Untitled

This week, our team embarked on another series of customer interviews to understand the needs and pain points of university students. We interviewed students from various disciplines and academic levels to gather insights into their university experience. Through these interviews, we discovered a common desire among students for a centralized platform to streamline academic planning, facilitate collaboration, and provide access to resources and support services.

We developed the hypothesis that students would gain from an all-in-one app that combines academic planning, peer support, feedback mechanisms, career services, a student organizations directory, campus navigation, collaboration tools, and an event calendar based on the insights from the interviews.

Findings:

Students' enthusiasm for such an app, emphasizing the efficiency and ease it would bring to their campus life, verified the theory. Features including the ability to create study groups, access academic materials, an event calendar, a configurable academic planner, and career services were stressed as being crucial. They also liked the concept of the app's built-in feedback and peer assistance systems.

One significant decision the team made last week was regarding the design and layout of the app. We had two options: a minimalist design with a clean interface focused on essential features, or a more visually appealing design with additional graphics and animations.

We ultimately opted for the basic design after giving it considerable thought and gathering input from possible users. We concluded that simplicity was essential for an app that sought to maximize output and effectiveness. Users would be able to access functionality more quickly and without visual overload with an interface that is devoid of clutter, which would also facilitate navigation.

University students from all academic levels and disciplines participated in a number of in-depth customer interviews that we conducted early in the development process. The purpose of these interviews was to learn about the needs and trouble spots that students had with their time at university.

Based on the insights gathered from the interviews, our team formulated several hypotheses regarding the features and functionalities that would most benefit students. These hypotheses included assumptions about the demand for features such as study group formation, career services, and campus event calendars.

We discovered that the assumptions about the need for study group creation and career services were validated through iterative testing and feedback loops. Students indicated a great need for resources to enhance career development and to enable networking and collaboration. But based on input from early prototypes, a few theories about particular features—like peer support and counseling—needed to be further refined.

In the previous week, our team made a crucial decision regarding the integration with Learning Management Systems (LMS) for accessing course materials and other academic resources. The team had two options: to develop custom integrations for each LMS platform used by universities or to prioritize integration with the most widely adopted LMS platforms such as Moodle and Canvas.

Following a thorough evaluation of available development resources, market research, and early user feedback, the team decided to give integration with Moodle and Canvas top priority. Universities utilized these systems extensively, guaranteeing optimum accessibility for students and lowering development and maintenance complexity.

Upon the commencement of the new semester, we were introduced to our new subjects and instructors, GEE 16, The Entrepreneurial Mind, twas quite an introduction given by Mister Tangonan, our instructor, who gave a fresh start and briefing on what to expect and what we will be discovered along this subject.

He elaborated that turning ideas into action with unrelenting enthusiasm and commitment is one of the hallmarks of the entrepreneurial mentality. Entrepreneurs are doers with the motivation and tenacity to turn their ideas into reality; they are not just dreamers.

He told us to think not a student but an engineer entrepreneur.

We had the good fortune to select our group members in advance of the semester. Our task was to interview people at Central Mindanao University to ascertain the most common problems that the community faces. In a group of five, we discussed our target market and came up with interview questions.

We started the interviews the following day by placing ourselves in key spots on campus, including the Education Building, CAS Extension building, CAS Main, and CAS Annex. Our goal was to interview over thirty individuals in order to guarantee a sizable pool of responses. In the end, we had 35 answers from the people that took part.

From our findings, we gather three majority problems encountered by students, 1st CMU geographical size. 2nd transportation inside the campus, 3rd Garbage segregation.

We agreed and proposed our initial solution to create an application that is designed to enhance the university experience for students by providing a centralized platform for academic, social, and personal development resources. It aims to streamline various aspects of university life, from academic support to campus events and networking opportunities.

Recognizing the problem that students often struggle to find relevant information about academics, the university navigation, organizations, and events, resulting in many missed and wasted opportunities. Also, without proper collaboration, students would prefer isolation, further limiting their resources.