Telstra Creator Space - making a digital tool to improve user experiences

This project is to investigate the needs and motivations of all users at Telstra Creator space, define the problem they are facing and create a digital tool to improve their overall experience at the site. This project was completed by three Master of Information Technology students at the University of Melbourne.

Process of the project

  1. Understanding the current situation at Telstra Creator Space

    Listened to the service designer of Telstra Creator Space and explored any available information to understand any problems and thinkings behind the current design and services

  2. Discovering more about the space

    After understanding how space works, we made a plan for our investigation. It involves the time and date of interviews and observations, semi-structured questions for both students and staff, permission from Telstra Creator Space to conduct this investigation and consent forms for interviewees.

  3. Conducting the investigation

    Interviewed seven people (three students, three staff, and a service designer) and observed the space at different times on different days. Asked permission to record and take notes during the interview.

  4. Analysing the investigation

    After organising the data individually, we sorted the data from observations and interviews by affinity diagram. Extracted key points and grouped them into themes based on relationships. This allows us to find issues that should be prioritised. Our design requirements were developed from these problems. Further, using the information, we created two scenarios and personas, one for a student and the other for staff, to better understand our intended users' behaviours and frustrations.

  5. Developing ideas for the solution

    Discussed the best way to solve the problem. Used affinity diagrams on miro to organise all the ideas we had. Asked for feedback from other different groups to improve further. After receiving feedback, we decided to make a mobile application to support students and staff work at Telstra Creator Space. Drew a sketch for a possible solution and iterated it until it met all the design requirements.

  6. Created a video and a low-fidelity prototype of the design concept

    Created a low-fidelity prototype on Figma. We also made a video to show the application's main feature so that stakeholders can quickly see how this product can improve the experience of students and staff at Telstra Creator Space.

Outcomes/Things to be improved

We were able to produce a high-quality essay to describe our journey of the fieldwork including literature review, methods, analysis of our data, and what we learnt from our fieldwork. We were also able to create a low-fiederity model that shows our ideas clearly to improve user experiences at Telstra Creator Space. I have learnt various practical skills listed below and and how to apply theories into the actual project.

  • Team work

I was able to communicate and cooporate with group members effectively to achieve best possible outcomes. We quickly understood each other’s strengths and weaknesses and split work depending on what each team member is good at. We solved problems together and share ideas by putting everyone’s thoughts together.

  • Organisation skills

We were able to organise all documentations, data, personal information with care. All confidential and personal information was treated securely to achieve ethical considerations. We also planed ahead to secure time for interviewing, observing, lietrature reviews and essay writing to ensure we can work around other assignments and commitments.

  • Analysing data

Learning theories to analyse gathered qualitative data, I was able to apply these techniques and skills to analyse our data from interviews and observations. It was challenging to analyse such data objectively and this area needs to be improved by actively engaging more projects.

  • Communication skills

I was able to transfer my teaching skills into interviewing skills. In teaching, we, as teachers, constantly ask students effective questions to see where they are struggling. We also ask parents about how they are feeling about their children’s growth and life. These skills helped me to ask participants of this project further questions to gain deeper understanding of their feelings and thoughts.

Since we did not develop a high-fidelity model of this project completely, I will be working on it to improve this service further and to improve my iterating skills.

Work Sample

Affinity diagram for sorting interview/Observation data

Affinity diagram for design concepts

Sketch

Low-fidelity model