Work: Currently a Design Manager at Meta.
Education: Currently a Ph.D. student in Design at Carnegie Mellon University. I earned a Master's in Strategic Design & Management from Parsons School of Design. I also earned a BS in Entrepreneurship and a BA in International Studies from the University of Utah.
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How might we re-imagine the college application process with regards to first-generation students?
Delivered a user-friendly design experience for first-generation college applicants which helped secure funding for the company's operations for up to three years.
Built an iOS app that streamlines the entire college application process, allowing it to be completed within 10 minutes, thereby increasing the accessibility to enroll for over 30,000 first-gen university students in America.
March - November 2017
Getin is a responsive app that matches high school students with colleges based on GPA, allows them to apply to colleges, and matches them with scholarships. The Getin app streamlines the entire college application process, allowing it to be completed within 10 minutes.
Our objective was to design and develop an app that will help over 1 million high school students apply to colleges across America.
My role was Design Lead, guiding the creative process through ideation, strategy, and UX/UI experience design. We identified requirements through user-research, created cases from the requirements, and co-created with the users: future first-generation college students.
Getin is for first-generation or low-income students, groups that apply to college at low rates.
Getin is for first-generation or low-income students, groups that apply to college at low rates.
Applying for college is a multi-step process. Future students need to consider their career interests and what they hope to get out of college. They need to consider their majors, research possible campus choices, and prepare several documents. They need to write application essays and pay for application fees.
After completing all of these steps, future students still need to submit their applications before the deadline. For those historically not represented on college and university campuses, this application process represents an obstacle. Universities miss out on students who would contribute greatly to their campuses.
30% are first-generation students
1.5 million students enrolled
50% of them are low-income
Lourdes, a 19-year-old, hopes to be a first-generation college graduate. She does not know anyone with the experience to help her apply.
Mike, who plans to pay his way through college independently, works two jobs. He has difficulty making time for long applications.
Daniel, hoping to study as an international student, has little access to computers but can use data on his phone -- if the application process is available there.
One university has made the application process available online, but the application software is difficult for users to navigate
A community college’s website is outdated but cannot be pulled offline for updates without disrupting its heavy traffic.
Admissions staff face obstacles evaluating applications due to the complexity of the online system.
We compared our app to our competitors, noting their weaknesses and shortcomings, which we hoped to avoid. Then, we attempted to solve their problems.
| Competitive Name | Weakness | Our Attemps |
|---|---|---|
| Common App | Common App is not quickly or easily used on a smartphone | We made it possible to quickly apply to higher-ed institutions through our mobile app alone, or the browser. |
| QuestBridge | QuestBridge adds a second level of competition, making it useful only for students with time and other advantages | Because we want our app and website to reach everyone, we lower barriers of entry for all students, whether elite or not |
| The Posse Foundation | Users must apply to the Posse Foundation first; the system adds time to the application process | Our application is designed to be completed in one sitting if desired. |
Our application was designed to help people accomplish their academic goals and address their objections. After speaking with many students, we developed several profiles to demonstrate the range of users who would benefit from using our software.
Prena Agarwal
Future Social Worker
Age: 17 Gender: Female
Prena is a first-generation Punjabi-American immigrant. She hopes to move to be near her university of choice, but for now, must cope with a challenging study environment.
While her spoken English is excellent, and she can express herself well in written form, she has difficulty with the complex language of her application. She knows she is capable of finishing the application, but struggles with demands on her attention and the time needed to complete the application.
Jamal Gavin
Future Biologist
Age: 21 Gender: Male
Jamal began his studies at a community college and is working full-time to save money for future study. He helps support two aging family members.
Jamal paid for his first two years of college by taking three classes per semester. He still finds many demands on his time. He will afford college, but will likely need to continue working after transferring.
Punit Shetty
Future pre-law student
Age: 28 Gender: Male
Punit Shetty completed three of four years of his bachelor degree while he was still in his twenties. Now a father, he is preparing to return to school to complete his degree and go on to law school.
The interface focused on the key sections a student needs to fill to cover a general basis of their application to any college or university.
The student in high school will have matches based on GPA, increasing their extracurricular activities, or leadership opportunities. The app will be updated every grading period so they can either have more matches for colleges as they get better grades, or lose a match for college as they decrease GPA and other requirements.
The interface focused on the key sections a student needs to fill to cover a general basis of their application to any college or university.
The student in high school will have matches based on GPA, increasing their extracurricular activities, or leadership opportunities. The app will be updated every grading period so they can either have more matches for colleges as they get better grades, or lose a match for college as they decrease GPA and other requirements.
Although the app’s purpose is to allow nearly the entire college application process to be completed within 10 minutes, seniors remain skeptical because they have come to understand that the process can take anywhere from hours to days. As a result, I realize that the entire process, from onboarding to matching schools, to sending the application itself must rely on clear, fast, and efficient information architecture.
Our solution is based directly on our understanding of the problem and the feedback we received from our surveys. The fast application process satisfies our student users’ concerns on how long college applications take and satisfies their “urgency of now” needs.
Although the app’s purpose is to allow nearly the entire college application process to be completed within 10 minutes, seniors remain skeptical because they have come to understand that the process can take anywhere from hours to days. As a result, I realize that the entire process, from onboarding to matching schools, to sending the application itself must rely on clear, fast, and efficient information architecture.
Our solution is based directly on our understanding of the problem and the feedback we received from our surveys. The fast application process satisfies our student users’ concerns on how long college applications take and satisfies their “urgency of now” needs.
Because I needed to understand what problems high school students face in applying to college, I decided to understand our product from the customer's perspective. To do this, I sampled 5 high school seniors and compared their experiences with the traditional application route on a regular university website, the Getin app, and our major competitor, the Common App. With both the traditional application method and the Common app, virtually all participants were frustrated with the time it took and the numerous steps required. By contrast, participants responded favorably to the Getin app and its streamlined features, particularly the apps’ efficiency and user-friendly interface.
While evaluating the user research feedback, I was astonished by how many users felt uninspired to finish their applications on the school website or the Common app due to the sheer length and inefficiency of the process. The response to our high fidelity mockup design demonstrated the ability to retain user attention by limiting application time to just 10 minutes. Results show Getin to be the most efficient and accessible method for applying to college.
Because I needed to understand what problems high school students face in applying to college, I decided to understand our product from the customer's perspective. To do this, I sampled 5 high school seniors and compared their experiences with the traditional application route on a regular university website, the Getin app, and our major competitor, the Common App. With both the traditional application method and the Common app, virtually all participants were frustrated with the time it took and the numerous steps required. By contrast, participants responded favorably to the Getin app and its streamlined features, particularly the apps’ efficiency and user-friendly interface.
While evaluating the user research feedback, I was astonished by how many users felt uninspired to finish their applications on the school website or the Common app due to the sheer length and inefficiency of the process. The response to our high fidelity mockup design demonstrated the ability to retain user attention by limiting application time to just 10 minutes. Results show Getin to be the most efficient and accessible method for applying to college.
I sampled 5 high school seniors and compared their experiences with the traditional application route
Neilson’s Ten Heuristics was the mechanism for our heuristic evaluation. Our team had 3 experts to help evaluate the Getin app interface: the Head of Admissions of Weber State University, the head of the Trio and Gearhead program at the University of Utah, and an administrator at the I’m First Organization. All of these institutions share the mission of Getin app. These experts performed three tasks to evaluate the overall usability of the app, and at the end were told to record the thoughts that immediately came to mind.
At the end of this evaluation, they rated the app’s interface based on Neilson’s Ten Heuristics. The iteration of the design interface was based on our expert testing feedback through the heuristic evaluation.
The app rewards hard work in preparation and creates opportunities for the unaware. It is part of the solution to the most common problem that most middle-class Americans face, making education more accessible. College admissions rates will increase in the country because more kids will have access to apply to college or university. The easier it becomes, the more people will be in line to apply.
The final usability testing session was conducted at Davis High School in Utah, where 30 students used the app from the initial onboarding process to completion of the application. Though we had practical restrictions, as the final beta test did not occur until November during college application week, we were still able to get students to test our application and provide feedback.
The final usability testing session was conducted at Davis High School in Utah, where 30 students used the app from the initial onboarding process to completion of the application. Though we had practical restrictions, as the final beta test did not occur until November during college application week, we were still able to get students to test our application and provide feedback.
How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?
I found that user research through surveys is essential for improvement through evaluative strategies. Designing the Getin app was an incredible learning experience. Iterating designs, learning from practical research studies, re-strategizing, and testing new design iterations with users created a feedback look that helped me better understand my users and feel greater empathy for them. This empathy is further fueled by a desire to develop and create a functional model that solves users’ main concerns and frustrations.
This project has contained many challenges, though the greatest difficulty was communicating with university administrators and counselors to organize demo testing for our app. Educational institutions are known to be very bureaucratic and difficult to navigate, though once you find a breakthrough, the results can be astounding. We were able to get some administrative personnel to cooperate with us, and even involved a few department heads through a group email. This made exchanging our back-and-forth iterations substantially more fluid.
I found that user research through surveys is essential for improvement through evaluative strategies. Designing the Getin app was an incredible learning experience. Iterating designs, learning from practical research studies, re-strategizing, and testing new design iterations with users created a feedback look that helped me better understand my users and feel greater empathy for them. This empathy is further fueled by a desire to develop and create a functional model that solves users’ main concerns and frustrations.
This project has contained many challenges, though the greatest difficulty was communicating with university administrators and counselors to organize demo testing for our app. Educational institutions are known to be very bureaucratic and difficult to navigate, though once you find a breakthrough, the results can be astounding. We were able to get some administrative personnel to cooperate with us, and even involved a few department heads through a group email. This made exchanging our back-and-forth iterations substantially more fluid.
