Welcome Gift Redesign for Prime
Prime has been providing a water bottle to its full stack development students as a welcome gift when they arrive on campus. Unfortunately, this water bottle is no longer being manufactured; in addition, staff have heard that some students have found it rather unusable and impersonal.
My goal was to create a more functional and personal welcome gift for future full stack development students when coming to Prime.
Research Conducted
Participant Observations
First, I wanted to gain a better understanding of who the full stack development students are and what is important to them. To determine this I observed videos of the full stack students in their home offices, spoke with them on a personal level and read their reflections from a previously composed survey.
Heuristic Analysis
Once I had a better idea of who I'd be designing for I wanted to make sure I had a clear understanding of the key issues with the water bottle welcome gift so I conducted a heuristic analysis and compiled my results in a multi-page report.
Key Issues:
- Design Aesthetic - not inclusive of variety of personalities
- High potential for spills with screw on cap and open hole
- Not dishwasher safe with poorly visible warning
Design & Evaluation
Design Concepts
Once I had completed my participant observations and heuristic analysis I compiled my observations and created 3 unique design concepts in the form of mood boards to show to my team.
With my team's insight I decided to move forward with the concept for the Rubik's cube flash drive as it was both connected to development and had a practical use. I created a low fidelity prototype of my design concept.
Evaluation Plan
Now that I had a concept to move forward with I wanted to see how my users connected with it so I created a research protocol for evaluating my prototype.
Research Goals
- Assess the personal connection full stack students have to my gift concept
- Assess the need for this gift concept and desire to use it
- Determine if this is something users would continue to use post Prime
Method: Semantic Differential
I used the semantic differential research method to gain a better understanding of how my users felt about my design prototype. Each user was asked to rate how they felt on a 1 to 7 scale for the following:
- Boring - Fun
- Useless - Useful
- Impersonal - Personal
Client Pitch Presentation
Once all of my data had been compiled and synthesized I created a report and gave a 5 minute presentation of my findings and recommendations.
It was clear from my interactions with full stack students that the Rubik's cube flash drive would make a great welcome gift, but some small changes could be made to make it even more useful and personal to the users.
Next Steps:
- Switch from USB to USB-C
- Decrease size for ease of use
- Switch colors to match the Prime brand
- Add coding related graphics to squares