Case Study
A new gift for new students
Summary
Problem
The standard gift for incoming students in a training program — a t-shirt, pen, and name tag with lanyard — has been given to them for many years. The client wants a new gift that will be meaningful to future students.
Research Insights
I thought that research participants had agreed that a tote bag would be a meaningful gift. But one pointed out that this single choice did not have a unisex appeal, and some might not want to use it in a school or professional setting.
Solution
I eventually proposed that students be offered a tote, backpack, or briefcase along with custom color options.
Design Problem & Hypothesis
The standard gift for incoming students in a software-development training program has been used for many years, and my client said it was in needed of updating.
The client also wanted the new gift to be more meaningful to the students.
This standard gift contained two branded items — a t-shirt and a common ball-point pen — plus a name tag with key fob on a lanyard.
I hypothesized that students would find a gift to be more meaningful if it was functional, fun, and/or unique to them.
My role & collaborations
I was the sole UX designer on this project, and I was responsible for determining its overall direction.
However, I did collaborate with five additional UX researchers who helped me collect and synthesize information about the current students.
One of these team members was a senior researcher, who recruited all of our research participants. This team member also conducted moderated interviews with two students in the software-development program.
In addition to helping to draft questions for the moderated interviews, the rest of the team and I played the role of interview observers.
Getting a sense of what its like to be a software-development student
To better understand the students and their needs, my team and I conducted some additional observations of the students. We watched then in their classrooms and in a commons area, which they used lunch and other breaks.
We mostly observed without interaction, i.e., using the fly-on-the-wall technique. While doing so, we took notes on a AEIOU framework worksheet.
As a team, we transferred our these observations — and those of the moderated-interview observations — to stickies on a digital whiteboard, i.e., FigJam. We then synthesized these stickies by building an affinity map.
We identified a number of interesting things, such as the ubiquitous use of portable laptops, the wearing of clothing in muted colors, questionable ergonomic practices, and differing opinions on the lanyard.
Early Key Insights
Some key insights that I gained were based on things that I expected to observe, but didn’t:
No one was seen wearing the branded t-shirt;
Other than the laptops, etc., used for working, there were no electronic gadgets or toys in the room that students could tinker or play with;
Unlike some organizations that encourage self-expression, there wasn’t anything on their name tags that made them stand out from others on campus, not even their program, their cohort, or their progress/achievements.
Getting initial feedback on three different concepts
To get a better sense of what sort of items an incoming students would find meaningful, I came up with three ideas based on my observations.
I created a concept board for each.
Using Google Forms, I submitted these boards and a desirability survey to five current students. I asked the students to rank these concepts.
After reviewing the survey results, two of the concepts, Gift Containers and Tech gadgets & kits were each tied for first place.
5/5 of participants selected those two as their first or second choice.
5/5 of participants ranked *Enhanced name tags* as their third choice.
The participants’ written comments in the survey indicated that the Gift container concept was the stronger of the two.
2/5 comments said that they liked the idea “tote bag,” saying it would be “useful” and “functional.”
Getting feedback on tote bags prototypes
With my initial research showing that a tote bag would be a meaningful gift, I created an evaluation plan and a script to use with participants.
Method used: Evaluative research
Key evaluation goals:
Verify that the fabric bag, represented by the prototype, would be an appropriate welcome gift for new full-stack students.
Gain insights around whether the bag should have certain qualities or features. For example: waterproofing, zippered pockets, extra pockets on the outside, etc. Likewise whether it should not have certain qualities or features.
I facilitated evaluation sessions with one current student and two alumni. One of these sessions was done remotely, the others were done in-person.
Using a few prototype examples, I sought initial feedback and asked a few questions related to their preferences.
2/3 liked the idea of a tote bag.
1/3 said that a carrier would be useful, but expressed concern that a tote bag was “not unisex.”
I found this participant’s feedback to be especially insightful.
They indicated that some people, such as men or masculine-identified students, wouldn’t like to carry a tote bag to school.
This person offered ideas that I would later carry forward.
My proposed solution
As the final step in my role as the project’s UX designer, I prepared a pitch deck for the client describing the design process and a proposal.
I reiterated the overarching goal of the project, i.e., that a new and meaningful gift was needed for future students of the school’s software-development training program.
I said that my research showed that this gift should also be functional.
Furthermore, I explained that students would find the gift to be more meaningful if it reflected their unique preferences.
I proposed that students be offered a tote, backpack, or briefcase along with custom color options.
Since new students begin the program remotely in a part-time ‘prep’ phase for a few weeks, I recommended that students be provided with a catalog of bag options.
They would be asked to choose a bag type and color during their first week of prep work.
They would also be asked to choose a preferred t-shirt color, which would include subdued colors worn by current students.
Upon their first day as a full-time, on-campus student, they would be presented their pre-selected bag as a gift.
I recommended the inclusion of additional gifts inside the bag.
Specifically, a branded t-shirt in the color that they chose earlier; a rubber duck, the amusing utilitarian item current students receive to help them troubleshoot; and a frameable letter, signed by the school’s owner and the new student’s instructor.
Selection of slides from the pitch deck
Challenges
One of the biggest challenges of this project was the five-day turnaround time that was required.
As an example, time prevented me from engaging students in the ideation process. Doing so could have provided some concepts that were already pre-screened. (See the Recommendations section for more on this topic.)
Another challenge was the need to work with prototypes that were immediately at-hand. This wasn’t a serious problem, but it did require a lot of imagination on the part of the participants.
I intended to experiment with using a Word Cloud method to capture results of my evaluative research, but not enough meaningful data was generated.
Recommendations
Try to quantify the level of meaningfulness of future concepts and prototypes.
This could be done via a scale ranging from “very meaningful” to “not very meaningful.”
Consider adding an additional step to the initial feedback stage that asks students for their own concept ideas.
If feasible, ask them to brainstorm in group(s) to get a sense if some ideas generate greater interest.
During the survey stage, ask participants to rate the desirability of gift ideas on a scale, e.g., 1-10, rather than rank them.
Alternatively, provide them with a system, such as dot voting, that would let them distribute many votes among their favorites.
These approaches could help identify the degrees of (dis)interest for each item.
In my case, two concepts were tied for first place, but this didn’t necessarily translate into desirability for each. (The inclusion of a few comments, however, did offer some hints.)
Likewise, it was not clear if the third-ranked concept (Enhanced name tags) was still an item of potential interest, or if it was generally undesirable.
Perform some additional iterations on the idea of a bag as a gift.
Request some sample bags and color swatches from suppliers of promotional items.
Follow-up with more evaluative research.
Likewise, confirm the new hypothesis that a tote-bag would not be desirable by some students because its style isn’t unisex; see if another single design would address that concern.