The following is a service design project: researching the needs of ESL / International students at NC State, identifying stockholders affected by their well-being, ideating business models, and presenting a potential solution to some of the problems found.
I began this project by researching secondary resources for information and statistics about my target population.
Next, I surveyed the available resources that NC State provides for ESL / International students. I focused on the information available online.
There are eight NC State websites directed towards international students. The only ones that house any useful information are the websites for the Intensive English Program (IEP) and the Office of International Services (OIS). Navigation is confusing, and all but the IEP site are English only.
I then conducted interviews with five international students across three meetings. Each meeting wound up to be at least a solid 30 minutes of conversation, with my brief questions allowing them to talk at length about their experiences so I could take notes and collect information. My results have some bias, as all of these students are from somewhere in Asia, but the ratio of international students does lean heavily that way and these interviews provided an abundance of useful information.
S & L, grad students from India
D, a visiting scholar from Japan
E & P, grad students from Taiwan
I created this graphic to visualize the information that I learned during these interviews, highlighting the common topics, points that stood out, and areas with most potential for intervention:
With the graphic above, I was able to identify that the areas most lacking are housing, transportation, and communication — of the first two things, and of all university resources. Additionally, with the prevalence of WhatsApp use among international students, WhatsApp becomes a stakeholder alongside the university.
This is where the project moves from research mode into action mode. With all the information above and my goals identified, I began ideating business models (under the outline proposed in Business Model Generation).
I chose the last of the three options above, because of its connection to the Office of Recruitment, its use of the WhatsApp name and platform, and its ability to evolve with students as they enroll.
Doing my best to combine the branding and interface language of both WhatsApp and the NCSU websites, I put together the following mock-up of what this interface could look like, under NCSU customization:
WhatsApp does not currently have much of a web-based interface, so this would expand their existing interface to a whole new platform. However, with their primary interface being mobile, it is crucial to ensure that this new interface can also be mobile-friendly.
This combination of WhatsApp and a customizable university website puts all the information needed by international students in one place that is easy to access. With a potential integration of Google Translate, it allows anyone to access information about campus resources. Focusing on the Office of Recruitment (a huge stockholder in retaining international students) allows for a potentially higher budget. And finally, utilizing a familiar platform makes for one less big change for students new to the USA.
