Student Welcome Gift Redesign
Challenge
Prime Digital Academy tasked me with designing a new welcome gift that Full Stack students would find both meaningful and valuable during their rigorous academic experience.
Solution
A redesigned welcome gift that is a mindful consideration of the Full Stack program’s physical requirements (i.e., extensive seated periods). The Prime-branded removable bosu ball chair component affords students students the opportunity to find stability and balance in this fast-paced program.
Methodology
Ethnographic Research
Heuristic Analysis
Design Concepts & Low-Fidelity Prototyping
Concept Evaluations
THE OPPORTUNITY
On their first day of class, Prime had previously given its Full Stack students a water bottle as a welcome gift. Staff learned that this water bottle was being discontinued from manufacture. Rumblings from students also showed a marked negative slant towards the gift; Prime staff had heard that students did not find it meaningful, usable, or relevant to their academic experience.
Prime took this as an opportunity for change, tasking me with the research and redesign of a more suitable gift for Full Stack students during this rigorous academic experience.
First things first: meet the Full Stack students.
A dynamic and busy bunch, these students are tasked with learning an incredible volume of information - years worth - in 20 weeks. Many of them are novices in coding, coming to the tech field with a broad scope of different professional histories and passions.
RESEARCHING THE PROBLEM SPACE
In order to discover what might constitute a more suitable gift, I needed to gain a deeper understanding of Full Stack students - their motivations, their needs, their workspaces, the classroom environment, their curriculum, etc.
To that end, I conducted participant observations at new student mingles and during class sessions, compiling my findings using an AEIOU framework.
With the picture of Full Stack students starting to take shape, I turned to the other catalyst spurring this redesign: the water bottle. Students said they found the bottle to be lacking terms of usefulness in their Full Stack experience. To avoid repeating the same mistakes with the gift redesign, I needed to know more about why this gift had fallen short.
To accomplish this, my team and I performed a heuristic analysis of the water bottle using Nielson’s 10 Usability Heuristics to further contextualize students’ lukewarm feedback.
From the heuristic analysis, we discovered a host of severe usability problems. The rub here was that while thoughtful and encouraging of students’ health (hydration is key!), the gift had a significant probability of leaking. Considering the number of hours each day that Full Stack students are required to be at their desk on laptops, keyboards, monitors, etc., these severe usability issues introduce a threat to their valued electronics.
SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
In talking with students across varying stages of the program, I noted a few common themes - almost all of their activities are done while seated, either in the rolling chairs or on the classroom’s foam cubes during lecture. Students are also covering material at a pace that doesn’t afford a lot of free time to devote towards self-care or release valves for stress like they may have had before the program.
Considering the heuristic analysis findings and these insights gained from student observations, I explored design concepts for the new gift. With the support of my team, I moved forward with the yoga ball rolling chair design.
In short, this gift is intended to be a mindful consideration of the Full Stack program’s physical requirements (sitting at their desks or with a group during whiteboard challenges), affording students the opportunity to be more comfortable and healthful while working.
I then created a low-fidelity prototype for students to start evaluating.
CONCEPT EVALUATIONS
It was time for the design to leave the nest! To gain insights as to whether Full Stack students would find the gift meaningful and valuable, I conducted evaluations and think-aloud sessions with three students.
Research Goals:
Gain insights as to students’ perception of the chair as an effective tool for minimizing physical stress during their time at Prime.
How discoverable and useful are the dual functions of the gift as (1) a rolling chair and (2) also as a separate yoga ball/replacement for the cubes in class?
Learn more about the degree to which students find value in this seating alternative.
Identify potential problem areas or benefits that could come from using this in class.
Would students interpret this as a meaningful gift?
EVALUATION FINDINGS
Testing started off painting a pretty straightforward picture… but then things got interesting.
On one hand, the evaluations revealed that on average, Full Stack students spend 6.7 hours of their day sitting. In each interview, students discussed the difficulty they had adjusting to this physical dormancy that often accompanies the program. Across the board:
100% of students affirmatively stated that they would use the balance ball chair.
“This would be awesome if they had it at Prime, I would totally use that”
100% of students believed the balance ball chair would be a healthful alternative to the current seating.
“I like the idea that you could take the ball out”… “maybe use it for something else while taking a break”
100% of students found the balance chair to be consistent with Prime’s community and brand.
“I think it would totally fit in with the Prime aesthetic.”
However, 100% of participants thoughts aligned on one overpowering pain point:
Very concerned about having the balance ball chair being their ONLY option for formal desk seating.
“Would I be forced to sit in it all day?”
“Sometimes when you’re trying to focus and you’re really stressed about something, you just want to be able to focus on your work”
YES AND NO?
Specifically referring to times of high stress, students expressed hesitance around its stability, whether it would make them too tired, and whether it would be comfortable for long-term sitting. The Full Stack students found meaning and value in the healthful and versatile benefits of the chair over short periods of time - but if provided as their default chair, students would instead experience increased stress and unease.
While some elements of this pain point could be tested further with a higher fidelity prototype and usability testing, at this stage, at this stage the fundamental pain point was a significant roadblock for students. Full Stackers were already operating in heightened stress states, learning a high volume of information at a rapid pace, and had upended many of their personal and professional routines to attend Prime.
Chairs, desks, and computers are fundamental components of their workspaces. It logically follows that trying to “stack” the re-learning of such a core component could be perceived as an unnecessary mental burden.
THE PIVOT
Looking at the findings from these testing sessions, I had that nagging feeling that there was something I was missing. It was clear that students would not benefit long-term from the balance ball chair in its current state, so I wanted to explore other options that might. I went back to look at my observational notes, poured through evaluation session recordings and notes, trying to investigate if there was an effective way to keep the good, remove the bad.
*Cue lightbulb over my head* Aha, that’s it!
For next steps, I began ideating balance ball chair-adjacent designs (think along the lines of a small bosu ball) to share with Prime stakeholders. This refined design maintains the components of ergonomic design and healthfulness - as those were revealed to be important value-adds for students in determining the meaningfulness of the gift. Most importantly, it also eliminates the problem area. Because of its removable and portable design, students won’t need to undergo a permanent change to their workspace, both at Prime and beyond.