University of Waterloo Marketing & Undergraduate Recruitment
January 2017-April 2017
Waterloo, Ontario
DAC 309: User Experience Design focuses on completing a full design cycle over a twelve-week term. The project tasked to us is the creation and then testing of a five-post Instagram campaign for the Faculty of Arts Instagram page. Upon course completion, the client will have their choice of campaign ideas to then develop and use in the future. The intention of this campaign is to target outgoing-high school students who are currently considering uWaterloo as an institution for their post-secondary education.
The deliverables to be completed as a part of this course includes a persona, storyboard, low and medium fidelity prototypes of the campaign and a final list of recommendations to be presented to the client. The focus of this process will assist students in designing and executing insight-gathering interviews, design and run user tests of Instagram campaign prototypes, master Instagram campaign best practices and populate the campaign with assets, present work and ideas to the client, improve as reflective and reflexive UX design practitioners and deploy Office of Research Ethics approved research subject materials.
Assignment One
The first task in designing the campaign is to create a Persona Field Package. This includes creating the interview questions with multiple reviews to ensure questions are targeting the right information. We will also be including interview notes, Office of Research Ethics approved information letters with signed consent forms from our interviewees and a persona document to flesh out the identity of our target audience.
Process
Our team will be conducting interviews with multiple first-year undergraduate students at the University of Waterloo in the Faculty of Arts to assess their priorities and preferences regarding Instagram. The scope of our project limits our ability to interact directly with our target audience; however, we believe our interview subjects will still be able to offer valuable advice as individuals only one year removed from the process of picking a university.
Assignment Two
The second assignment will include photo records of our prototype, detailed process descriptions, post-task questionnaires for the purpose of reflection and the Test 1 report.
Process
This component of the project will be the most time and development intensive. This is where our team will bring to life low and medium fidelity prototypes, apply the feedback we received during the interview process and workshop our product.
Assignment Three
This is comprised of a five-slide, five-minute PowerPoint presentation given to the class about a pre-assigned Instagram topic. The intention of these presentations is to assist the class in growing their understanding of Instagram as a tool for business, not just personal use. We will be focusing on the concept of user-generated content and how that can be harnessed for growing reach and impact.
Process
The first step for assessing user generated content is to identify brands who currently succeed in its utilization and assess the commonalities. Next, developing a style guide that outlines the standards for composition, font, colour palette and filters will assist in ensuring there is harmony among page content. A powerful hashtag combined with promotional efforts will increase follower buy-in, creating a personal relationship between users and brand. User generated content offers authenticity that cannot be replicated by brand driven marketing efforts.
Assignment Four
This will consist of a ten minute PowerPoint presentation to our client comprising of our UX insights as well as tested campaign results. There will also be an engaged dialogue with the client following the presentation to flesh out ideas further, consider feedback and clarify any concerns.
Process
This presentation will culminate all efforts in the development of the Instagram campaign. This is a particularly crucial step in the process as we are seeking stakeholder buy-in as they will have multiple campaigns to select from.
The Final Product
Coming soon!