PROJECT OVERVIEW
WHAT IS BEACON PATHWAY?
A platform designed to help UMass Boston students navigate their academic journey by providing resources, community connections, and tailored support.
BeaconPathway came to life after my friend, Ciara Santiago, wrote an article about feeling lost in her academic journey. Her reflections on the challenges she faced as a student at UMass Boston resonated with me. Inspired by her story, I suggested assembling a team and tackling this issue together during the Paul English Applied Artificial Intelligence Hackathon at UMass Boston.
THE CHALLENGE
WHAT EXACTLY IS THE PROBLEM?
Students at UMass Boston, coming from different educational backgrounds, experience significant levels of uncertainty in their academic journey.
The unfortunate reality for many students at UMB is:
THE SOLUTION
THIS CHALLENGE DIDN'T HAVE TO BE THE CASE.
Our user-centerd application Beacon Pathway is the best solution.
Personalized Resource Recommendation Quiz: Helps students find relevant resources based on their needs and interests.
Beacon Community: Connects students to UMass Boston Discord servers to build social connections.
AI-powered Chatbot: Provides instant answers to university-related questions.
Schedule Builder: Recommends courses based on degree audits to help students plan their semesters.
DESIGN PROCCESS
WHAT WAS MY DESIGN PROCCESS?
I followed the Human-Centered Design process for my design approach and used an Agile-like framework for project planning.
USER RESEARCH
HOW MIGHT WE CONFIRM THIS IS AN ISSUE AND CONFIRM KEY ISSUES?
Through comprehensive research, we aimed to uncover the challenges students were facing in order to better address their needs and improve their academic experience.
We believed that feeling lost in your academic journey was a universal challenge for college students, but we wanted to validate this assumption through research. To gain a deeper understanding of the issue, its root causes, and potential solutions, we conducted thorough comprehensive research.
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COMPETITIVE AUDIT FINDINGS
We conducted a competitive audit of LinkedIn, Handshake, and UMBInvovled to identify strengths and weaknesses, guiding improvements for our product.
A competitive audit was conducted to assess how these platforms support students through networking, career resources, and campus involvement. Analyzing their weaknesses highlighted gaps in user experience and functionality, which directly informed the key features integrated into our app to better meet student needs and enhance engagement.
USER SURVEY FINDINGS
We found that 96% of our research participants struggle to navigate their academic journey, with many having difficulty finding internships & relevant opportunities.
The survey provided valuable quantitative data to support our decisions, offering insight into key challenges users face.
USER INTERVEIWS FINDINGS
User interviews were consistent with the survey results, showing that users shared similar needs and challenges across qualitative and quantitative methods.
IDEATE
HOW COULD WE ENSURE WHAT WE'RE CREATING IS HELPFUL?
We made data driven decisions that directly influenced the features we wanted to develop.
Based on all the user research we conducted, we came up with a few features we believed would be helpful:
Personalized Resource Recommendation Quiz
Beacon Community
AI-powered Chatbot
Schedule Builder
To ensure these features would genuinely benefit our target audience, we conducted a second round of user testing to gather quantitative feedback.
PROTOYPING
High Fidliety Protoyping
Pathway Quiz Screen:
An interactive quiz feature that intelligently matches students with tailored resources based on their unique needs and preferences, ensuring a more personalized and effective support experience.
Resources Screen:
The Resources page helps users access support tailored to their needs. They can explore handpicked recommendations based on their Pathway Quiz results, browse the full database of available resources, or save their favorites for easy access later.
Beacon Community Screen:
The Beacon Community feature helps students connect with existing Discord servers at UMass Boston, fostering a sense of belonging and collaboration. This seamless integration encourages students to engage, share resources, and build meaningful connections, enhancing their campus experience.
Schedule Builder Screen:
The Schedule Builder feature helps students plan their semesters effortlessly by analyzing their degree audit. By uploading a PDF, students receive personalized course recommendations that fulfill their remaining requirements and keep them on track for graduation. It’s a simple and efficient way to take the guesswork out of academic planning.
Beacon Bot Screen:
Beacon Bot is designed to assist students with university-related questions by providing instant answers and guidance.
NEXT STEPS
WHAT'S NEXT FOR BEACON PATHWAY?
We're still figuring it out
Our team is wrapping up our final semester at UMass Boston, so things are pretty busy right now. That said, we plan to keep working on this project since it was well received at the AI Symposium. We’re planning to spend our free weekends refining it and delivering a V2. This will also give us time to dive into usability testing, improve the functionality of all features, iterate more on the design, and conduct more user research—things we couldn’t fully explore due to the time constraints of the hackathon.
TAKEAWAYS
WHAT LESSONS DID I LEARN?
📢 Presentation style is super important!
I realized how crucial presentation skills are in making a strong impression on the judges. With limited time to craft our pitch, we had to be intentional about how we presented our ideas. We refined our 15-minute video submission and 7-minute live presentation to ensure clarity, engagement, and persuasiveness. This experience taught me that a well-delivered pitch can be just as important as the product itself.
🚢 Sometimes you just have to ship it.
I learned that shipping an MVP quickly is crucial. With limited time, overthinking could easily slow us down and hurt our progress. Instead of getting caught up in perfecting every detail, we focused on delivering a functional product within the deadline. This experience reinforced the importance of efficiency and making the most of the time available.
