HIVe
Role: UX Design & Research
Timeframe: Two Days (Hackathon)
Audience: Humber College Students
Tools: Figma, Freeform, & Notes
Introduction
HIVE is a mobile app that lets students candidly share their thoughts on campus life. A voting system brings the most popular posts to the attention of fellow students, the broader student body, and even the Dean. It's a way to crowdsource student sentiment, highlight shared concerns, and ensure opinions are visible to key decision-makers to influence positive change.
P.S. We placed in the top 4th of 14 teams competing in the hackathon :)
Why’s this in my portfolio?
This project demonstrates my ability to make decisions quickly under pressure, showcasing efficiency in time-sensitive situations.
The project highlights my collaborative skills and ability to contribute meaningfully within a team.
This project illustrates how I approach solving problems, turning real-world challenges into actionable and impactful solutions.
What’s the Problem?
Problem Statement
“As educational institutions evolve to meet the needs of increasingly diverse student populations, it has become increasingly hard for students voices to be heard.”
Recognizing that Humber is often a daunting first step into Canada for many, we identified a critical need for clear and accessible support systems. Derived from our research, this problem statement directly guided our solution to ease students’ transition into the Humber community and expand on broader student advocacy.
The team and I conducted five short interviews (10-15min) with groups of 4-5 students also participating in the hackathon to understand their pain points and answer the question of how students are connecting already, in person and digitally.
Key Findings
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Some students noted that they are afraid to advocate for themselves for fear of judgment, or they simply don’t know how or who to reach out to for help.
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While students have an opportunity to share feedback about their experience at Humber via surveys from the student council, they don’t feel like their input is heard, and are unsure where their feedback goes once it’s submitted.
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A large percentage of students at Humber come from outside of Canada, they want to meet and make friends with peers from their country, and in their program of study.
“Feels like everyone goes home right after class, there isn’t much of a social life on campus after class”
Questions I asked myself
How can we develop a system that turns feedback into policies and change?
What are practical ways to empower student voices, and how can they be translated into a digital solution?
“We fill out surveys Humber sends us, but (I am) not sure where my responses go”
“It would be nice to build a community with people from my program, especially with people from home”
Design Process
Sketching & Wireframing
Faced with the hackathon's brief timeline, I prioritized rapid iteration. Using my iPad, I quickly translated our initial concepts into low-fidelity 'paper' prototypes and digital wireframes, enabling us to refine the homepage structure efficiently. This iterative process, facilitated by these easily modifiable lo-fi frames, was pivotal in making critical design decisions under pressure and directly shaped the final architecture of our solution, helping to maximize its impact within a limited timeframe.
The key decision we made at this stage was the structure of the app. Agreeing that it will consist of a homepage “news feed”, organizing content into distinct, easy-to-scan rows for readability.
Users can now sort posts by “New” or “Trending”, enhancing real-time information sharing.
Low Fidelity
With the overall structure agreed upon, I created a low-fidelity mock up to visualize the solution. This allowed me to share the concept with friends, peers, and family for an quick round of feedback.
Final Solution
This final screen demonstrates the completed UI, showcasing our solution's intended functionality and design. The color palette was deliberately selected to align with Humber's existing branding, ensuring seamless integration and a cohesive user experience across all Humber platforms. Iconography within the pill buttons communicates the specific HIVEs topic or theme, allowing users to make decisions based on visual cues.
HIVE's mission is to empower students to drive impactful change through open dialogue and advocacy, guided by three main pillars.
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HIVE fosters communication by providing a platform for peer-to-peer questions and first-person experiences, moderated by Humber faculty to identify and address student needs through policy change and student engagement.
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Transparency is achieved by creating a direct feedback loop between students and faculty. This loop allows for the sharing of pain points, suggestions, and successes, leading to recognition and subsequent policy change that positively impacts student life at Humber.
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Accessibility ensures equitable participation for all students and faculty, cultivating a culture of empathy and collaboration through shared experiences.
Students can now instantly create their own HIVEs, thanks to a new, prominent navigation button.
What I Tested…
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Even from a single frame, users understood the up/down voting mechanism, its weighting, and the iconography, indicating to us that the design’s structure was clear enough to proceed.
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Participants found the concept engaging, highlighting the unique voting system as a significant strength and clear differentiator from competitors like “X” (Twitter). Key feedback included the suggestion to integrate images, helping to improve the app's aesthetic appeal.
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To foster connection, test participants told us to simplify how users create HIVES (our channels), empowering them to instantly form communities around current events and shared interests.
Images and secondary colors, consistent with the Humber College palette, were added to improve visual appeal.
Conclusion
Our team's solution achieved a commendable 4th place out of 14 teams, earning us a certificate of completion along with a little spending money (CHA-CHING!).
Lessons Learned
Don’t be afraid to let go of ideas
Initially, our team's strength was our ability to generate numerous ideas. However, this abundance quickly became a challenge: how to prioritize? To address this, we implemented a democratic voting process, shortlisting three feasible ideas within the hackathon's time constraints. This forced us to maximize our time and collaborate effectively, ultimately leading to a final product we were proud to present.
Short timelines can be your Best Friend
The two-day deadline for conceptualization and solution development was incredibly demanding, but the intense pressure fostered decisive action and sharpened our problem-solving skills. This environment compelled us to make rapid, critical decisions, each backed by a sound rationale.
If there were more time available, I would have…
Created a functional prototype.
Conducted another round of testing to complete a second series of iterations to refine the final product.
Completed more research, as it‘s a complex topic with many factors (for example, technical and social challenges) and various stakeholders.
Get In Touch!
Do you have any questions, a product idea, want to discuss a project, or need a designer?
Drop me a line 📲