Laurier Peer-2-Peer
Overview
A detailed description of users’ needs: Currently, International students at Wilfrid Laurier University need a service that prevents language barriers between students and counsellors. Many international students experience culture shock when coming overseas and dealing with their mental health problems. They need an environment where they can assimilate and integrate with fellow Canadian and International students and develop relationships. Providing special counselling ing and assistance to international students who require specific personnel familiar with their culture and religious background is essential. Although Wilfrid Laurier University offers numerous resources and services, the vast majority of international students are unaware of these assets. Providing a better marketing strategy is necessary, considering that international students aren't aware of the support they receive. Whether it's financial or cultural support, international students aren't receiving the information on their end.
UX/UI Designer, User Research, Prototyping & Testing
My Role 💡
Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, Canva, Mirro, Discord, Zoom
Tools 🛠
6 UX Design Students
Team Katana 🤝
Three Month (March 2022)
Duration ⏳
Imagine, coming to a new part of the world, adapting to a new language, new weather, a new culture, new timezone, and thousands of kilometres away from your family, without a doubt you’re going to feel some discomfort. And that's what we were looking to capitalise on.
Our targeted audience were international students across all Laurier campuses. As of the 2020 - 2021 calendar year Laurier recorded 1504 international students which makes up 6.9% of the total student population. As you can see, Laurier is a pretty diverse bunch of students from all over the world. Laurier has noticed an increase in the number of international students who choose Laurier as their desired university, this has been noticed through an 18% increase in International students between 2016-2017 and 2020- 2021.
Targeted Audience
Interviews
We needed further insight from both the university perspective as well as the students perspective.
We conducted 8 interviews with international students from the Middle East, China, India, and parts of Africa to gain an understanding of their cultures and how they address their mental wellness. The key thing we were looking at going into these interviews were their pain points, needs and whether they are familiar with Laurier’s current resources. We found that a common theme was that many international students faced a language barrier, were unaware of Laurier resources, or simply did not use them.
Research
From the university perspective, we reached out to the Associate director for International Student Support, our biggest takeaway from our conversation was that there was:
Unclear messaging
no TRUE form of communication
And lack of awareness
Causing all the events and announcements that the international office put out not living up to its full potential for the students. We learnt from this Interview the most common issue international students go through is a culture shock.
The university is very passionate and just want to find ways to get a clear message across and find ways to make the resources available to students.
Problems we identified through our research, International students are neglected within the wellness support and services and these problems arise from Language barriers and the Lack of ability/resources to build relationships with other international or domestic students.
How might we create an atmosphere for international students to express themselves in a safe community?
Existing Barriers
Problems directed towards the international student community stemmed from Language barriers and the lack of resources to build relationships with other international or domestic students. Much like most Universities in Canada, Laurier provides access to a number of wellness supports and services. This isn’t made accessible to international students as they are the ones who have to adapt to the current system. International students have their own unique challenges and stressors that need to be addressed. With the help from Unless Design Partner’s findings as well as our own interviews and research we were able to identify that developing relationships with domestic and other international students from similar or different backgrounds was an essential need for international students.
With the unexpected upbringing of COVID-19, international students were faced with an even bigger barrier. They felt neglected and lonely during this time as they lost that face-to-face interaction and found it difficult to travel due to various travel restrictions, this ultimately affected their mental wellness. In order to address these needs, we propose the design of content to raise awareness and connect international students to mental wellness supports that are specific to their needs. We gained some valuable information which we used to develop a peer to peer program aimed at international students in order to ease their transition at Laurier.
Peer-2-Peer Final Prototype
Dashboard
We wanted to base our dashboard design on creating clear and concise messaging of events and resources from the Laurier International office. There is a calendar section giving the user a weekly overview of the events happening at Laurier and an updated banner sharing new information with what’s new at the international office, followed by more helpful resources.
Connect with a Peer!
In essence, we wanted to implement a peer to peer section matching students with other students based on keywords, or "topics", to have a sense of relatability with other students or alumni.
Match Making (keywords)
Behind our peer-to-peer feature there is a quick process that can link the user up to an individual with shared experiences or interests. This process starts with a keyword section where the user can enter anything that is meaningful to them. Whether you are homesick, overwhelmed with graduation, stressed with midterms, or even happy that the Maple Leafs (crossing our fingers) make it out of the first round of the playoffs, we don't want you to experience it alone. These keywords will be colour coded based on the topic and peers will be matched based on similarity through the various topics. These keywords will be attached to the chats in case you forget the topics you were talking about. Users will be notified of their matches in the notification section on the dashboard.
Translation Feature
A common occurrence for International students was that they were unsure how to talk about or describe the issues they were facing and felt that if they shared something with someone outside of their culture, it would be misinterpreted. A unique feature this app provides is adding the ability for users to translate languages in the chat. Users can select their default language and translate it into another language. This is our solution to the language barrier which will help students develop relationships.
Peer-2-Peer Final Prototype
Further App Explanation
Who owns this? - International Hawk is a stand alone application.
The Laurier international office would be responsible for continuously updating and running the application. In the Future, we plan on creating an admin application where the team at the Laurier International office would be able to login and add various upcoming events to the application.
Where does it live? - One effective way of spreading the word would be At the Laurier international orientation week, the international office would recommend international students to download the application and explain its features either in person or online through Laurier’s website.
Future app possibilities
There is definitely room for expansion within the application. We truly envision that the peer to peer program could reach its full potential by being opened to domestic students as well. We look to incorporate not only international students to international students, but we’re looking forward to international to domestic students or even domestic to domestic connections.
CLOSING STATEMENT
Our main focus is implementing an experience for new international students trying to broaden their network, find other students they can relate to and share experiences with one another, as a reminder that you are not in your journey at Laurier alone. It is the experience we are designing, from start to finish we want students to feel a sense of belonging. We are hoping to create a community that lives on past the interface.