ASU Dining Website Redesign
The redesign for the Arizona State University Dining website to improve usability.
University Sustainability Practices (USP) in partnership with Sun Devil Dining and Student Services has created a working group to address the issue of food insecurity and they insist on the help of my group. The purpose of the redesign was to act as User Experience professionals, to improve the Arizona State University's Dining website. The goal was to redesign an interface that addresses this issue of Food Insecurity at ASU, by identifying programs, policies, and services to eliminate food insecurity for students.
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I worked as one of the 7 members of this group to develop a Research Plan, Research Findings Report, Usage, and Concept Stories. Individually I completed a Sketchboard, Sustainability Diary, and Mockups. The business solutions my team wanted to create were; questionnaire that would create a personalized meal plan, a resource program page, and an account page. Our objectives were to create a less stressful experience for students to figure out which plan works best for them and cater to their personal needs, increase the number of students with access to food and decrease food insecurity.
Research Report
To collect information from the specific Arizona State students that fit our demographic we focused our efforts on two methods, a survey and research. In the survey we conducted, we used limiting questions to narrow our target audience. The research we conducted was both for the existing ASU infrastructure, as well as including comparative research for local, public, and other University's programs regarding food insecurity.
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We identified online locations to distribute our survey; including The ASU Subreddit (r/ASU), ASU Slack (Devil2Devil): UX Research, and General student’s Channel, Sun Devils Sync, ASU’s online classrooms (Canvas), and FaceBook. After posting our survey to the aforementioned locations we received a total of 192 responses from ASU students.
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To try and build an understanding of our target demographics' living circumstances as it relates to meal planning, ASU meal options, nutrition, and finances we created a 24-question survey. The survey was anonymous; we did not require names, addresses, or email addresses. To ensure we could assess our target audience of “ASU face-to-face students who live off-campus” we included questions that could be used to filter the results.
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This allowed us to accept a wider range of responses and it also saved us from having to engage in a time-consuming screening of the audience. We received 193 total responses and 77% of those matched our target demographic. All data analysis and persona design is based on the filtered results. Of 193 responses 149 (77%) match our target demographic.
Research Results
In addition to our online survey, our team utilized competitive and comparative research to further define the problem of food insecurity and identify solutions already employed by other universities, private companies, and the government. Our research covered the following areas:
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Food insecurity solutions provided by universities
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Arizona food subsidy options
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ASU Meal plan and meal prep program price comparison
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ASU campus food options
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Pandemic-induced food insecurity within Arizona
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ASU off-campus housing options and associated costs
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Food insecurity’s relationship to a transportation
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Personas
Based on the online surveys/user research, we set up two personas. We referred to them throughout the entire product development process. These fictional proto-personas are based on users' goals. Each persona includes a picture, a name, a representative quote, a short biography, goals for the system, behaviors, demographic data, and technical background. The new website features that came from the personas were simplified navigation and a personalized meal plan.
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Sketches
To begin running the interface, I started the design process with sketch boards. The main purpose of my sketches is to brainstorm ideas on how to improve these specific areas of the interface. I aimed to add a personalized meal plan questionnaire, and simplified navigation, to reduce the confusion about the meal plan options, and provide easy-to-find benefit resources.
Personalized Questionaire Page
Basic Needs Resource page
My Plan Page
The website mockup is a realistic prototype of my designed sketches, with the intent to test the idea of a new re-design of the ASU dining website, with real users. I utilized Balsamiq to create low-fidelity prototypes.
This is a mockup of the “Personalization Questionnaire” which will ask about dietary choices, allergens, number of meals needed per day/week, number of people servings, financial range, and COVID-19 impact. The questionnaire results will narrow down the best options.
The “Basic Needs Resource” page will provide links to applications for government assistance and benefits eligibility, which will condense the assistance resources to one location.
The “My Plan” page will show the student the plan they have chosen, their status, renewal dates, contact information, account information, payment information, and daily menu items. The user will be able to keep track of their meal plan.