Design

Specification
Info 360 Fall 2012
Sean Payne, Courtney Dutton, Lawrence Tjok

2012

The Design Problem

Problem
The key to surviving college is ultimately to find a major and graduate on time. The students who are affected by this time sensitive decision are freshman, sophomores, transfer students and students unsure about their current major. Finding a major has become a harder problem for the students to conquer these days due to the sheer quantity of majors out there. The University of Washington has 165 majors ("University of Washington, Office of Admissions"). So for students who really do not have much of an idea of what they would like to pursue, choosing a major can be a very daunting task. Research has shown that up to 80 percent of entering college students admit that they are not certain what they want to major in, even if they have declared a major. Before graduation over 50 percent of college students change their major at least once ("CCO - Unsure About Your Major?"). Our goal here is to help students have confidence in choosing their major or change to a major that they are confident they are interested in and will be successful in.

Causes

Why do some students have a hard time to find their majors? The Amber Temple University shows that common reasons of why students are having a hard time to find their majors are ("Academic Services"):

Lack of knowledge (not knowing what majors or careers are out there) Uncertainty of own interests, skills and abilities, or fear of certain types of academic work (math, speech, writing, research) Mistaken belief that choice of major totally determines career Have too many options, too many interests. Feel pressure to meet parents/friends expectations Do not see a major that fits personal interest area Fear of failure

Based on our insights from our interviews, we found that the main reasons why students have a hard time choosing a major is because students are not sure how their interests translate into a major area.

Consequence

The results of choosing a wrong major can be serious. But college officials also recognize that deciding on a major can be overwhelming, especially when coupled with the fear that a wrong choice will result in added semesters and tuition. ("Education Life") Students no longer have the luxury of stumbling into major or making mistakes, says Neeta P. Fogg, a research professor at Drexel Universitys Center for Labor Markets ("Education Life"). Not only that it may cost extra tuition and prolong the students graduation, it can also lead to pursuing a career that does not fit their interests. Since having to go back to school costs lot of money and time, the student can easily stuck with an unfulfilling career for life. Choosing the wrong major can make you twice as likely to end up unemployed. Researchers found that the highest rates belong to recent graduates in architecture (13.9 percent), the arts (11.1 percent), and the social sciences (8.9 percent). The undergraduate degrees with the lowest rates of unemployment are health (5.4 percent), education (5.4 percent), and agriculture and natural resources (7 percent).

Solution

The goal of this design will be to help the students, who are having trouble with finding their major, to find their interests in a major and provide a vast variety of information on majors for the students to explore. After exploring various options, we have decided that the best way and most efficient way to help these students with finding their major will be creating a website that uses the technique behind the Stumble Upon website. Students will have the option of viewing videos and articles related to majors at the University of Washington. The student will rate the videos and articles, and according to their rating, we will narrow down the majors that interest the student.

Scope
General Overview
The website will act as a simple and intuitive tool to help students find majors related to their interests based on the option to select academic interests and rate the articles and videos that they view. The site will not include social networking in any shape or form. The website will also not function for non-UW students. This tool is meant to sync with other UW websites and reports such as the Degree Audit Status. The process of selecting videos and articles to be presented to the student will mimic the process behind the website Stumble Upon. The Stumble Upon website uses interests that are selected by the user and by clicking on the stumble button a random website that falls within the users interests is presented. The students will be able to rate the videos and articles, which will help determine which majors are matches for the student based on what interests them. As a student rates videos and articles a progress bar will let the student see how many videos and articles they need to rate in order to get the best results for the majors being matched to the student. A student will be able to go back and edit the ratings that they previously did and save them. The articles and videos will help students discover what current professionals with this degree are doing. Students can choose interests to filter out certain areas to create a narrowed down starting point for viewing videos and articles. There is also a Browse Majors section for those who do not want to narrow results, but instead view all their options. The My Majors page will display their matches for majors and provide general overview of each, course evaluations provided by UW Evals, the prerequisites youve completed (if any), and careers and average salaries. Our design will not provide 4-year plans or applications to apply for these majors. There will not be any information on applying to majors. The student will not be able to compare majors with this tool. This is only a web based tool.

 The Target Audience

Our intended audience is students who need help finding a major or students who are considering switching majors. In order for students to be able to revisit their results and come back to rate more articles and videos we will use their UW NetID as their login credentials for this tool. By requiring the students to login with a UW NetID this tool will not be available to anyone without a UW NetID. It is possible that this tool could be implemented at other universities and requiring a school required student login.

Diagram 1 shows the audience spectrum of our design. Inside the purple box are our intended audiences and outside in the grey box is the most relevant unintended audience that could have benefited from our design but who will not have access to it.

 User Assumptions and Requirements

Pros and Cons Related to our Scope

Personas
Sophia Law (Freshman)
Sophia comes from a poor family in Oregon. She has been a hard working child ever since she was young. She does not have time to hang out with her high school friends because of her work. With her efforts, Sophia has become a straight A student at her small town high school. Although she has excelled academically, she has never been to a classroom with more than 20 students because of her small school. After graduation, she is attending the University of Washington to pursue further education. Sophia is very talented in science, math, music and art. Sophia got two years of college paid for by a scholarship and will pay the last two years of with a loan from financial aid. Due to her family's financial situation, Sophia will need to consider majors that can guarantee a stable job opportunity after graduation when she chooses a major. Away from her family and friends, Sophia is having a hard time adapting the new environment. She is having difficulty making friends in a big lecture hall. She is having an even harder time to trying to determine her major because she comes from a small town and she does not know what majors are available. She does not know what she wants to be in the future, but she knows that she needs to declare her major as soon as possible to graduate on time.

Kevin Thompson (Transfer Student)

Kevin comes from a rich family in Taiwan. He came to the United States after graduating high school and attended Shoreline Community College for 2 years to obtain an associates degree. Upon completing his associates degree, he

transferred to the University of Washington. Kevin is a really talented person, but also a lazy person. His hobby is playing video games, partying with friends and playing music. He learned to become a DJ last year, and he has formed a band with his friends at Shoreline Community College and play at various events occasionally. Despite being very social person, his parents want him to become a businessman when he graduates because his parents own a business and they want him to take over. Given the cost of international tuition, Kevins parents have high expectations from him. Given that he just transferred, he is under the pressure to declare a major as soon as possible if he wants to graduate in 4 years. Although that he knows his interests are partying, gaming, and music, he does not know what majors are available as well as career opportunity for his interests. He also knows that his parents would not be happy if he does not major in business.

Antonio Iglesias (Sophomore changing major)

Antonios family owns a car shop; his dad was a mechanical engineer and the owner of the shop. However, due to a car accident last year, his dad has passed away. Antonios mom was very upset and has hoped that one day Antonio can continue running his dads store by majoring in mechanical engineer. As a sophomore in college, Antonio was influenced by the incident and declared mechanical engineer as his major. After staying one year in mechanical engineer, he realized that mechanical is too hard for him. He struggled the whole year and does not want to pursue something that is not what he wants to do. Now, Antonio is a senior at the University of Washington. This fall quarter, Antonio took INFO 360 and found he liked design and that this is where his interests lay. He enjoys creative thinking and designing new things for people to use. Antonio has already spent most of his financial aid money and if he decided to double major or change major, it will take him extra money to pay for tuition and his family cannot afford it.

Design Specification
Below is a flow diagram of our website.


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Homepage

*Please ignore any shadowing (ex. Login button) in our photos; it was the result of a pdf conversion in LucidChart. Thank you

Banner

Design Choice: The website has a banner across the top displaying our logo in the top left corner and a login and help link in the top right. Rationale: This follows the conventions of websites, which will make the experience more intuitive for the user. Design Choice: Towards the top left of the page, located under the logo, there is a menu bar with links to the Homepage, Browse Majors page, and My Majors Page. Rationale: This also follows conventions of typical websites, allowing the user to navigate quickly, which streamlines the user workflow.

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Menu Links

Design Choice: The Home link will be highlighted in gold when a user is on the Homepage. Rationale: Again, following website conventions, this will keep the user aware of their current location, which will prevent confusion. Design Choice: The user can click Browse Majors at any time and view the major list. They can do this without logging in. Rationale: This feature doesnt need to save any details for the user, so logging in wouldnt benefit the user in any way. Design Choice: If a user clicks on My Majors without logging in, the page will load with an explanation stating Sorry, you havent rated any content, so we cant give you suggestions! Consider logging in. The words logging in will be a link to the log-on page. If a user is logged in, but hasnt rated any content, this page will display the same message without the Consider logging in part. Rationale: If a user isnt logged in, we wont be able to open their suggestions, so we will encourage them to log-in since theyve requested this information. If the user hasnt rated any content, we need them to do so before we provide any suggestions.

Description

Design Choice: We will have a description explaining what our tool does and how it is used. This will be located directly below the menu. Rationale: This will allow users to familiarize themselves with the tool briefly before using it. The location is where websites generally have their main content. 12

 Design Choice: There will be a login button below the description page as shown above. This button allows them to login with a UW NetID. Rationale: This is located directly below the description of the site, naturally guiding the user to start using the tool. Originally, users needed to create a profile, but we chose to focus on UW students, enabling us to integrate functionality with other UW services, such as the DARS reports. This is why using the NetID is ideal. Design Choice: We removed a large Infographic that used to be located next to the description. Rationale: This Infographic was intended to establish rapport with the user, however, this isnt necessary because our tool will be marketed through UW which has already established a good rapport. We wanted users to click the login link, but this graphic was distracting and we decided it would be better to remove it.

Login Page

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 Design Choice: We placed the UW NetID system within the webpage, instead of migrating to a new page. Rationale: During the user testing, one of our users pointed out that he was always confused at why the UW Login page redirects you to an external page. This will also allow users to click Browse Majors if that was the functionality they actually wanted. Design Choice: We copied over all of the links associated with the UW login system. Rationale: These links are still applicable to our tool. For example, if a user forgot their password, we wouldnt want them to leave our site in order to find another UW login service.

Filter Page

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Design Choice: We allow students to filter content. Rationale: Originally, we thought that users would be inclined to rule out a major they are potentially interested in. During our user study, we got feedback indicating that this is a desirable feature. We realized that users would likely have subject matter they really dont enjoy and decided to implement this functionality. Design Choice: Using this particular list of majors. Rationale: We found this list on Collegeboard.com (see works cited), which is an accredited website. It covers broad categories, meaning users will spend less time checking in boxes. It also prevents users from ruling out specific majors based on stereotypes. Design Choice: The Submit and Begin button is located below the filters list. Rationale: This follows the conventions of the rest of our website. Also, since users are reading down a list of items, their eyes will naturally move towards the bottom of the site. Design Choice: By default, these boxes are all checked. Rationale: This means that users will literally be narrowing down results instead of expanding them. This also means that if someone goes through without reading the page that they we will have an idea of what content to display.

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Ratings Page

Design Choice: We chose to use a Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down rating system as opposed to a different system. Rationale: Initially, we used a 5-star rating system. One of our users during testing mentioned that he would prefer the Thumbs system. We put a poll up on Facebook and were surprised to find the vast majority of respondents wanted to use a Thumbs system, so we decided to implement this functionality. Design Choice: We chose to display which major the content is related to directly above the content. Rationale: We wanted to keep people from rating based on major stereotypes, but multiple users during tested said this would be nice so they could understand how their ratings were being used. We figured this wouldnt disrupt our functionality, so we added it.

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 Design Choice: We have a progress meter at the bottom. Rationale: Our first prototype didnt tell users how much content they rated until they clicked submit, so many of them were confused at when they could stop. We added this to inform them when they have reached the best stopping point. Design Choice: We havent specified the number of articles and videos a user should rate before getting the best results. Rationale: With our limited time, it would be difficult to determine the optimal number of ratings a user should make before we could give them adequate results. This would require a functioning site, a full collection of articles and videos, and a complete scale on which majors are related to this content. Design Choice: We have a queue to indicate the upcoming articles and videos. Rationale: This is mainly to fill white space. It is simply a visual aide, but it also doesnt distract from the functionality of the site. Design Choice: We moved the See My Majors button to the right away from the conventional spot. Rationale: We want users to focus on rating the videos and articles. This button isnt hard to locate, but moving it away from the general content discourages a user from clicking this too early.

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Warning

Design Choice: We added a warning page if a user clicks the See My Majors button too early. Rationale: We wanted users to have the ability to quit rating content whenever they felt comfortable, but want them to know that their results are more accurate when more content is rated.

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My Majors

Design Choice: At the top of the results, we have a See/Edit Ratings Button. Rationale: During our user testing, a couple of the users indicated that they would like the ability to go back and change their rating on content. We decided that this would be useful if a user decides to restart or accidentally likes/dislikes something. Design Choice: We chose to only display the top three majors. Rationale: We want our tool to narrow down the users options based on their interest. Three may not be the perfect number, but it helps us focus on keeping the users options limited. We know from personal experience that applying to multiple majors is difficult because of all the essays and information you have to fill out. It would also be difficult for users to take all the prerequisites associated with many courses.

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 Design Choice: Include a brief major description. Rationale: This is pretty intuitive. If a user doesnt know much about the major we dont want them leaving the site to look up a definition. Design Choice: Include prerequisites and a DARS report. Rationale: This helps a user get a quick visual on what courses they will need to finish to complete the major. We identified that some of our users will be facing school or parent pressure to apply for a major. This will help them determine whether or not they can complete the major in time. Design Choice: Include Course Evaluations Rationale: People are prone to listen to friends or others that they can relate with. This will allow them to get an idea of how others enjoy the major. We will utilize the course evaluations from the University of Washington, meaning we dont have to acquire additional data on these courses. Our current prototype actually links to uwevals.com, which the creator, Jace, allowed us to use. Design Choice: Include Careers and Salaries Rationale: Some users may be unclear on what potential jobs they could look for and what kind of an income they could generate. This page will give a brief display to help users get an idea, but it isnt important to go into detail because they are looking for a major, not a career. The career advisors from individual departments will 20

choose this information.

See Ratings Page

This page simply allows users to see what rating they gave each article and video. If they click edit, it will send them to the edit ratings page.

Design Decision: Organize this information in two columns Rationale: This felt intuitive to split the content since it could be grouped into what the user likes and doesnt like. Design Decision: When users click an article or video on this page, they can look at the content again. Rationale: This was a functionality requested during our user testing.

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Edit Ratings Page

Design Decision: When a user clicks on one of the thumbs, it will remove the content from the particular column and add it to the other side. Rationale: This allows users to change the ratings they made, unless they made a mistake. It gives them a nice visual cue to indicate that this rating has been changed. Design Decision: A user has to click save ratings to keep the changes theyve made. Rationale: Users may decide they liked their videos and articles where they were originally. This makes it so they can abandon the page without making changes.

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Browse Majors
Design Choice: Replicate the Course Catalog from UW. We will not have any functionality beyond reading the list. Rationale: This will simply allow users to view potential options at the University of Washington and eliminate the need for us to generate our own list. We consider the specific courses outside of our project scope.

Help Page
Design Choice: We didnt specify anything for the help documentation. Rationale: We knew that having a help functionality is important for any website, but given our limited time, we decided writing a document wasnt in our best interest.

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Work Cited
"Choosing a Major." Academic Services. Ambler Temple University, n.d. Web. 13 Dec 2012. <http://www.temple.edu/ambler/careerdev/choosingamajor.htm>. "Choosing a Major." CCO - Unsure About Your Major?. Purdue University, n.d. Web. 13 Dec 2012. <https://www.cco.purdue.edu/Student/major.shtml>. "Choosing One College Major Out of Hundreds."Education Life. The New York Times, 2 2012. Web. 13 Dec 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/education/edlife/choosing-one-college- major-out-of-hundreds.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&>. GILLEN, CLAIRE. "CHOOSING THE WRONG MAJOR COULD COST YOU." The College Fix. The College Fix, 2 2012. Web. 13 Dec 2012. <http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/10108>. "Quick Facts | University of Washington." University of Washington, Office of Admissions. University of Washington, n.d. Web. 13 Dec 2012. <http://admit.washington.edu/quickfacts>. College Majors and Career Search. CollegeBoard <https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/majors-careers>

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