Filter By:
2019
Digital Design
Victoria University App
By
- Victoria University
- Kati Elizabeth
- Daniel Dang
- Khuyen Phung
- Micheal Sturmey and Will Thompson
Description
The Victoria University App combines all of the Universities’ five pre-existing apps into one consolidated, seamless experience. All VU digital services are available in one handy app for students, including a digital student ID card, interactive maps, timetables, assignments, unlockable achievements, enrollment, fees, results & more.
The app is a VU student-led design & was developed completely in house by students and staff with an extremely fast turnaround time – less than 8 months. This required extensive R&D to define student needs, the core features of previous apps and any additional/new business requirements.
Key Features
1
Some core problems we were charged with solving included:
– Viewing/navigating course content online was convoluted
– Existing Uni maps were outdated (6+ years) architectural floor plan
– PDFs which were confusing, incorrect, not interactive, and often failed to ‘load’
– Timetable was impossible to view on mobile from any app, or the VU website
Our solution successfully combines 5 apps’ worth of features, functions & services, with a simple and clear design system allowing users from all backgrounds to navigate intuitively within the app. Significant research and feedback was utilised, creating a delightful digital touchpoint for VU students (who are mobile-first users).
2
– We built the maps in-house, replacing the standard ‘disability’ icons with ‘accessible’ icons, and a thoroughly considered icon for ‘all gender bathrooms’. We gathered data and included accessible entrances. We have had an overwhelming response from VU students that these designs are incredibly empowering & affirming. We hope our designs can inspire other organisations towards more inclusive design.
– Over 85% of VU Students have downloaded the VU App since launch this year
– Highlight rankings include #3 in Education Apps on Google Play Store & #11 in Apple App Store
3
– Our innovation on the traditional email survey is our one-question-only ‘Fast Feedback’ feature. It is immensely popular with students and the business. It has allowed us to collect immediate data and feedback from students on a range of student experience issues such as dietary requirements on campus that has allowed for rapid transformation across the University.
– The Digital Student ID Card has allowed students to borrow library books whether or not they have their physical Student ID card, increasing library engagement
– Accessible timetables and maps has transformed the VU student experience, in partnership with the VU Way ‘Block Model’.
4
The VU App features an array of unique design offerings as well novel features for a university app including:
– Unlockable events & achievements using QR scanning for activity “validation”
– Responsive course progress bar
– Digital student ID card (Australian first)
– Interactive Timetable (many universities are unable to display timetables in mobile view as they use a vendor service that does not display on mobile. We custom built a solution for this.)
– Interactive Maps that are inclusive
– Live weather reads from Bureau of Meteorology API
– Guest view for potential students to learn more about VU
5
– Easy navigation & access to student units of study, with content broken down by area, as well as displaying global learning news and course specific news from the Learning Management System
– A customisable, easy to navigate portal of relevant VU services & facilities
– A profile with digital ID card, course progress bar, and unlockable student leadership achievements & learning metrics
– Maps built from scratch: We synthesised floor plans, space plans, and physically checked in person the accuracy of these plans, on every floor, building, and campus. A cloud-based backend, accessible internally to VU Staff allows updates seamlessly & instantly without needing an app update