ms3_s1
For the exercise purpose, we are using the following names for our personas so that it is easier to organize and show the diagrams and information. They will be used in the SOLUTION DESCRIPTION and the BRAINSTORMING PROCESS
- Persona 1: Persona interested in groups and events
- Persona 2: Persona seeking to create groups and events
- Persona 3: University Event Organizer
- 1. Decision of problem
- 2. Brainstorming the solution
- 3. Empathy Maps
- 4. Personas
- 5. Solution Description
As an outcome of the MS2 deliverable, our investigation yielded four problem statements within the domain of university contexts involving university students. These problem statements were extracted from the interviews conducted by each member of the team. Detailed descriptions of the four proposed problems can be accessed here (MS2).
Subsequent to engaging in a process characterized by Lateral Thinking during various team meetings, we discerned a recurring theme. A considerable number of interviewees highlighted the absence of a centralized platform for facilitating student interactions and group formation across diverse activities such as informal sports events (e.g., casual volleyball games), gym sessions, study sessions, and even for issuing calls for various initiatives. Concurrently, we noted a significant revelation—despite our initial assumption that problem #1 held paramount importance—interviewees consistently emphasized the significance of aggregating university-related events within a singular platform. This platform would showcase comprehensive event information including attributes such as "Name," "Organizer," "Date," "Time," "Location," and "Description."
A noteworthy synthesis of the aforementioned problems led to the following composite problem statement:
Develop an integrated platform that addresses the absence of a centralized communication channel for students to convene groups for a spectrum of activities, ranging from recreational sports and fitness endeavors to academic study sessions. Additionally, this platform should extend to automating the process of group formation for student-initiated endeavors. Furthermore, this platform should encompass a comprehensive aggregation of university events, unifying university event-related information such as Name, Organizer, Date, Time, Location, and Description, providing students with a centralized repository of event-related information and opportunities, also with a calendar view of these events for a facility for students to organize them.
To build up the solution to the problem we used a divergence convergence strategy. In this manner, we collected ideas from every person in the group to solve the problem. We accepted all kinds of ideas, we did a process of "yes and" to complement the ideas of others and build up the essentials of the solution. When everyone was out of more ideas for solving the problems we decided to do a convergence strategy, in this manner we labeled each idea into one of three categories: "Must do"(green), "May do"(yellow), and "Not worth it"(red). The ideas that were categorized as "Must do" are the ones that should be implemented in the MVP, the ones that were categorized as "May do" were ideas that could add some value to the final product, but are not essential for an MVP. Finally, the ideas categorized as "Not worth it" are ideas that don't necessarily help solve the problem and add no value to our solución. In the next image the brainstorming process is show clearly.
The main points we decided that are relevant aim the facility for people to join and create groups. To address this, we are going to create QRs to join events, we also want people to create events and groups so other students can join. Additionally, we believe that a schedule for knowing when are the incomming events so assistant be aware of the events. Finally, we are also aiming to promote sports events, allowing the creation of tournaments and a variety of activities.
The next image shows how the brainstorm fits the profile from the personas. The arrows indicate which requirement helps to solve each personas problems and reduce their pain points.
The solution that we propose is an app that simplifies the process in which students and teachers organize and join events in the university. We identified that people often suffer from finding information about events and groups. Additionally, many other students struggle findings nice events that fit their preferences and have issues when building their own groups. In fact, these students are very interested on many topics and will love to belong to this groups. We seek to diminish the gap between these two users by creating and app that will allow the community to publish, discover and join events of many different topics.
We have divided our solution in four "screens", the ones shown above. Each one of them is thought as a way to tackle all our personas problem and complement our work and brainstorming made last week. The following diagram explains their relation with the stated problem and how they help to deal with it.
