Santa Monica College (SMC) is looking for ways to improve the user experience for guests attending this spring's Center for Media and Design (CMD) student showcase since this will be the first and the start of the annual SMC Student Showcase
To create an enticing advertisement campaign promoting the SMC school showcase Focal Point; the ultimate goal is to increase attendance, and provide a safe place for students in the design program to showcase their work.
One of the primary obstacles in spreading the word about the event Focal Point is the lack of reliable ways to promote communication between the school and its students aside from the instructors. It is difficult to reach a big audience and ensure that students are aware of significant events and opportunities in the absence of an internet hub.
It became clear during the interview that email is a secondary route for students to obtain school-related information. Many students check their school email on a regular basis for notices, updates, and reminders from professors and campus organizations. This highlights the possibilities of using email to communicate important event information to students.
To solve the issue of restricted communication while benefiting from the existing reliance on email, creating a newsletter targeted to the event Focal Point. This newsletter can serve as a communication channel for informing students about the event, showcasing the work of participating students, and highlighting event details such as the date, time, and place.
Insight: Interviewing two SMC design students I found out that professors and school emails are the primary channels that students are able to effectively receive information regarding school event. This was crucial in deciding in what digital medium I was going to focus the advertisement strategy around. An email newsletter can involve engaging content that effectively promote announcements to CMD students.
"I find professors to be a reliable source of school information. They often announce important updates during class or provide handouts with details about upcoming events."
"School emails serve as a central hub for official announcements and administrative updates. From class cancellations to scholarship opportunities, I always count on the emails to keep me informed and in the loop."
During the creation of the journey map, our objective was to map out the entire event based on initial awareness to post-event engagement. This would reveal any pain points or possible opportunities throughout the event. With all this laid out as a team, we realized the need for more engagement in the enticement phase.
To help with the event's success, it was my job to develop a strategy to create engagement. A few ideas were to leverage the style guide handed down to us by Tal (the designer behind Focal Point). Utilizing her work as inspiration, I could create uniformity with the event's visual languages, such as graphic elements. Another way was to build up the event by announcing that this would be the first and the start of the annual student showcase to build up FOMO. Another way was to include students' work from various design programs to help ensure that there was a space for design students.
Jenna is a 19-year-old college student pursuing a degree in Graphic Design at SMC. She is in her first year of studies and is known among her peers for her creative talent and dedication to her coursework. Jenna is highly motivated to excel in her major and actively seeks opportunities to build her skills and network with students.
Jenna is enthusiastic, and eager to learn. She approaches her studies with a growth mindset, she seeks fo new challenges and opportunities to grow her skills. Jenna values collaboration and enjoys engaging with her peers and professors to exchange ideas and insights.
Improve Skills: Jenna aims to enhance her graphic design skills through practical projects, workshops, and exposure to real-world design experiences.
Understanding Jenna's persona helps prioritize the needs of a newsletter for promoting events. It becomes clear that the newsletter should focus on providing relevant information about design-related work,and networking opportunities. By aligning the newsletter content and features with Jenna's goals, interests, and needs, it can effectively capture her attention, keep her engaged, and drive her to attend the event.
After researching, interviewing, and developing a user journey and persona, it was time to sell my team the idea of a newsletter. To sell my vision and my ideas for the newsletter, I decided to develop a user story based on the persona Jenna, who represents our target audience. I plan to tell Jenna's story in a storyboard format where she struggles to be a new designer, going through creative blocks and wanting help from other students.
The story naturally introduces critical features of the newsletter, such as the date of the event, information regarding networking opportunities, and design students' work. This demonstrates how the event can address the needs of many designer students.
Developing this story of Jenna not only leverages showcasing the insights I gained during the research process but also invokes the emotion of empathy. It ensures that the story is informative but also holds an emotional impact. It is more relatable and persuasive to my team. Utilizing a User Story as a design tool helped validate the emotional and practical value a newsletter could bring to the event.
Sketching low-fidelity newsletter layouts allows me for quick exploration of design concepts, enabling me to visualize my ideas on paper. It helps in brainstorming and iterating through various layout options before committing to a digital design.
During the sketching process, I experiment with different elements, such as headlines, image placement, and had to mix and match all of these components to create seamless flow for the reader. Since I planned to include paragraphs of information and calls to action, I had to consider how to keep the students engaged without overwhelming them.
When transitioning to digital blockouts, I utilized sketches as the framework to incorporate interactive elements such as hyperlinks and buttons through Figma.The selection of these elements was critical to the design; if there were any sections that looked like buttons, I wanted them to act as one. Not only that but on digital I could pin point the spacing with gutter and protype it on computers and on phone. Early feedback sessions within the team allowed for an iterative adjustment that enhanced the user experience before adding content.
As I progressed further into the design process, I focused on finalizing the layout for the medium-fidelity stage based on the feedback I had received previously. I chose the phone frame as the final layout because they scale well on other devices.
With that now locked in, my main goal was to refine the design principles such as hierarchy, balance, and composition. Since this phase included written content such as Focal Point and CMD summaries, calls to action, and students' work. I had to be confident that the written or visual components were all doing their part in creating an engaging experience before adding the graphic elements.
When entering the implementation phase, I finalized all my content components, including writing and graphic elements. After that, I transferred my design to MailChimp for distribution and analytics. Mailchimp provides creators with tools to track KPI’s such as click rates, user engagement, and unsubscribes. Based on this data, we can determine engagement levels with our target audience.
Further data analysis can reveal certain user behaviors, such as the section that are receiving the highest and lowest engagement, hyperlink click rate, user retention, etc.
Mailchimp is a powerful tool in guiding design iterations for future newsletters. Since the student showcase will occur annually, establishing Mailchimp as part of the design process will ensure that we provide newsletters that meet the user's needs.
The aesthetics and layout of the newsletter was most successful. Attributing to the success was the clear hierarchy of content which made the newsletter aesthetically appealing and providing an easy flow to read. However, when converting my design to Mail Chimp, I faced new adversities as a designer. I had to deal with practical challenges such as optimizing the layout's responsiveness and ensuring that emails sent through MailChimp were stable and glitch-free. These challenges led me to gain valuable insights into image optimization, consistent render testing, and adapting my design to Mail Chimps's specifications. Reflecting on the project allowed me to realize the successes and challenges I faced as a designer.
Pitching my design to the class was nerve-racking, but it provided a valuable learning opportunity. It helped me improve my presentation skills, gain confidence in showcasing my work, and receive constructive feedback for further improvements.
Conducting interviews with students for the first time presented challenges, but it was a very rewarding. I was able to practice how to navigate through interview questions, engage students in meaningful conversations, and gain insights into their perspectives, preferences, and expectations, which influenced the design decisions.
Collaborating with Luke to refine the newsletter design was a successful and productive effort. We communicated effectively, and shared ideas that leveraged my designs. By working as a team, we addressed design challenges, and incorporated feedback.
