5C Friend
Everything you need to navigate the Claremont Colleges
BACKGROUND
The 5C Friend app is one of the only apps that contains everything Claremont Colleges related. It is used widely by students.
This app was originally released in 2018 by a Claremont Colleges student. It is extremely popular for the students at the 5C's since it is one of the only 5C apps. Students find it very useful, especially for dining hall menus. In addition to the menus, it has maps for each college, news from each school's newspaper, helpful links, and athletics updates.
THE PROBLEM
The current app design is extremely outdated. The app needs to be updated for a clean and enticing design.
After going through the app and interacting with the interface, I realized that the problem was that the app looks extremely outdated. There haven't been any updates since it was made 4 years ago. Design trends have changed within the past 4 years, so the design of this app is not up to date with current design trends.
In addition to the outdated UI of the app, it is also extremely hard to navigate. There are broken links, elements that are not designed the best, and slow page loading times. These were all problems that I wanted to fix and made sure I had in mind while I was designing.
RESEARCH
1. Learn who the users are
Who is most likely to use this app? What is the age range? Are they already familiar with the 5C's? What are their pain points, needs, preferences, goals?
2. Understand who the current competitors are
Are there any current apps that have the same goals? What features do they have that are different than 5C Friend? What features do they have that are similar to 5C Friend?
3. Improvements for 5C Friend
What works well within the app? What doesn't work well? What features can be removed? What are features that can be added?
USER RESEARCH
I sent out a Google form questionnaire out to students. I asked what year they are and which school they attend (Pomona, Harvey Mudd, Scripps, Pitzer, Claremont McKenna). I also asked how often they used the 5C friend app, ranging from every day to never. I posted this google form onto our facebook pages - scripps college current students, and our 5c current students page. I also posted this questionnaire onto Fizz, which is a huge social media platform at my school.
I also put in 4 free response questions on the google form that I sent out. The questions I asked were:
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What do you like about the 5C friend app?
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What do you not like about the 5C friend app?
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What do you think can be improved in the 5C friend app?
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If you don't use the 5C friend app, what other app do you use to look at the dining hall menus, find events, look at college campus maps, and look at updated news?
RESULTS
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32% freshman, 27% sophomores, 22% juniors, 19% seniors/ super-seniors
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28% Scripps, 14% Harvey Mudd, 12% Pomona, 22% Claremont McKenna, 24% Pitzer
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47% used the app every day, 23% used it 4-6 times a week, 12% used it 1-3 times a week, 18% said they never use the app
CURRENT APP DESIGN
Overall, the current app 5C Friend app design looks outdated and not modern. The app design is not very exciting for users. There are some broken links and pages taking long to load.
CURRENT COMPETITORS
After doing some research, I found 2 apps that were the closest to the 5C Friend app. These 2 apps were 5C Menu and HMC. I played around and explored these apps, and was able to come up with a list of pros and cons for each app.
5C MENU
Pros:
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Contains updated menus for each dining hall
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Clear actions & easy to use
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Intuitive for users
Cons:
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Strictly only dining hall menus
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UI feels a bit amateur
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Unable to personalize app
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iOS only
HMC
Pros:
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Clean design
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Very easy to use
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Can make personalize if you log in with your Harvey Mudd credentials
Cons:
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Random broken links
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Only Harvey mudd specific
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Little bit of information overload
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Mostly used external websites
PAIN POINTS
From the Google form and the feedback that I got, I was able to identify 3 main pain points for users with the 5C friend app.
The 5C Friend app sometimes does not have the correct menus for the dining halls.
The app is not user-specific. For example, users would like the option to save dietary preferences or bookmark events.
