TL;DR

Feedback system targeted at students, professors, and admins

We had 60 days, a wrong assumption, and one week to fix it.

Our team had less than 60 days to design a generative AI powered solution for the admins at the Faculty of Global and Science Studies. We started with the wrong assumption, which we realized a week before the deadline. We then pivoted to making a more holistic system that encourages feedback and course improvement.

Introduction

The Admins of Faculty of Global and Science Studies in Yamaguchi University have a lot of things to juggle. They must orchestrate the creation of the syllabus for each class with all of the faculty members. They then juggle the faculty staff members' schedules, making sure nothing important overlaps, that there are no double-booking mishaps, and that each classroom has all of the equipment it needs.

Not only are they juggling this, they are also having to act as an intermediary for students complaints. The students are fed up; some of their classes got dropped as there were too many people who registered, their professor is horrible at teaching, they don't know why they have to take a thermodynamics course with a liberal arts major... it's a mess.

This project started out with a seemingly obvious solution, but our assumptions were far from reality.

In this project our team was tasked with utilizing generative AI in order to solve the issues of these tormented admins. We took a more targeted approach, focusing on the course administration tasks of the admins.

Our First Assumption

The Problem

The number of steps needed to achieve a specific task rendered the entire registration system inadequate for the needs of the faculty and needed to be redesigned urgently.

The Solution

We created an updated version of the old registration system, with the goal of making the user experience more intuitive and efficient.

The Result

THIS WAS NOT THE ROOT PROBLEM

After conducting user testing with faculty admins, we found that the faculty really didn't find our updated system to be very useful. It had handy features and all, but it didn't really "change their lives." It was the easy solution that barely scraped the surface of the real problem.

The Real Deal

The Problem

Admins, staff, and students are all frustrated with the underlying systems that are in place for class administration. In order to resolve these issues, we need to address the concerns of all three, and not just redesign the broken UI.

Students want their courses to have their voices heard when it comes to course feedback. Professors want to have constructive feedback for their courses without being emotionally attacked. Admins want an environment where both students and professors are satisfied and can grow. However with the current system, students' true feelings seldom become analyzable data, they tend to be concealed within students' conversations with each other. This leads to a system that lacks the necessary feedback for course improvement.

The Solution - Voice-SCaNN

We designed a feedback system that targets all 3 major stakeholders, creating a system that encourages feedback from students, helps professors understand where students get stuck without hurting them emotionally.

Expected Benefits

Admins Admins, professors, and students all form closer bonds, resulting in a system that goes beyond feedback and creates trust.

Students Students feel that their voices are heard and class becomes a pleasant experience.

Professors Professors are empowered with their new knowledge of how students respond to their courses, resulting in better communication and more fulfillment in their work.

Takeaway

DX is not simply a matter of automating or streamlining tasks in the name of efficiency. DX is a process in which stakeholders come out with improved relationships with each other.

My Contribution

My major contribution was becoming a driving force in our pivot. By the time we realized that our system was only addressing a surface level problem, we were one week away from our deadline. We were at the cross-roads: either keep on with our current system, or make drastic changes in one week.

I knew we had to pivot, and I knew it wasn't going to be easy. So I started making a prototype (more like a proof of concept) for our new feedback system. It was far from perfect, but we were able to get feedback for our idea. Some team members were still concerned about what we could accomplish in less than a week. Their concerns were valid. But I kept on prototyping and sharing the results, as I knew that we were definitely onto something. After all this and a conversation with our professor 4 days before the deadline, we as a team decided to take the leap towards our new system.

I'm not patting myself on the back for going against the grain. I'm not saying that it's ok to ditch your team when you think you have a better idea. What I am saying is that if you know something is the right thing to do, you need to inspire others to get on board, even if the right thing to do is hard. You may not get your message across on the first try, friction is a real phenomenon. You must have faith however, that your team is capable of going to the next level.

Official Press Release (Yamaguchi University)