Digital Handbook is a responsive website created during the pandemic with the focus of providing knowledge to the new & current students as well as faculty about the Sheridan College's Honours Bachelor of Illustration Design and Photography program. It provides the information like academics, campus map, financial aid for the program, etc.
How might we provide detailed information about Sheridan College’s Honours Bachelor of Illustration Design & Photography Program to the students and faculties while working & studying remotely?
I am confused about the course structure & some other things, I would like to connect with the people in the course community if there is any
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The classes are hybrid & its my first time visiting the school, I am not sure where my class is exactly located at the campus
Being a new teacher it would be great to connect with the other faculty members & get to know more about the course grading etc
A digital handbook website that delivers comprehensive information about Sheridan College’s Honours Bachelor of Illustration and Photography programs to the new or existing students and faculties which they can view remotely on their devices. The digital handbook includes details about the programs grading systems, classes, faculty members, student life, financial aid, community, etc.
To begin with, we researched about the users expectations or opinions on the idea of digitizing a handbook.
Since our user’s were mainly students and faculties from the Illustration and Photography program, we reached out to them (2 Illustration Design students, 2 Photography students & 2 faculty members from each course) and conducted an interview on their requirements and priorities individual as well as in a group setting.
Further categorizing the information helped us get a clear goal of user’s requirement. It helped in brainstorming different ideas for digitizing the handbook.
Later, we moved forward with our individual secondary research in order to validate the concepts and ideas from primary research.
We looked through different colleges and universities digital handbooks and built a competitive analysis to help us gain insights through which we further created a mind map to provide a systematic structure.
Competitive analysis report image
Remote study made it difficult for new students to access important information about the program when they needed. (for instance : academic standing, program policies, studios and labs etc.)
Difficult to connect with the faculty since the students did not know the emails of the faculty
Confused about where all the course materials can be found and if the new students go in person, where to locate the classrooms of the specific course
In this stage we began with low-fidelity prototyping on the idea of web digital handbook as well as an interactive pdf. We explored different layouts, designs, illustrations, themes, etc for web and mobile. Followed by user testing and getting it reviewed by the Project Manager, we were able to finalize the design in order to create final solutions.
After conducting user test with the same participants as before and letting them explore through the lo fi prototypes, we jotted down the notes and user’s experience, which helped us in iterating through the process.
Based on the user’s feedback, we then worked through changing the colour palette and illustrations and typeface which would not only reflect the course but also be accessible as well.
Landing page of the Illustration and Photography website designed with a zing of both course types. For instance, for the Illustration Digital Handbook, I used illustrations in the form of logo that are designed by my fellow colleagues so that it looks relatable to the users. Similarly, I used photographs in order to highlight the website.
The academics page shows the information about course structure from year 1 to 4 including co-op and other information like academic standing, advanced standing, program policies, academic support, academic integrity, student code of conduct and student code of practice.
This page provides knowledge about the studios and labs that can be accessed by the students and faculty along with their timings, structure during pandemic hybrid model, booking equipments, on campus printing, etc.
Faculty info page includes the photos, name, email and the room no. of every faculty member, in order for students to contact them easily for school purposes.
This page includes all the information that is completely related to students that require assistance with financial aid, on campus services, Sheridan student union, etc. Through this page, it becomes easier for all the students to access information.
This is an important page especially created due to the pandemic as it allows students to gain information about the online resources and how to go about. It also provides links to study course materials through linkedin learning, online tutorials and so on.
This page provides a map of the campus and the wing of each course as it may helps new students and faculties to visit during the hybrid model.
It provides knowledge about the online communities in school for students to access, lecture series as well as the gallery show.
This was a huge learning curve for me since it was my first ever industry project or real life project in the form of CO-OP. This experience not only helped me shape my design skills but also made me learn to deal with real life situations, users, team, etc. It allowed me to be more open about sharing and receiving feedback and allowed me to lead the project as a Product Designer. I am glad to have worked with an incredibly fun and motivating team with amazing Designers.