StudySync HCD Final

StudySync

THE PROBLEM

More than 89% percent of college students say they feel stress from exams

As students, we find that we struggle mentally as exam season rolls around, finding it really difficult to prepare and study for our midterms, finals, and even quizzes.

So how might we improve the process for students to better prepare themselves mentally for exams?

USER RESEARCH

RESEARCH GOALS

Our guidelines for how we did research on what contributes to exam stress:

- What stress factors exist for students

- How students feel about stress factors

- How students are affected by stress factors

- How students cope with stress factors

- What features and improvements students would enjoy for the exam preparation process

RESEARCH METHODS

USER INTERVIEWS

4 Interviewees (18-21)

Notable Quotes:

“I’ve never once been calm before an exam”
“I usually study more, so that I don’t get more anxious”
“Grades stress me out, I just don't want to get a bad grade on the exam”
“Sometimes I lose thoughts…” ex: midterm / final started staring into space

Insights:

- Can lose focus during exam
- Inefficient study time prioritization
- Better preparation will help ease stress
- External pressures

SURVEY

We had 84 respondents.

Some of the questions we asked in the survey include:

- On a scale of 1-5 how stressed do you feel during an exam?
- Which factors MOST hinder your preparation and contribute to stress?
- What do you personally do to combat stress before an exam?
- What are some mediums you use to prepare for exams?

Key Insights:

- Better preparation will help most with exam stress

- Getting started is the hardest part of the studying process

- A major pain point in preparing exams is self-discipline related hindrances

- Most respondents feel lacking in current methods of preparing for exams

USER PERSONA

JOURNEY MAP

NEW HOW MIGHT WE

After user research, we decided to shift our focus from directly addressing the mental health aspect of exam stress to looking at ways to help students prepare for their exams which would in turn reduce stress.

How might we improve exam preparation for students to help combat high stress levels?

IDEATION

LOW-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE

I chose the app idea because I think students really struggle with how to start preparing for their exams. I considered the insights of how students are not satisfied with their current methods of preparation and that the most difficult part of studying is getting started.

INITIAL MID-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE

One of the students' greatest concerns is time management, and this app would curate a study plan based on how much time you have until the exam, how much time you have to allocate each day, and all the study materials you want to use, and will generate the most efficient plan for you! I think this alleviates the pressure of starting and planning the study process. I also incorporated a community page where people can share the study plans they got so people can use those if they do not want to input their own materials and create their own.

USABILITY TESTING

- “I think it should be linkable to my Canvas so I can easily upload my lecture notes and practice tests.”
- “I would want to be able to change how often I get notifications”
- “I would try to filter the community study plans to people in my school and then look up the specific class I am taking and find the type of exam I am taking”
- “I want to be able to make my profile private or public and archive my plans I completed”

UPDATED MID-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE

I changed the profile to better organize and condense the information including things that some people expressed interest in seeing. Some wanted to be able to archive their previously completed study plans and be able to find them again. They also wanted to be able to make their accounts private or public in addition to having that option for their individual plans.