EXPERIENCE

WITHIN

REACH

Reimagining how students find experiential learning opportunities on PeopleGrove.

Role
UX/UI Designer

Timeline
4 Weeks

Focus Areas
Order Flow | Item Customization | Menu Discovery

PROJECT OVERVIEW

PeopleGrove is a student development platform that helps prepare students for the workforce immediately following graduation. During this academic capstone project, completed through Western Governors University in collaboration with PeopleGrove, I applied user-centered design principles to enhance the platform’s usability and accessibility—helping address the long-standing challenge of bridging the gap between classroom learning and the real-world experience needed to confidently enter the workforce.

SUMMARY

“How might we help students confidently discover, apply for, and track experiential learning opportunities on PeopleGrove?”

REQUIREMENTS AND DELIVERABLES

During this four-week design sprint aimed at improving PeopleGrove’s opportunity discovery and application experience, I focused on establishing the foundational mobile experience for the platform’s experiential learning feature.

The project deliverables included:

  • User Research Summary & Feedback Analysis

  • Persona, Empathy Map, and Journey Map

  • Low-Fidelity Mobile Wireframes and Prototypes

The project’s scope centered on designing early mobile concepts to support future rounds of usability testing and high-fidelity design iterations.

EMPATHIZING TO INFORM DESIGN

Using insights gathered and synthesized from primary user research, I focused my design efforts on key mobile features that would create the greatest impact for students, including:

  • An intuitive opportunity application flow with clearer calls-to-action

  • A simplified opportunity-saving experience for easier access and organization

  • Improved progress visibility through automatic application tracking to reduce manual effort

  • Refined search filters for more personalized and relevant results

  • Integrated company information to support informed decision-making

These focus areas guided the design of features that empower students to navigate the platform more confidently and efficiently—transforming a once-frustrating process into a clear, supportive experience.

BEYOND THE FLAVOR

Pain Points

  • Long lines made browsing difficult

  • Pressure at the window led to rushed orders

  • Paper punch cards were often lost or forgotten

  • No way to order ahead during busy events

What They Needed

  • Space to explore the menu without stress

  • Simple, customizable ordering

  • A quicker, more modern way to skip the line

  • Digital rewards that were easy to access

These insights guided a solution that reduced friction while keeping the flavor and fun that users already loved.

Armed with user insights, my design mission was twofold: to craft a user experience that seamlessly blended efficiency with Chow Chalet's commitment to delivering a premium food truck experience. The objective? To develop an app that not only facilitated swift and hassle-free ordering but also fostered an immersive and captivating user journey.

Let’s See What We Can Cook Up

Ideation & Prototyping

I initiated the design process by crafting wireframes focused on showcasing key app information prominently on the welcome screen and guiding users seamlessly through the ordering process. Subsequently, the order screen was meticulously designed to offer customers a streamlined, concise ordering experience, enabling them to easily edit and review their orders for accuracy before submission. These wireframes allowed me to visually map out user flows to ideate an intuitive user experience.

Prototyping

From these wireframes, I created a low-fidelity prototype with a primary focus on the food ordering flow, the application's main feature. This prototype allowed me to further visualize the way users would experience the product and would be my tool of choice for user testing.

You can view the full low-fidelity prototype below.

VIEW LOW-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE 
User Testing & Refinement

The Taste Test

To begin user testing, I recruited five users and assigned them a series of tasks to complete. The testing was conducted in person, allowing me to observe their interactions with the application. I followed up with a survey to compare their feedback with my observations. This research revealed several usability concerns:

  1. Users struggled to locate the section for updating personal information.

  2. The excessive number of screens confused users about their current task.

  3. The order customization options lacked individual item customization, which was a primary user concern.

To address the usability concerns, I began by rethinking the homescreen layout. Rethinking the layout allowed me to create a better flow for users as they’re placing an order and minimize the amount of screens the user had to interact with on to complete the task, which in turn brought me to rethink the way they navigated through the appplication. In doing so, I changed the food categories from being on drop downs from the menus screen to being a sliding navigation bar across the top of the screen. In doing so, at any point in the flow, the user would know where they are in the application and what they’re doing, eliminating the confusion that they previously had while using the application.

In addition to the adjustments in the way the app flow, I changed ambiguous icons, refined titles, and refined the colors to ensure accessibility and further enhance the user’s experience.

Design Mockups

Results

The Finished Product

The end result was a dynamic app that was:

  • Accessible: Achieved WCAG 2.1 AA compliance through rigorous testing

  • Effective: Usability testing showed 95% task success rate, 25% faster than previous version

  • Branded: Maintained consistent look and feel with 95% brand asset usage

The completion of this project allowed me to gain valuable knowledge about UX design principles that will inform and elevate my future work.

User Feedback

After completing this project, I conducted a follow-up study with the same participants:

  • 100% noted appreciation for my attention to detail

  • 95% felt their concerns were properly addressed

View the Design

To explore this design yourself, click the button below:

VIEW DESIGN