5 weeks
Redefining the connecting medium for Maynooth University students, Alumni and prospectives. Effective communication portal for mentorship, guidance and students recruitment.
Design Thinking model
Personas
Online Surveys
User interviews
Empathy Mapping and Business Canvas Model
Sketch & Balsamiq
The initial thoughts and inspiration behind this project were out of my own experience studying at Maynooth University. This project/study was a part of one of my modules deliverables (detailed submitted report). With this particular project, there was only a problem space given but no problem statement so a part of the role was also to narrow down the problem space.
Deliverables include a detailed research behind the real world problem, look for insights and come up with desirable and viable solution. The role demanded a rigorous ethnographic user research and data to back it up.
The aim of this research focuses on understanding the student’s expectations, their behaviors in certain situations, needs, and motivations throughout the education process and even prior to that with the help of methodical, investigative approaches like interviews, surveys and discussions.
Supporting and enhancing the 'student experience' throughout the student lifecycle, from first contact through to becoming alumni, is critical to the success in higher education today for both the student and the institution.
The student experience encompasses all aspects of student life. From academic, social, welfare to support with the academic imperative at the heart of it.
Within an increasingly competitive, student-driven sector, higher education institutions face the challenge of enhancing student experience, supporting student engagement and measuring student satisfaction. The Irish government has released a new international education strategy covering the period 2016 through 2020. The strategy aims to increase foreign student enrolment in higher education programmes by 33% and enrolment in ELT programmes by 25%. It also aims to boost the overall economic impact of the sector by a third, to reach €2.1 billion (US$2.34 billion) by 2019/2020.
In a nod to the recent Brexit vote in the UK, the Minister added, “There will be strong opportunities for Ireland in the area of international education when Ireland becomes the only English speaking member of the EU.”
Findings :-
Niall Collins, 21
Looking for a breakthrough internship in the computer science and technology sector.
First child, Farmer family background with least connections in Information and Technology field.
Needs guidance for career and mentorship.
Self motivated but not sure whether to go in Functional job or a Technical one.
Not sure how to start
Monica Singh, 25
Highly career oriented, Planning to stay back after the course and work in Ireland.
Feels less confident about landing up a good job, Different scenario then in home country (India).
Regularly updates the LinkedIn profile and online portfolio.
Tries to connect with Alumni on LinkedIn and Recruiters.
No direction how to approach
Federico Bruno, 23
Interested in pursuing Masters course in an International University.
Checks University websites and Online ranking.
Campus life is as important as the academics and education quality.
Looks for his first International studies experience.
Checks the University Alumni and their career graph on Social media
For this project, the insights, repeating macro trends and the final How-Might-We statement generated is used as a stimulus for the group brainstorming session. This helped in generating a large amount of ideas in a very short span of time. The following images shows the visualization of the brainstorming activity.
Why Alumni Network Engagement?
Career Mentoring
Global Ambassadors
Students Recruitment
Internships/Employments
Success Stories for Students
Encouragement
Wireframes
Final Designs
