This project was given to me and four other students by Halmstad University. This was our second big project over all and we were all excited to start working again. The brief we got was to do was to update the current website that the students of the univeristy uses, hh.se/student. The main problem that they were facing was that the majority of students were not using their website and therefore missed out on news, special events and much more. On the other hand, the students who were using the site had a lot of problem finding what they wanted because it was so disoriented and confusing to use the website.

We solved this problem with a website where the students easily could access all the information in one place, they could see their upcoming lectures and what special events they were registered to. During the four weeks with this project we identified the primary aspects we wanted to deliver with our solution was accessibility and simplicity. The main problem we were facing was the coding inexperience we had in the team. In the end we provided both a coded prototype and one made with the help of adobe XD. The group dynamic was also a bit problematic but in the end we delivered what was expected of us.

Down below I will describe our process from researching the topic, defining the problem and finally showing some solutions we came up with. If you want to read the full report it is available by pressing the big orange button (PS. It is in Swedish).

The main design problem that we identified was ease of use and simplicity. We wanted to create a website that would make the life of a student a bit easier. It would also gather all the different platforms the students uses and make it easier to access them. At the moment the students are overloaded with information when accessing the student part of the website, which have led to that the students do not want to use the website. Our main focus is to reduce the amount of information on the website, only keeping the most relevant information. This would lead to a website that is more comprehensible and more simple to use. The interviews showed us that the most important features include the schedule, personal information for each student and simple navigation to other important external websites.

During this project I was the project leader during this project which was new to me. Leading and managing was tough, but in the end I learned alot about myself and how to treat the others in the team. I have never designed where the main platform is a mobile. From this I learned that important things should be in reach on the thumb and how simplicity is key when designing for mobile. Another lesson from this project is that we ourselves are students and our core target group were students so we had to put our own opions aside for this project, even though we had many. This part was the hardest for us, not letting our own opions take over.

All in all, this project was really fun and also very challenging with new things to learn and new things to adapt to. This project gave me a new perspective on how the project leader usally works and what decisions needs to be made. Since this was our second big project it also gave me better insight into how every project is different from eachother.