Columbia Virtual Campus
Lead design for a online college social and community platform for students to stay connected, active and aware during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
HOME
CREATIVE
YEAR
2020
ROLE
Design lead
Visual design
Product management
User research
TEAM
7 Junior designers
3 Product managers
10 Engineers
About the project
In direct response to the COVID-19 impact, we created Columbia Virtual Campus to re-build a sense of community, motivate students to find new purposes, and support students who are placed in difficult positions away from campus resources.
I was the design lead and mentor for a team of 7 junior designers.I lead user research, visual branding, and product design while working extensively with similarly sized engineering and marketing teams.
Turned pain points into opportunities
Combined stakeholder requirements, engineering needs and 23 user feedback insights to align on these primary pain points to address:
Misaligned timelines
Planned scope didn’t match rapid COVID-driven product needs.Lack of personalization
Users couldn’t filter or tailor abundant resources to their needs.Undefined product scope
“Study Spaces” was too vague to deliver a usable, complete experience.Fragmented multi-device experience
Desktop and mobile weren’t equally optimized for student workflows.
We then focused on the opportunities of developing the following 3 feature pages:
CONSOLIDATED HOME PAGE
Showcase events, resources, and ways for students to get involved and feel connected during COVID-19.
VIRTUAL STUDENT EVENTS
Connect students remotely through campus events and encouraging them to host their own more casually.
BLM MENTORSHIP
Highlight accountability and accessibility through mentorship with Columbia students while donating to BLM programs.
Measured success
An example of quantitative success tracking on the BLM Mentorship page over the first month.
Mentors.
Mentees.
Donated.
Total traffic.
New unique visits.
Social media traffic.
Learnings
Leadership: Being an entirely student led initiative meant I had to learn to be a Design Lead, create a new brand, and mentor fellow designers extremely rapidly.
Design driven: Originally, CVC was a primarily engineering focused project - becoming an equal at the table proved a challenge but my perspectives on iterative design and MVP goals provided very fruitful.
Communication: I constantly communicated with engineering leads, program managers, and social outreach to ensure consistency with our goal and promote our product effectively.
Smooth Scroll
This will hide itself!
This will hide itself!