PolyU Life

2023, UI/UX Design, Hong Kong

Revitalizing PolyULife for Hong Kong's Largest Student Body

fig 1. PolyULife app's main UIs, showcasing the 360 solution for all things student—from scheduling all the way to being notified of exam locations.

CLIENT

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Role

UI/UX Designer

deliverables

UX Research Reporting, Design & System Playbook, Tech Handoff

Table of Contents

1_User Research
2_Designing PolyULife
3_Closing Thoughts

Dynamic Student Management for Empowered Academic Success

PolyULife is a native mobile app, which offers the university's +28,000 students the access of essential information for study such as personal class and exam timetable, payment due date, study information and push notifications to support students’ studies at PolyU. Students can find a list of useful online resources to various student-related applications in this mobile app including classroom booking enquiry, eStudent, Library, PolyU Online Student Services (POSS), Scholarship, Job Board and etc.

As a contracted UI/UX designer for the university's Information Technology Services (ITS), I completely redesigned the app for its version 2 launch. My contributions included conducting UX research such as competitor analysis, gap analysis, and a jobs-to-be-done review, while ensuring the app's UI aligned with the desired UX flow for current and future features.

fig.2. Prior design of the app.

The Challenge

How may we enhance user engagement with PolyULife through re-designing its UI, revealing and fine-tuning its scalable, all-encompassing function that caters to the diverse academic and campus-related needs of the university's student body? This challenge our team faced as we embarked on designing the second version of the app.

The Process

I joined a team comprised entirely of developers who took on multiple roles. This was typical for the ITS teams, and as a designer committed to practicing good UX, it was essential for me to share my process transparently. This approach fostered an exciting exchange of knowledge, allowing me to learn the intricacies of full-stack mobile app development.

The Outcome

The outcome of this half-year contract consisted of completing user research (competitor analysis, UX audit), user flows, an interactive Figma prototype, and a complete style guide with design specifications. Beyond that, an opportunity for contract extension was offered that I kindly declined to venture out to new opportunities.

Understanding the Learning & Campus Life Management System Market

fig. 3. Quadrant for Mobile Apps in the Tertiary Education Market (Based on Amount of Service Provided and Extent of User Customization)

In one of my early tasks, I was responsible for conducting a competitive analysis to understand how competitors of PolyU Life, or existing solution providers, deliver personalized experiences for students. We hypothesized that these apps, whether their information was generated by the university or students, would likely overlook some key features that PolyULife was expected to fulfill, as identified in our internal Jobs to Be Done and gap analysis. This hypothesis was validated, as PolyULife eventually evolved to provide information beyond the classroom (Field 1, fig. 3), including exclusive updates on university events (Field 1, fig. 3), while also incorporating customization options for the app's main dashboard.

Utilizing the competitor review to better our app

Through a comprehensive SWOT analysis that validated our hypothesis (fig.4-5), we determined that many pain points experienced by PolyULife v.1 users could be effectively mitigated by competitor solutions. One major area of focus was improving navigation, which involved a thorough exploration of information architecture and keyword consolidation. This was vital to eliminate confusion surrounding tagging and labeling features in PolyULife and other university platforms. We also recognized the importance of implementing a default browser within the app to reduce the need for opening deep links, which often led to an overload of tabs in users' main browsers, particularly for tabs open for classroom booking platforms.

fig. 4-5. SWOT analysis to analyze competitor's strategy to optimize user experience, delivering varied solutions that the market demands

PolyULife v.2

fig 6. PolyULife v.2 in action, showing various interfaces of key offerings.

As the app aimed to be the all-in-one solution for PolyU students, a key focus during the design process was to reduce information overlap across different UIs. If users found multiple pages displaying similar content, it could lead to decreased engagement and frustration from navigating through redundant pathways to access the same information. To resolve this, we aligned all features from version 1 and transitioned them to the new version 2.1 UX, while also accommodating potential future enhancements.

For instance, instead of having multiple UI pages displaying the campus map in different formats (like a classroom directory versus sports facility booking), we consolidated the map into a single source of truth that users can filter based on their specific needs. Similarly, for time-sensitive information, we designed a unified calendar that could host multiple content sources, featuring a unique layout of detail tabs that open based on the type of content.

fig 7-9. Snippets of the style & design guide for future reference by the ITS team.

UI Design Revitalization

Alongside consolidating keywords and minimizing overlapping features to improve the app's user experience, we carefully reviewed the interface design in response to feedback gathered from a university-wide survey. After receiving approval from the head of ITS, we transitioned the UI from a cluttered, red-heavy look to a more visually appealing design that incorporates various green and blue hues inspired by the campus, complemented by the familiar PolyU brick red and a softer salmon shade (fig.7). These colors were intentionally assigned to different categories of information, enhancing users' ability to recognize and navigate grouped content.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

My Journey with PolyULife

This project has significantly shaped my growth as a UI/UX designer by allowing me to manage the design process throughout the app's lifecycle. I gained hands-on experience in conducting user research, performing competitive analysis, and redesigning the interface to enhance usability while minimizing information overlap. As I move forward, I carry with me a comprehensive understanding of mobile app development and the ability to create engaging, functional solutions tailored to the needs of a larger stakeholder body.