, academic positions, or an on-campus job.”
Our persona is a fictional user archetype representing the key insights from our questionnaire responses and user interviews. Like many of our research participants, Emma participates in club activities to develop a well-rounded skillset that she can carry into her future pursuits.
ANALYSIS
Our Persona: Emma the Emerging Tech Professional
Empathy Map
To better understand Emma, we created an empathy map to see what she thinks, feels, says, and does while searching for clubs that align with her interests.
Current Journey Map
After developing our persona, we created a journey map for Emma to illustrate her current pain points during the information-searching process when looking for the right club.
IDEATION
Prioritization Grid
Our team diverged to generate design solutions addressing information searching, unmet expectations and career development. After voting on ideas based on impact and feasibility, we plotted our top choices on a prioritization grid.
Based on the results of our prioritization grid, these are our best ideas:
Ideal Journey Map
With these ideas in mind, our team mapped an ideal journey of the same scenario where the design solution addresses Emma’s major pain points.
PROTOTYPE
Low-Fidelity Sketches
Our team created low-fidelity prototypes for three tasks that showcase our main design features:
Lean Evaluation
After finalizing our low-fidelity storyboards, we needed to prove that our design would solve the user’s problems. To do this, we recruited four students who were representative users of the product to interact with our key features.
Positive Feedback
Matching with clubs they align with shortened the information-searching process.
Enjoyed the reviews feature, as they could read the true experiences of past club members.
Direct message feature allowed them to find and contact club members without switching apps.
Negative Feedback
After matching with a club, participants were frustrated by the pop-up screen
The club profile screen looked too crowded with buttons, text and containers.
Found some of the labelling to be misleading.
Making Changes
Our team used the issues identified by our lean evaluation participants to inform our design decisions moving forward. With their insights, we made three key changes to our medium-fidelity prototype:
Medium Fidelity Prototype
After making these changes, our team created medium fidelity storyboards for the three key task flows.
Our team conducted usability tests to determine how well our design solution performed. The insights on our task workflows led us to identify areas of improvement to better user experience in our final product. Here’s what we wanted to find out:
EVALUATION
Usability Testing
Are participants able to gather enough information through the clubs profile to decide whether to join?
Are participants able to use the matching system to find clubs that interest them?
Are participants able to add tasks to the clubs they joined?
Are participants able to connect with a club member?
For our evaluation, we recruited four students with previous experiences seeking information about clubs. We used three methods to evaluate their experience interacting with our main features:
Key Findings from Usability Tests
Positive Feedback
Participants found the application’s tasks workflow engaging and easy to understand.
Participants mentioned that the app effectively centralizes club information, making it easier to find extracurricular activities that suit their interests.
Participants appreciated how the club matching system felt similar to popular dating apps. This made searching for clubs fun, engaging, and intuitive.
Negative Feedback
Some participants felt like key features were missing from the homepage, such as the task journal, a list of all clubs, and a notification bell.
When using the club matching feature, participants disliked being redirected to another screen when trying to view their match history.
The joined, matched, and events sections under "My Clubs" confused a few participants. They reported that these labels should have a short description.
FINAL DESIGNS
High Fidelity Prototype
Finally, our team created a high fidelity prototype based on the feedback from our last round of usability tests.
CLUB MATCHER
Find clubs that interest you
Click through the club matcher to generate a list of clubs that align with your personal and professional interests.
CLUB PROFILE
Club information in one place
View club objectives, reviews, open roles, activities, past and current members, and recent posts all in one place.
DIRECT MESSENGER
Connect with other students
Contact past and current members to learn about their experiences and to evaluate club expectations.
TASK JOURNAL
Document what you learned
Keep track of the professional and interpersonal skills you developed through club projects and events. Leverage these experiences when applying for jobs post-graduation.
NEXT STEPS
The Future of UofT ClubHouse
In the future, we hope to improve the user experience of our app by considering:
REFLECTION
My Personal Takeaways
Create, Test, Iterate, Repeat
Not getting it right the first time is normal. By going through the iterative design process, I was able to create and test all of my ideas quickly and effectively. In each round, I gained new insights that informed my design decisions.
Storytelling in Research
Presenting research findings alone can be overwhelming and inconsequential for the audience. Creating a story-like presentation puts student experiences and insights into context, and helps the audience understand the purpose of our study.
Rejection as Redirection
Sometimes critical feedback was discouraging, especially when our team felt attached to a design decision. But through this project, I learned that rejection can lead to better ideas, hidden insights and new perspectives.