SeeDegree
Roles
Designer, researcher, product developer
Designer, researcher, product developer
Methods
Visual design, prototyping, user research, user analysis, task analysis, risk analysis, social psychology
Visual design, prototyping, user research, user analysis, task analysis, risk analysis, social psychology
Tools
Figma
Figma
Intro & Background
Company Overview
SeeDegree, created by SeeYesCorp, is a web-based academic advising tool that allows students to complete idiographic assessments. These assessments provide insights into students' academic self-efficacy beliefs, enabling advisors to understand students holistically before meeting them. This deeper understanding helps advisors offer more personalized and effective guidance.
Project Purpose
The project's goal is to enhance the client (advisor) facing interface of SeeDegree through UX design principles. Currently, advisors view student survey reports in the same format students see. We wanted to create a summative, comprehensive, and navigable report format for advisors, improving their efficiency in understanding and advising students.
Expectations & Objectives
The main objective is to improve the UX design of the advisor interface, ensuring advisors can quickly and holistically understand their students. This includes better data visualization and incorporating feedback from SeeDegree staff. Initial hypotheses included low error rates, ease of navigation, minimal cognitive load, and high satisfaction with platform features.
To gather inspiration for our product’s design, we performed research on other competitor products currently on the market. Our research process involved identifying pre-existing products with similar goals to SeeDegree and determining how their goals factored into their design choices. We took note of what specific user needs were met through these products’ interfaces and how this might apply to our own project’s needs.
We looked at Naviance, Civitas, and E2E Advising
We were given three research papers by the client, some of which our clients contributed to, to provide further information for the psychology and science behind SeeDegree.
The Individual STEM Student in Context: Idiographic Methods for Understanding Self-Knowledge and Intraindividual Patterns of Self-Efficacy Appraisal - Cervone, D., Mercurio, L., & Lilley, C.
Understanding the STEM Student: Holistic Strategies from Social Cognitive Theory and the KAPA Model of Personality Architecture - Iaochite, R. T., Cervone, D., & Azzi, R. G.
Validation and Validity: Self-Efficacy, Metacognition, and Knowledge-and-Appraisal Personality Architecture (KAPA) - Ritchie, L., & Sharpe, B. T
Brainstorming
We brainstormed different aspects of the project by focusing on advising needs and generating user group job descriptions. This process informed user persona content and feature generation for the platform.
User Personas
Three initial interviews with Tufts faculty members in advisory roles highlighted the need for individualized student advising, understanding student trends at an institutional level, and connecting with students beyond academics. These insights guided the design principles for SeeDegree.
Findings
Senior Academic Advisor
Desired more individualized advising and a system that organizes students' self-perceived information.
Academic Dean
Emphasized the importance of understanding student self-confidence across demographics and over time.
Academic Coach
Highlighted the need to connect with students beyond academics and provide proper resources.
Desired more individualized advising and a system that organizes students' self-perceived information.
Academic Dean
Emphasized the importance of understanding student self-confidence across demographics and over time.
Academic Coach
Highlighted the need to connect with students beyond academics and provide proper resources.
Surveys
Surveys were conducted with students and parents to gather comprehensive data on their advising experiences and expectations. This data informed the design of the platform to better meet user needs.
Findings
Student Survey
Students value advisor guidance but seek more personalized approaches. There's a need for better rapport and understanding of individual goals.
Parent Survey
Parents want comprehensive student information and progress reports, indicating potential areas for platform improvement.
Students value advisor guidance but seek more personalized approaches. There's a need for better rapport and understanding of individual goals.
Parent Survey
Parents want comprehensive student information and progress reports, indicating potential areas for platform improvement.
User Needs & Requirements
Identified user needs include concise and organized information, efficiency, holistic views, versatility, and easy information retrieval. These needs translated into product requirements such as a centralized landing page, AI-generated text summaries, self-efficacy representation, customizability, and note-taking/export features.
Ideations
Brainstormed features included AI-generated text summaries, self-efficacy visualizations, customizable dashboards, and efficient information retrieval tools to aid advisors in understanding students holistically and efficiently.
Analysis
Task Analysis
A detailed task analysis mapped out an advisor's experience using SeeDegree, identifying physical, cognitive, and emotional aspects to improve the user experience.
Physical Task Analysis
Emotional Task Analysis
Cognitive Task Analysis
Risk Analysis
A risk analysis identified potential issues, such as inaccurate student information and misinterpretation of reports, and developed strategies to mitigate these risks.
Wireframes
Customizable data graphics show self-efficacy and importance for the group-level report
Our initial concept for the individual report. The left panel shows the student’s demographic information, the AI-generated summary of the student based on the survey, as well as the self-reported strengths and areas for improvement for the student.
Analysis
Usability tests were conducted with five advisors to evaluate the prototype. Participants completed tasks using the Figma prototype, and feedback was gathered on their experiences and suggestions for improvement.
The usability tests conducted on the initial prototype highlighted several important insights into its functionality and user experience.
Participants encountered challenges with navigation, particularly in finding their way back to the home screen or accessing specific resources for users, adding and viewing charts, sharing and archiving pages, and recording and exporting notes.
Despite these usability issues, participants generally expressed positive impressions of the product. They appreciated features such as the notes section and the ability to view both group and individual reports.
To enhance usability, participants recommended improving navigation cues and design elements and providing clearer instructions for features like note-taking and exporting.
The findings from the usability tests were used to further refine our prototype.
Research Findings
The research findings from our user interviews, surveys, and competitor analysis have provided valuable insights for improving our initial prototype for the SeeDegree advisor-side interface.
Key Findings
Advisors need a holistic view of their students.
Importance of understanding students’ self-perceptions, challenges beyond academics, and overall sense of belonging.
Need for the prototype to go beyond simply displaying raw survey data.
Implementation Suggestions
Incorporate AI-generated student summaries that synthesize survey responses and identify key themes.
Integrate self-efficacy metrics prominently within student profiles to provide advisors with a deeper understanding of students’ confidence levels in different areas.
Information Presentation and Customization
Importance of clear and organized information architecture, with easily accessible tabs for individual and group reports.
Allow advisors to prioritize the data they find most valuable for understanding their students.
Enable advisors to tailor their experience to their individual advising styles and student needs
Usability Test Findings
Clear Navigation and Information Presentation
Implement a prominent and consistent navigation bar across all pages to ensure users can easily return to the main page.
Enhance the notes feature by allowing advisors to access and reference past notes within individual student profiles.
Individual and Group-Level Reports
Adopt a more positive framing, using terms like “opportunity for growth” instead of “weaknesses.”
Replace circular confidence vs. importance graphs with a more universally understood thermometer format.
Additional Functionalities
Add an export button for individual reports to allow advisors to easily share reports with colleagues or students.
Incorporate a dedicated “add notes” button within individual profiles to enhance clarity.
Propose a zoom function for graphs in group-level reports to address concerns of small text size (not implemented in the prototype due to Figma limitations).
By incorporating these refinements based on user testing, we aimed to create a more intuitive, user-friendly, and informative experience for advisors utilizing the SeeDegree platform.
Final Design
Dashboard
The redesigned dashboard serves as a central hub for advisors, offering a clear and organized starting point for their advising tasks. A prominent navigation bar is consistently visible across all pages, allowing advisors to easily return to the dashboard and access other sections of the platform. The dashboard's well-structured layout includes sections for quick statistics and a schedule of upcoming meetings, providing advisors with an overview of their student advisees at a glance. This design facilitates efficient navigation to specific student data, streamlining the advising process.
Individual Report
Individual student reports are designed to give advisors a holistic understanding of each student. Upon accessing a student’s report, advisors are presented with a concise AI-generated summary at the top of the page, synthesizing the student’s survey responses and highlighting key themes. This allows advisors to quickly grasp the student’s overall sentiment and situation. Below the summary, the report includes student demographics, self-reported strengths and opportunities for growth, and self-efficacy metrics displayed in a visually appealing thermometer format. The terminology “weaknesses” has been replaced with “challenges” to encourage a more positive framing of student development areas. Additionally, the notes feature has been enhanced, allowing advisors to create, store, and access past notes directly within the student’s profile, eliminating the need to navigate to a separate page and streamlining the information retrieval process.
Overall Self-Efficacy
The overall self-efficacy view displays both the importance and confidence for each domain. The design has been revamped from circular graphs to bar-shaped "thermometer" graphs, providing a clearer comparison between confidence and importance across domains. Additionally, resources for each domain are accessible via a dropdown menu, making it easier for advisors to explore relevant support materials.
Notes Feature
Based on user testing feedback, a notes feature was added that allows advisors to take notes directly within a student's report during meetings. New notes are automatically tagged with the meeting date and the student's name for easy reference. Additionally, these notes can be accessed through the individual reports database, streamlining the process of reviewing and managing student information.
Group-Level Report
In response to feedback on information presentation, the group-level reports page now offers advisors greater control over the data they view. A customization feature, accessed via a chart editor pop-up, allows advisors to tailor the display to the specific needs of their advisee groups. For instance, an advisor might choose to focus on self-efficacy in critical thinking or explore areas where students report needing the most support. While the current presentation of graphs and charts is maintained, future iterations of the SeeDegree platform could include interactive features that allow advisors to delve deeper into specific data points, pending further user research and development to ensure an intuitive, user-friendly experience. The group-level report also retains the ability to export data, enabling advisors to share reports with colleagues or external stakeholders.
Resources
The resources section offers advisors a curated list of student support services and relevant materials, all conveniently located within the platform. Usability testing results guided the optimization of navigation to ensure advisors can easily access and utilize these resources to better support their students. The specific resources available will vary depending on the university or institution using SeeDegree, providing tailored support based on institutional needs.
