Course Planning
Tool I-Tech

Course Planning Tool I-Tech

I was hired to work on the development of a new course planning tool for the Interaction Technology Master program.

The idea was to create a web tool that helps students to orient themselves with the courses of Interaction Technology and supports them in planning these courses over their years in the Master's program. The previous method for selecting courses was a cumbersome Excel sheet that required students to fill in items in specific cells and was very error prone. This project was commissioned by the University of Twente, who hired me to design and support the development of the tool.
The idea was to create a web tool that helps students to orient themselves with the courses of Interaction Technology and supports them in planning these courses over their years in the Master's program. The previous method for selecting courses was a cumbersome Excel sheet that required students to fill in items in specific cells and was very error prone. This project was commissioned by the University of Twente, who hired me to design and support the development of the tool.
The idea was to create a web tool that helps students to orient themselves with the courses of Interaction Technology and supports them in planning these courses over their years in the Master's program. The previous method for selecting courses was a cumbersome Excel sheet that required students to fill in items in specific cells and was very error prone. This project was commissioned by the University of Twente, who hired me to design and support the development of the tool.

Process

The project was executed according to a research-based design process.

First, data was gathered on the wants and needs of all stakeholders, including students, but also the program coordinator and the education affairs officer of Interaction Technology. This data was gathered through interviews. Thereafter a list was created with all aspects mentioned by the stakeholders, these list items could be important to consider for the tool. These items were ranked by priority. This was converted into a requirement list using the MoSCow method. Thereafter a design was made using Figma, this was an iterative process with feedback from stakeholders. Finally, the design was converted to a web tool. This tool was then tested with a variety of users and thereafter released to all Interaction Technology students.

The Outcome

With a team of three we developed a tool that is a lot better tailored to the actual user needs. This tool has three views: an orientation view, a planning view and an overview.

The orientation view allows students to view all possible courses and find out more information about them. This view also allows students to indicate their interest in certain courses, which helps them to keep an overview of what courses they would like to follow. The planning view allows students to put their courses into a multiple-year overview by dragging and dropping courses. Finally, the overview page provides an overview of the courses that you have in your planning and from this page you can download a course planning file. A functionally-focused version of the tool, developed from our design, can be viewed here. While the implementation does not fully reflect the intended visual design, it demonstrates the core interaction and concept. It also shows the harsh reality of what happens when the development budget runs dry ;).

My Role

My responsibilities ranged from conducting user research to translating insights into intuitive user interface designs. This combination of research and design work helped me better understand the full UX process, from identifying user needs to delivering a functional interface

User Experience
Design & Research

This project further improved my user research and design skills. It included gathering and structuring user needs and iteratively working towards a design that would adhere to these needs while maintaining technical feasibility. It thereafter included testing the design with users and gathering feedback. This feedback was then evaluated, and only essential items were rethought and redesigned.

User Interface Design

This was a project where I truly focused on the design aspect. It showed me the intricacies of UI/UX design in a practical setting. This did not only consist of learning to use Figma very well but also triggered me to implement design rules of UI/UX design. I used a lot of knowledge gained by speaking with other UI designers about my designs and asking for their feedback.

Home

-

Work

-

About

Back to top

Home

-

Work

-

About

Back to top

Home

Back to top