Enhancing education through student involvement

Indonesian students show a strong interest in participating in various activities such as webinars, workshops, and competitions. During the pandemic, this enthusiasm grew as students sought meaningful ways to spend their free time. The government has supported this by launching initiatives like Kampus Merdeka, Kampus Mengajar, and Bangkit.

However, despite these efforts, many students still lack access to information about ongoing activities. This gap leaves them unaware of opportunities that could benefit their personal and professional growth.

To tackle this challenge, I applied the Design Thinking methodology to identify the problem and validate potential solutions. As a precursor to user research, I conducted competitive analysis to better understand the landscape and establish a strong foundation.

I analyzed three major platforms: SejutaCita, Eventbrite, and Loket.com, and identified the following insights:

• Homepage optimization: Many competitors fail to utilize the homepage effectively, missing the opportunity to guide users to explore core features.
• Overloaded rewards pages: Excessive information on rewards pages can distract from the intended purpose.
• Lack of insights: Registration insights could be tailored to meet specific app needs.
• Limited organizer communication: Users cannot easily contact event organizers for queries.
• Effective tagging: Event categories are well-defined, but additional context could improve usability.
• Offline communication gaps: Platforms don’t address internet connectivity issues, leading users to blame the app when disruptions occur.

To ensure a focused and effective research process, I developed a research plan. I conducted interviews with five participants aged 21+ from East Java who frequently engage in student activities.

Using Miro for card sorting, I clustered raw insights into actionable insights and mapped the user journey. You can access Miro through the link here.

• Students prefer participating in activities when invited by friends.
• They value understanding the benefits of participation.
• Activities related to student development are more appealing.
• Payment preferences include mobile banking and e-wallets.
• Gamification and rewards motivate participation.

There are five journeys in the defined journey, namely the journey when:
(1) Looking for information, (2) Obtaining information, (3) Studying requirements, (4) Registering, and (5) Participating in activities.

As a result of the final insights, here are some pain points I identified:

• Respondents find it challenging to get information about the activities they are interested in.
• Respondents do not know the benefits of the activities to be joined.
• Information about activities on social media is too crowded, and there is no particular platform to gain the specific event information.
• Lack of relationships owned by respondents.
• Respondents do not know the format if they want to hold an activity.
• Respondents find it challenging to meet the requirements for participating in an action of interest.

-Respondents have problems with internet connection and quota.

• Respondents have difficulty contacting the event organizer.
• Respondents have difficulty finding activities that are related to something they are interested in.
• Respondents often forget if the activity they are participating in has started.

I develop ideas using the Miro application by considering the respondents’ pain points. Access the Ideate section here.

I developed a prototype to evaluate product flow and validate features through user testing. The prototype and test results are available on the Maze platform here.