This is how we clicked in the program of IXD at Sheridan College.
Why this graduation thesis?
Personal Experience
I grew up in an immigrant family that came to Canada in 2009. After graduating from grade 12, I arrived at Sheridan College and the program of Interaction Design (shortly known as IXD) feeling unprepared. I had a hard time making new friends, while feeling disconnected from my original friends and family. I was also self-conscious about my language, writing and design skills. No one was there to help me during first year, so I had to push myself out of my comfort zone. I wanted to change that.
Relating to International Students
International students, especially those from China, have trouble connecting to the rest of the program due to unfamiliarity with the language, culture, as well as the school material. With IXD being a work-intensive program, students had no choice but to settle quickly into groups whom they work / communicate well with, leaving little room for international and domestic students to truly get to know one another. First Year Student Orientation are run separately for international and domestic students, as if the program is unintentionally promoting discrepancies in treatment between the two groups of students.
As a fourth year who stepped out of my comfort zone singlehandedly, I felt the urge to help these international students.
This idea will be implemented in September 2019 by the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Animations and Designs at Sheridan College.
How?
How might we… break up these students’ social patterns and encourage interactions between international and domestic students?
Academic Research - Relationship between microaggression and processes of international students’ integration
Primary Research (surveys, questionnaires and in-person semi-structured interviews) - (1) Current situation with international students at IXD, (2) What is the Canadian culture?
How might we… reach out to international students when they are unavailable to meet in-person (e.g. when they are back in their home countries for summer, before they joined the program, students who do not participate in social events organized by student-run organizations, etc.)?
Academic Research - Empathy (1) Digital empathy, physical interaction, (2) Empathetic storytelling in physical communities, (3) Empathy in online communities
Primary Research - Field research of a student community formed outside of classes, led and found by one of the program’s coordinators: Teatime with Mark
How might we… best provide a situation for international students to open up naturally?
User Testing - Provided a framework of categorized questions, two students who were initially strangers to each other would pick categories and go through sets of questions to have a conversation
Participants suggested implementing a matchmaking app just for IXD students to make friends. BUT, even if students were to meet each other online, there was never the urgency to bring these interactions to real-life. As a result, users would be ‘confined’ to interacting online, which was not the outcome I was looking for.
[REPEAT] How might we… break up these students’ social patterns and encourage interactions between international and domestic students?
Plotted the first formal original AND improved user journey for IXD student using this web application before student orientation, during student orientation, and going to class.
Explored form factors of the application: a phone app, a web application, or a D2L add-on.
[OBSERVATION] Certain domestic and international students were unable to connect personally when they deliberately ‘avoid’ one another.
[REALIZATION] I personally experienced months of creative problem solving using the Google Design Sprint, while maintaining psychological safety within randomized teams. I got a personal taste of what it felt like to work with peers whom I know of but never worked with. This was the moment when I conceptualized the idea of using the Google Design Sprint on first year students during the student orientation.
How might we… appeal to students who wished to gain knowledge about the program’s culture and core values, while providing them an occasion to interact and bond with one another as equals?
User Testing (1) - Small groups ‘designathons;’ first year international and domestic students were recruited to solve a complex problem with me acting as the facilitator to guide them through phases of the Google Design Sprint, with the addition of team-building exercises such as building team charters and team names.
User Testing (2) - ‘Designathons’ involving 15 students; with the first round of user testing yielding to positive results, I decided to recruit upper year students acting as facilitators to reinforce the action of fostering sense of belonging. When older and younger IXD students exchanged valuable information about the program, connections were easily forged.
Coded Prototype - Responsive web app prototype
What?
A new structure of the student orientation based on storytelling: students would be connected to the program’s past (past IXD student projects), present (‘designathon’ based on the Google Design Sprint, guided by upper year IXD students), and future (faculty speech)
In lieu of remaining fixated on their language barriers, this web app and the new structure intend to empower international students such that they are given the chance to realize their talent and potential in becoming Interaction Designers who solve complex problems.
Interactive prototypes for the ‘present / desiganathon’ phase, available on Adobe XD, designed for first year students as ‘sprinters,’ and for upper year students as ‘facilitators’
