iSchool Unified Desk Services
Role
Researcher & Designer
Team members: Ibiyemi Adewakun, Erika Victoria Catipon, Esther Cho, Ekta Shokeen
Timeframe
8 Weeks (one semester)
Tools & Methods
Contextual Inquiry, Miro, & Figma
Client
iSchool Unified Desk Services @ University of Maryland
Design Problem
Initial Problem Statement
“iSchool adjuncts need a central point of service because the iSchool staff spends a lot of manpower to answer requests.”
Problem Statement - After User Interviews
“iSchool adjuncts require a central point of service because they want easy access to information and resources to fit their varying schedules and needs.”
Project Brief
Currently, the iSchool has a physical desk in Hornbake Library for students and staff to ask questions about iSchool resources. This project is part of a larger project to update the iSchool’s Unified Services Desk, as identified by the iSchool administration. Stakeholders include iSchool administrators and adjunct faculty, as well as the University of Maryland’s administrators and both iSchool and general University of Maryland students.
Study Goals
Due to the condensed timeline, our goals were:
Learn more about available resources for adjunct faculty and
their needs about accessing these resources.
Our research plan was limited to understanding the adjunct faculty’s current levels of support and resources from the iSchool, their contract length as it pertains to their resources access, resources specific to course planning, any additional resources they need, their onboarding process, and a potential need for social networking space for adjuncts. The quality of their teaching, their pay and benefits as an adjunct faculty member, and the longevity of their contracts were out of scope for our user research.
The project explored the following questions:
How do adjuncts feel about the onboarding process at the iSchool?
How do adjuncts find resources?
How does their teaching experience in the pandemic compare to previous semesters?
How do adjuncts communicate with other faculty members and the iSchool staff?
Do adjuncts use the iSchool intranet website and why?
Are there additional resources the iSchool could provide to adjuncts?
After exploring these questions, we generated several experience models to further understand the adjunct experience at the iSchool. Ultimately, this project only produced conceptual design recommendations, rather than a design solution, to address the various issues adjuncts faced when accessing resources.
Research
Data Collection Method
Method
Semi-Structured interviews with 5 users
Mode
Virtual via Zoom video conferencing
Members in Session
Interviewee, Interviewer with 1-2 note takers
The method for data collection was a semi-structured interview with users virtually. Users were identified using convenience sampling. Interview questions focused on an user’s experiences during: on-boarding, finding resources, communication within iSchool communities, academic responsibilities and pandemic experiences. Each interview session consisted of 3-4 people: 1 interviewee, 1 interviewer, and with 1-2 additional team members to take notes. Also, for research team reference the data was video-recorded based on the consent from the users.
Data Interpretation & Analyzation
Affinity Diagram
An affinity diagram allows the sorting of large amounts of data, including facts, user opinions, and user needs. It allows us to organize the sorted data into groups or themes, based on their relationships with each other. This process helps to develop new and deeper insight from users, by highlighting related findings. These insights ultimately define the problems and lead to the development of potential ideas and solutions. To develop our affinity diagram:
Identity Model
Identity Model provides a basic big picture representation that aids designs. The data we collected through Interviews, gave insight on a user's perception of their identity, their needs and wants, which can be well represented with Identity Model components - I AM, I LIKE, and I PLAN. It depicts different identities of target users based on how they identify themselves, what they like, and what they do, in the three sessions - I am, I like, and I do. We decided to make an Identity Model as it allows designers and clients to understand the identities of the potential users and their needs based on their experiences.
Journey Map
We selected the journey map to visualize the user’s process when accessing iSchool resources. The journey map has 5 essential components: a specific user, a specific scenario with the user’s expectations, journey phases, the user’s steps, quotes, and emotions for each phase, and finally, opportunities to improve the journey.
The process of creating the journey map aligned the team’s mental model of how adjuncts access resources. Although we had interviewed 4 adjuncts in their experiences in accessing resources, we didn’t have a clear picture of the process adjuncts go through. Once we had an understanding of the individual steps in the resource access process, we could identify areas that could be optimized during this process. The journey map also provided an easy and concise visualization of how adjuncts access iSchool resources for the client. This gave the client a quick overview of where adjuncts may be struggling in this process without needing to read through the interpretation session notes.
