Design Challenge:
UC Davis Library
Seat Reservation Redesign
Duration
November 3 —
November 15, 2021
Tools
Adobe XD
Google Form
My Role
User Research: Survey
Wireframing
Prototyping
Branding
Overview
Many UC Davis students use the Shields Library to find books, have group meetings, and study during their spare time. However, not all students are able to find seats and therefore forced to relocate to somewhere else. This issue is critical especially during the final exam season since more students come to the library to find a better studying environment.
In order to prevent this traffic jam, we wanted to create a system that allows students to reserve seats in advance so that they are guaranteed with their favorite seat when in need.
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Point Of View
Students are unable to find their ideal seats in the library due to traffic and lack of information
How Might We
How might we allow students to find and reserve a seat that fits their study habit?
About Our Users
We conducted a user research using Google Forms with our target audience, which are UC Davis students at the age from 18 to 25.
With the survey results, we were able to categorize students by their study habits:
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40% of the students went to the library in order to study and do homework. They often went to the library alone in order to focus more on their work.
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20% of the students only visited the library when they had group meetings or studies. This case, the environment did not matter as much.
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27% of the students also visited the library to find an environment they could focus in.
Jenna Doe
User Persona
Kevin Smith
User Flow
Flow 1: helps users find their preference first and then proceed with the reservation process
Flow 2: allows users to utilize pre-set preferences to proceed with the reservation process
Paper Sketch Wireframes
These are the sketches of our screens, which contained four sections.
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Sign in
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Select what library to reserve for
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Reserve a seat
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Receive a verification message.
From Analog to Digital - Low Fidelity
Select Seat(s)
Select Date & Time
Reservation Summary
& Edit Information
Reservation Confirmation
User Test
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Conducted user test from 6 UC Davis students
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the participants were asked to reserve a seat for themselves only (not group study)
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almost all user testers were not aware of how they are able to reserve group study room
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Findings
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Having two main Call To Actions in the home page is confusing
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remove "Help Me Reserve" because the users will not be seeking for help before they begin the reservation system
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Preferences for seat selection may not be necessary for all students
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add a button that leads users to their profile page to add or edit their preferences
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Having a summary section helped the participants double check their selection and reassure themselves
Consolidating Branding & Features
As this was a redesign project of an existing platform, the color palette and typeface was already set for UC Davis. So, we decided to move forward with UC Davis colors and a typeface that UC Davis Canvas page use.
High Fidelity
This is a slideshow of all the high fidelity screens.
Hover over to see details of this screen and try interacting with the prototype yourself!
Takeaways
1. Simple Tasks Also Require Many Considerations
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Many things should be considered for while designing any reservation system like environment, security, and rules.
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considering exterior environment and system that helps the reservation system run effectively.
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2. User Testers Give Great Insights
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The best method of receiving feedback from the potential users is user testing; we were able to observe any confusions and obstacles from the users through their facial expressions and the interviews after the user test
Future Steps
Since this project was completed within a very short time frame, there were many things that I wanted to further develop in the future:
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Allow students to select different floors of the library and have better map of the library
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Create QR code for library check-in and check-outs
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Keeping track of ongoing changes in environment of the library; the noise level and crowd level will consistently change so it should be regularly updated
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Mobile version of the application for better accessibility
