During my time as President of the Educator’s Rising club at Mesa Community College in the midst of the pandemic, I was tasked with redesigning the club’s identity and approach to help attract and retain new members. This included conducting member research, creating systems to streamline operations, and organizing events to help create a community of aspiring educators. It was here that I not only learned of UX Design, but found a passion for a user-centered approach when crafting both physical and digital experiences.

My Role

President & User Experience Designer

Team

President, Faculty Advisor, and a Secretary.

Duration

9 months (August 2021 - May 2022)

CHALLENGE

EdRising Struggled to Adapt

With the pandemic came many, many changes to the world, most notably: the transfer from physical to digital platforms. This was no different for college clubs and organizations. The EdRising club was in almost complete obsolescence during the 2020-2021 school year. When joining as the president, the club’s main hinderences were:

DESIGN PROCESS

The Game Plan

When researching how to approach this seemingly vast overhaul of the club, I discovered several frameworks to help guide me through this process. I resonated with the Double Diamond design approach specifically due its problem & solution focus and how it can turn a complex undertaking into one that is digestible. Although not commonly visualized, I felt the need to add the element of iteration, as the scope of a project such as this one, is never linear.

RESEARCH

A Look at the Data

After comparing the membership of the club over the last few years, speaking with the previous leaders, and observing the College’s campus guidelines post-pandemic, I discovered the following:

What Makes a Club Valuable?

GOAL

After conducting general research on the club, it was time to hear from our target audience firsthand. With a club fair upcoming, it was the perfect opportunity to observe the thoughts and emotions of potential members. A survey was created and emailed to previous and current members along with those who signed-up during the fair. We received 44 responses, with a heavy focus on open-ended questions.

What makes a club valuable for its prospective members?

Inside the Minds of the Educators

INTERVIEWS

Six interviews were prepared and conducted through Google Meet. The interviewees consisted of Educators at MCC, both previous and non-members of the club. This helped provide insights to the emotions and thoughts of potential members, allowing the target-audience to be defined.

Defining the Target Member

THE USER

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Exploring Solutions

DEFINE

After proper research was conducted and analyzed, it was time to meet with the club mentor to begin exploring potential solutions for the club.

  • How might we make an extra-curricular activity one of the most important aspects of a student’s education?

  • How might we make the experience online equal or even better than traditional settings?

  • How might we allow the club to operate efficiently with limited leadership and funding.

Crafting Solutions

DESIGN

When approaching the designs for this project, I wanted to focus on bringing value to the club members and the organization as whole. Specifically, creating a sense of community through digital platforms, while accounting for a diverse group of members.

Meeting agendas are sent every week detailing the overall topic, discussions, and time frame to better inform and prepare members. It allows users to easily join meetings and even provides instructions if technical knowledge is limited.

The meeting presentations helps with organization and provides structure to the club as it guides the speaker stay on schedule while allowing members to easily follow along through visual aid and summarized ideas.

Providing an modifiable template for meeting notes allows the secretary to document important information discussed in each session.

Using Google Drive, club documentation is sorted by category and date. Not only does it contain the club’s wide range of files in one place but it makes club operations efficient and collaborative for the leadership.

In the theme of building a sense of community, EdRising joined Feed My Starving Children for the Feed the World Event. Here, we packed meals for hungry families in Ukraine.

With this virtual event, we wanted to help our members gain clarity on which university’s education program was the best fit. This included speakers from Arizona’s most influential universities.

Being our largest event, there was a lot to manage between me and the advisor. This included: obtaining funding, providing food, securing rights to the film, organizing activities, and advertisement.

FEEDBACK

An Iterative Process

It is important that EdRising continuously addresses member concerns so that the club can be as valuable as possible. After each meeting, an exit ticket was sent to gather feedback in order to improve and continue to deliver excellence.

DELIVERY

Creating Value

Looking back at my time as the President and User Experience Designer, it was clear: The EdRising redesign was a success. During these 9 months, the club flourished into a thriving community greater than I could have ever imagined.

This project was quite transformational in my life, as it was here that I discovered UX as a process for solving complex design problems. Here are the main takeaways:

What I Learned

REFLECTION

  • Many constraints from time, money, resources, policy, and technology, made this quite a challenge. I learned how to operate within these limitations while designing solutions for the members.

  • The redesign of the club required collaboration with many people, from the club members and leadership to college organizations. Being a team player was the only way for this to be a success.

  • Since my first club experience was a leadership role, it was hard to relate to the average member. This made gathering input about the experiences of club members vital to the success of the project.