CDM Alumni Planet
An desktop application that helps The Centre for Digital Media Students build their network with alumni through data visualization and engaged interaction.
My Role
Product Designer
Timeline
3 Months
January-April, 2024
Team
Qianhui Qin, Yiling Wang,
Panchanit (Cherilyn) Sathorn,
Dickson Ngan, Peter Soava,
Tommy Cho,
Tools Used
Figma,
Unity
Overview
Background & Brief intro
The Centre for Digital Media (CDM) wants to strengthen its alumni community by visualizing alumni data and encouraging connections among alumni. Our goal is to design engaging data visualizations and an experience that helps CDM alumni easily find and connect with each other, creating a career-focused, CDM-only community.
Design Process
Understand
Research
Analyze
Design
User Testing
Presentation
Initial Thinking
Target users
All 700 CDM alumni, from cohort 1-18
Research Methods
Online survey (Google form)
In-person interview
Research online
Design Thinking Questions
01
What kind of unique experience do we create for our alumni?
02
How might we help the students discover each other based on their needs?
03
How might we make a platform a foundation for strengthening the school community?
User Research
Research Goals
Identify existing online and on-site platforms related to community building
Identify the strengths/potential of the current system.
Identify the data/information alumni want to see on networking platform
understand user product preferences and the reasons behind
identify the desires and needs of alumni when networking
Limitation
Research 1 - Existing Systems
Platform
There’s not an official alumni platform to help alumni networking and discover potential carer opportunities. Moreover, there’s no way to search other students through filters, it is difficult to efficently establish a connection.
Public, not exclusive to CDM alumni
Slack/Discord groups
Unofficial, requires alumni to self-organize
CDM Project Showcase events
Mixe backgrounds, hard to identify peers or mentors in their industry and roles
Alumni Beach social event
casual event, not career oriented
CDM instagram
Not a platform for open, free-form chatting.
Information Level
Based on their responses, we identified three levels of information:
Research 2 - Interview & Survey
Critical
Name, Profile picture, Location, Year of graduation, Company, Roles/jobs, Preferred contact methods
Current status (e.g. open to mentorship, job-seeking, etc.)
Nice to have
Work experience, education experience
skillsets, portfolio
Optional
Career journey, Hobbies
Product Tone
Alumni seek a balance between formal and casual vibes. Many find it challenging to initiate connections due to psychological barriers. They desire a comfortable, safe space to relax, share, and connect genuinely.
Casual?
Formal?
109
96
84
74
69
Filter Options
From the interview, we learned that filter is one of the main features that may help our user to effeciently find other alumni. So a question about filter needed in survey:
What’s the filter options you are interested in when targeting alumni? (127 responses)
Occupation
Status: looking for mentor, open to coffee chat, etc
Company
Current location
Cohort
3 Groups Analysis
Since our alumni from C1 to C18 span career stages, their pursuits and needs vary. We divided them into three user groups and analyzed the data from the 1st survey to identify their different needs:
“A strong community will help increase my impact in game industry.”
- Game company founder, C1
“It’s hard to maintain connections when you graduate for too long.”
- Lead UX Designer, C8
“I want to share my stories to help my alumni less detour”
- Senior Product Manager, C14
“ I know networking is important for career but I’m too shy to reach out”
- Junior 2D Animator, C17
“searching in linkden again and again make me stress out”
- Student, C18
C 13 - 15
C 16 - 18
C 1 - 12
C 16 - 18
The Young groups are most interested in career opportunities, while the Medium and Old groups are keen on expanding connections.
C 13 - 15
The Medium and Old groups want to share stories and are much more open to offering help compared to the Young group.
C 01 - 12
The Old group prioritizes socializing with alumni, making friends, and building community more than the Medium and Young groups.
While users have diverse needs, we identified common pain points and prioritized them in designing our core features. We then added additional features to address individual requirements.
Problem Statement
There is not an official, CDM-only alumni networking platform.
Moreover, It is difficult for alumni to both start and maintain their connections.
Artists
Designers
Developers
PM/PO
Others
Stars Colors
Represent Roles
01
Visualization
Instead of typical charts and graphs, we visualize each alumnus as a planet (orb) in a vast universe, representing the CDM community. Different colors distinguish their roles, providing a visually appealing and intuitive experience.
Design Concept
How can we make the alumni discovery journey intuitive and enjoyable?
How do we present alumni data?
Aa
Poppins Medium
Poppins SemiBold
Poppins Regular
Primary
Blue CDM
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800 “
Seconday
Gray CDM
100
200
300
400 “
500
600 “
700
800 “
02
Color Pallate
High-fidelity design
Design Solution
01
Interactive Visuals (Developed)
A constellation that allows user to explore alumni by rotating, hover, zooming in /out. Enjoy the fun of alumni universe!
“Don’t be shy, let’s play with the alumni constellation!”
02
Personalized Filter (Developed)
A more efficient way to find alumni who fit your needs through checking their roles, industry , location and availability.
“Find your ideal alumni match”
03
User Profile (Prototype)
Explore alumni profiles to learn about their careers and connect with them
Contribute by uploading your own information to keep our database accurate and up-to-date.
04
Preference Setting (Prototype)
Customize the profile display. Decide how much personal information to share with other alumni to protect the privacy.
“Share only what you're comfortable with ☺️”
Impact
After opening our app for testing, we received a lot positive feedback, particularly for its visuals. Many alumni expressed interest in uploading their data and are excited to explore and connect with other alumni through the app
User Feedback
User Testing Feedback
the visuals are cool and appealing, making them want to use this app;
The filter feature is great and helpful;
Like the vibes of this app
It’s good to have this preference setting
The UI is clean and concise, intuitive and easy to understand their functions.
Reflection
Takeaways
User-Centered Research: This project emphasized user research to identify needs, showing that solutions naturally emerge when you follow users. Interviews and surveys provided diverse perspectives and solutions.
Enhanced Collaboration: Learning basic Unity knowledge improves collaboration between designers and developers.
Future Plans: If have more time, we aim to explore gamified features to enhance user experience and encourage networking. Examples include:
Planet brightness: Representing user activity, with stars becoming brighter based on engagement.
Reward System: Encouraging user activity and contributions with experience points for tasks like online engagement, story posting, and mentorship.
Honor Board: Displaying and ranking user contributions based on experience points.