Connecting students with events and extracurricular activitities
Project description:
Projectube is an online platform that aggregates reliable information from organizations and events in a personalized way for students. Unlike Ybox or Facebook, Projectube uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology to help users easily access organizations and events that suit their needs.
Problems:
High school student organizations, especially non-profits, are rapidly growing in Vietnam, offering valuable events and opportunities. However, students often struggle to find organizations and events that meet their specific needs.
Solutions:
We have built a multi-sided platform connecting organizations with students, helping to provide solutions to optimize the organization’s marketing processes, while synthesizing relevant and reputable events that are personalized for each user.
Impacts:
Since the first official version was launched until the case study was completed (August 7, 2021 – August 26, 2021), the platform has attracted 57 organizations, 35 events have been created and 531 users have joined the platform. At the end of Sep 2021 (25th), it had 81 organizations and 831 active users.
Báo điện tử Tiền Phong – Hoa Học Trò
Competitive Analysis:
Currently, there are platforms that provide information about organizations and events, with Facebook and Ybox being the most prominent. However, when using these platforms, we encounter the following difficulties:
Facebook (Meta)
- Events and organizations often reach users in a very random manner (through friends’ shares, advertisements, etc.).
- Lack of search filters for finding events and organizations that match each user’s interests.
- Information is often scattered and incomplete.
Ybox
- Inadequate search filters
- Information is not selectively curated
- Presence of numerous ads causing annoyance
Problems
Information is overwhelm due to lack of careful filtering
Passivity due to manual search methods
Difficulty in managing information about organizations and events due to the use of multiple tools
From here, we formulated 3 How Might We questions:
Unique Selling Points:
Projectube focuses on building three distinctive factors compared to other platforms
Personalized Search
Users can easily access events and organization that suit them through artificial intelligence (AI) with a Personalized Recommendation System
Optimized UX
Users can easily search for events with a clear information hierarchy on the platform without being disrupted by ads
Comprehensive Content
Users have access to credible information about organizations and events curated by a review board
User Personas:
Similar to other products, we started the process of quantitative research using the 1:1 Interview method to gather information about the User Persona for the product.
Before conducting interviews, we collectively defined the user base for the product. We planned to interview 5 users using the research method recommended by Nielsen Norman Group. This approach is particularly suitable for small-scale product teams like Projectube because it saves time and effort while still achieving good results
- Easily participate in quality, reputable, and professional organizations and events
- Easily find suitable & curated organizations and events to meet individual needs
- Easily manage information about events and organizations
- Information is overwhelm due to lack of careful filtering
- Passivity in searching through manual methods
- Difficulty managing information about organizations and events using multiple tools
Wireframe & User flow
Right after identifying the goals and pain points of the target users, we proceed to create User Flow and Wireframes to address their issues.
Voice & Tone:
To become a “human-centric” product, a product needs to have its own soul and voice. Therefore, determining the Voice and Tone of the product is essential to make it more accessible to users and an indispensable part of life. This involves targeting the user group that has been identified and synthesized after the Interview process, namely students.
During the process of determining the Voice, we brainstormed and listed adjectives for communication that satisfy the character traits of Projectube. We then selected around 3-4 adjectives that satisfy all the character traits of that character.
4 Steps
Step 1:
Identify Key Moments (What)
Determining the context in each flow
To be able to identify the tones for each key moment, we need an overview of the entire flow, and the simplest way is to rely on the User Flow. At each key moment, we need to identify the situations and requirements for the tone of each of those situation.
The team spent quite a bit of time perfecting this process because we didn’t want to miss any moment in the flow to ensure a seamless experience for students.
Step 2:
Identify Objectives for Tone (Why)
Determining the purpose for tone
Determining the goal of the tone was accomplished by using the Tone Spectrum chart. The vertical axis of the chart represents qualities, from bottom to top, including Supportive, Reassuring, Informational, Useful, and Encouraging. The horizontal axis represents key moments in a flow.
Step 3:
Identify Tone Profile (How)
Develop content for each context
At this step, we construct the Tone Profile based on the ‘4 Primary Dimensions of Tone’ researched by the Nielsen Norman Group, which include:
- Formal & Casual: degree of formality → informality
- Funny & Serious: level of humor → seriousness
- Respectful & Irreverent: level of respect (less authority than the user) → humility
- Enthusiastic & Matter-of-fact: level of enthusiasm → matter-of-fact”
Through this, by combining the standardized Tone Profile and Voice, we will find it easier to construct specific content suitable for each key moment.
Step 4:
Evaluation
Testing with users and adjusting the tone to be more fitting
The final step involves the participation of special characters – the first group of students to join the Projectube platform. We begin organizing the content developed for each flow into the first beta version (published in early July 2021) of the platform within a week and have received the most genuine feedback. This serves as the foundation for us to further develop Projectube’s personality to better resonate with users.”
Some contexts within the ‘Discover Organizations’ flow
Some contexts within the ‘Explore Events’ flow
Projectube Takes Actions!
Information is overwhelm due to lack of careful filtering
Allows users to register for events directly on the platform and receive the latest event notifications through their personal notification inbox
Users can easily register to participate in events on Projectube
At Projectube, we always prioritize user safety by providing organizers’ information for every event they are interested in. Here, users can contact organizers and receive the latest notifications about future events, including job recruitment updates – a factor that students are particularly interested in.
Users won’t miss the latest information from their favorite organizations (Image: notifications system of Projectube)
Passivity due to manual search methods
Builds an AI-powered recommendation system to display personalized events and organizations tailored to each user’s preferences
Additionally, users won’t have to navigate to another page to obtain information about the event theme, as Projectube will display this information directly on the homepage, along with the venue and event date.
Projectube will suggest personalized events and organizations tailored to each user
In addition to that issue, the majority of the students we interviewed face problems when searching for events using filters. The reason is that event categories are limited in number and lack specificity (5 main categories represented by 5 buttons, and 1 button for other events).
Therefore, Projectube provides users with a clear search filter. Students can search based on the 63 provinces in Vietnam, choose from 32 different event categories, or search based on the event’s time frame.
Projectube’s event filters
Difficulty in managing information about organizations and events due to the use of multiple tools
Tracks traffic and event registration information at different time intervals using just one tool. Adding new events is also much simpler compared to current methods.
The organizing committee can track views and registrations directly on the Projectube platform
Creating and managing events for organizations becomes much easier