My Role
Researcher, UX Designer
Tools
Figma
Michigan Colleges Alliance College Community Challenge: Design Thinking
As a part of a team of students learning working knowledge of Design Thinking collaborated to create an entrepreneurial solution in partnership with a local organization to address a community need.
Our team is proposing an Alma College Enrichment App to connect students to local businesses and resources within the community. This platform aims to provide information about places to eat, socialize, volunteer, work, or seek medical attention. By incentivizing the use of the Alma Transportation Center (ATC) buses, which provide free rides to Alma College students within Gratiot County, the app would increase students’ ease and comfort in accessing the ATC service. Additionally, the app would offer details about ATC’s hours of operation, service areas, phone number, peak travel times, and its connection to Greyhound buses. Our team conducted research to gauge student interests, which indicated that an app would be the ideal platform for engagement and would help students more easily take advantage of the ATC service.
Research
We are partnering with the Alma Transit Center and Alma College. The Transit Center is responsible for providing safe and accessible transportation for students free of charge. While ATC provides the transportation and Alma College funds it, we would then strengthen the link between the two, outlining the locations to which students can travel using the service.
Plan Mapping: a visual tool used to organize and explore initial ideas about the user and how they relate to the idea.
Sense
Our next steps were to understand how the Alma Transit Center was run and how it worked. We met with the director and asked questions in order to clarify details about ATC’s services, data, funding, operations, and goals, especially around accessibility, demographics, and outreach
Survey
After we had gathered information from the ATC, our next steps are to ask questions to the users and the drivers, and form a user purpose statement, and then narrow down our focus and problem statement. We created a survey for students and sent it out campus-wide, and analyzed their responses.
Survey Questions:
What year are you?
Are you aware of this service available to you?
Have you used the Alma Transit service before? If so, how often?
If you could change one thing about the service, what would it be?
When you use the service, do you experience long wait times?
Have you ever received same-day transportation (scheduled a ride the day of)? What was the wait time?
Is the service convenient for you to use as a student? Why or why not?
How comfortable are you with calling to schedule an appointment/service?
When scheduling a service, do you prefer to schedule online or over a phone call?
Would you be more likely to use the service if there were an app? Why or why not?
If you are able to schedule a ride on an app, what features would you like it to include?
If the service were more accessible, would you be more likely to use it?
What year are you?
Are you aware of this service available to you?
Have you used the Alma Transit service before? If so, how often?
If you could change one thing about the service, what would it be?
When you use the service, do you experience long wait times?
Have you ever received same-day transportation (scheduled a ride the day of)? What was the wait time?
Is the service convenient for you to use as a student? Why or why not?
How comfortable are you with calling to schedule an appointment/service?
When scheduling a service, do you prefer to schedule online or over a phone call?
Would you be more likely to use the service if there were an app? Why or why not?
If you are able to schedule a ride on an app, what features would you like it to include?
If the service were more accessible, would you be more likely to use it?
Understand
Many Alma College students are not aware of the free services ATC offers. Given that a significant number of students, especially lowerclassmen and exchange students do not own a car, this solution would provide an effective and convenient way to raise awareness and connect students to the ATC service, increasing comfortability and ease of access. This app would, more broadly, also enhance the Alma area, bolstering community engagement, drawing more people to the college, encouraging economic growth, and reducing the stigma surrounding public transportation. This is a tangible solution given the size of the college and our ability to engage with and access the expertise of several different departments, namely Art and Design, New Media Studies, and Computer Science.
Alma College Enrichment App
An Alma College Enrichment App, which would incentivize the use of ATC by connecting students to local businesses and resources within the community. We have created a prototype of the app using Figma. After the user logs in, they are brought to a homepage with an interactive map. The map is filtered into categories including food, entertainment, errands, coffee, and campus locations, and displays the areas accessible by the transit center. Users can click on any location to obtain information about its services, visit its website, call, or rate the service. Additionally, the home screen provides more details about the transit center and allows users to schedule a ride directly through the app.
Contraints
Launching this concept poses certain challenges that revolve around two main obstacles. Firstly, it requires identifying skilled individuals who can take charge of developing the app. Secondly, it involves working closely with various administrative bodies on campus to obtain their cooperation and approval since the project impacts the entire campus.
Action Steps
To make this app a reality, our team needs to hire people with the necessary skills and qualifications to design, prototype, develop and code, test, and launch the app. We hope to involve students interested in learning or contributing to app development from Art and Design, Computer Science, and New Media Studies departments. The steps to implementing the app involve creating mockups and prototypes of its user interface, compiling video and photo content, building the app with front-end and back-end functionality and integrating third-party services. This will be followed by testing the app, deploying it to the app store, and marketing it to the student body.
Solution
Outcome
An app has the potential to increase awareness of the Alma Transportation Center and improve navigation and access to resources throughout the city of Alma for roughly 1400 Alma College students. By providing interactive maps, transit schedules, and information about campus and community resources, the app can help students become more familiar with the city and its offerings. Additionally, social and communal partnerships will encourage greater exploration of Gratiot County and foster connections between the college and local businesses. Overall, an app is a promising solution for improving the student experience and promoting community engagement.