Raffles Graduation 2016

While the previous year’s graduation marked the first time the graduation book went digital, 2016’s edition was similar, just that it was enhanced for mobile responsiveness. Therefore, a mobile web application was created. Guests and graduating students were welcomed to view their works on the platform and in comparison to 2015’s, the user experience was enhanced, thus delivering an intuitive and responsive platform for users to view.

The Problem

Over the years, guests of graduates are being given a physical copy of the graduation book. It was only changed in 2015 when guests were presented with pendrives featuring works of all graduates. Then again, that was not conducive as not everyone has access to a computer instantaneously.

The Goal

For this, a web application was created so that visiting guests can have instant access to works of graduates before, during and after the show.

The Process

As we were building this within a constraint timeline, we decided to make this a mobile-first experience as it will primarily be viewed from the RafflesSG app. Here’s a rundown of what we have done.

Discovery

During 2015’s graduation, we spoke to guests who were viewing students’ works via the touchscreen and asked for their feedback about what can be improved for the subsequent graduation ceremonies. Here are some of their feedback:

  • Would be great if the works are portable

  • Pendrive is great but hard to access

  • Touchscreen can limit visibility due to its screen size

Research

Moving on, we went on to assess existing generic online portfolios platforms. Due to time constraint, we could not afford the luxury to have an extensive dialogue with stakeholders such as educational consultants, students and lecturers, though we managed to obtain the context for building the product.

Target Audience

We derived at the point where we would primarily focus on (a) industry partners and (b) guest of graduate as the ultimate end goal is to promote the students’ works for greater opportunities.

Primary: Guests & Friends of Graduates and Industry Partners

To showcase the graduates’ works to guests on a mobile platform that is instantaneously accessible to the masses

Secondary: Graduates

For graduates to view their works and reflect on what they have done

Design

Since the design theme had already been set in stone, my role was to enhance and digitise it for the portal.

Information Architecture

Firstly, we looked at the glossary and table of contents in the physical booklet. The main sections are:

  • Principal’s Message

  • Students’ Highlights

  • Industry Partners

  • List of Graduating Students

  • Credits

User Flow

As the structure of the booklet is linear, we mapped accordingly and assessed the flow.

Looking at the content, I realised that one tricky situation is how we could create a primary category in Courses and create sub-categories for the different courses. This would replicate as to how a digital platform would flow.

Prototype

With the structure of the physical graduation book, we moved forward with prototyping applied its design scheme to further define the product.

Outcome

Here are some screenshots of the product.