Thrive Guide

Project Overview

Thrive Guide is an interactive resource finding tool designed for Thrive with Centennial. Thrive Guide makes it easy for students and faculty to find relevant support resources that serve their particular needs.

Problem Definition

Discovering the Problem

After meeting with our client, my team and I understood that the biggest obstacle in successfully launching Thrive with Centennial was the lack of awareness of the program within the student body. I saw that there was also a real need to make Thrive resources more accessible than existing mental health and wellness resources available from Centennial. 

Research

Competitive & Current State Analysis

To begin solving this problem, my team and I analyzed what platforms similar to Thrive were currently being offered by other post-secondary education institutions. We reviewed services from Centennial College, George Brown College, Seneca College, Sheridan College, Ryerson University, and University of Toronto. We also conducted a thorough current state analysis of the current Thrive with Centennial platform.

We scored each institution on:

• Effective Calls to Action
• Ease of Use
• Tone of Content
• Crisis Contact Numbers
• Easily Scannable Content
• Live Chat / Interactive Applications
• Visual Appeal
• Current Updates

I was responsible for synthesizing our data into a findings report and explaining what we found and its relevance to the client. I organized this into three categories:

What Thrive Has

• Our Categories
  • Thrive has an excellent high-level content structure
• A Blank Slate
  • Thrive is new and has little content, meaning we have a lot of flexibility in creating new content that works for our users

What Works Well Elsewhere

• Relatable Tone
  • The best resources we found speak to the user like a peer rather than an authority figure
• Content that engages the user
  • We found the most engaging and rewarding platforms offered something for the user to do besides reading
• Content that uses visuals to guide the user
  • The most engaging and easily accessible resources all helped guide the user with visual aids like familiar icons or flow charts

Common Pain Points

• No clear direction
  • Frustrating resources offered the user no clear direction towards their goals
• Too much or too little content
  • A lack of content made for a user experience that was disengaging. Conversely, too much content was overwhelming and difficult to sift through for relevant information
• Rigid, formal tone
  • The least successful resources presented content that sounded more like medical texts rather than something students could use to get help and support
• Content that only funnels the user information
  • An engaging experience requires more than raw content delivery. Poor resources often just funnel the user to content rather than trying to understand their needs

User Research & Personas

To back up our findings, we also conducted user research. I created a survey that we circulated to potential end users to get a sense of their needs and past frustrations with accessing support resources. Below is a summary of the findings:

We then created four user personas: Two domestic students, one international student, and one faculty member. Below is the domestic student persona I created:

Common elements among our primary user group of students were:

Needs

• Career help
• Stress management
• Easily shareable resources

Obstacles

• Fear of judgment
• Low familiarity with support resources
• Unclear user pathways (“which way do I go?” problems)

What They Like

• Videos
• Interactive modules

What They Use Now

• Social media

Design

Content as Conversation

Based on our user research and persona development, I identified a real need for Thrive to speak to students in a familiar and non-intimidating way. I analyzed the content that Thrive currently had, and found that the language being used was overly complicated and unhelpful to their target end users.

I then rewrote the content to illustrate to the client how they can make their content more easily accessible and understandable for their users.

UX Theme

As a culmination of our research and early design work, I created our UX theme: A Journey of Trust. I determined that Thrive users need a platform that is simple to understand and that gives immediate feedback to the user so they can determine if they are on track to receiving the right resources for them.  This UX theme also considers the fact that Thrive users need to feel comfortable that they won’t be judged, and that Thrive wants to be a part of their journey and support them towards their goals.

Lo-Fi Prototype & Design Work

To turn this theme into something we could deliver to our client, I created some lo-fi paper prototypes, and mapped the design journey in an Invision freehand. I also created a user journey map for my persona to illustrate how she might navigate the Thrive platforms.

Project Results

Final Prototype

Based on everything we discovered about our users’ needs and what works well for online support resource platforms, I created Thrive Guide. Thrive Guide turns finding support resources into a visual journey that allows Thrive users to clearly visualize the process of finding relevant resources.

This prototype follows Aakash as he searches for resources to help improve his school-life balance.

What’s Next?

Thrive with Centennial is currently in development. All of our recommendations and findings have been delivered to the client, and the development team is working out the implementation and technical aspects. I’ll continue to update this page as the project progresses.