OUGD505: Survey

After the feedback session I wanted to gather even more primary research so I could make the platform the biggest success it can be.  One aspect I identified from comments was that people agree'd Facebook was an ineffective way distribute the product, and it would be much better suited online or on eStudio. 

It is interesting to note that I posted the survey in the current LCA collaborations page, hoping to get a wide range of passionate responses, as it is clear many people have also identified this issue.

I should have added a 'Why' follow up question box to this, as now I know that this is an issue, but I do not have any concrete evidence from this group to back up why.

All about accessing skills and finding talented individuals to network with

It is clear by MILES that people stick inside their friendship group or give work to friends because that is the natural thing to do, we all want to support our friends but we often need to support ourselves too. By collaborating with a friend (or taking a friends recommendation for someone else) who isn't actually that good, may really tarnish the outcome of the work. 

 It is clear the current methods can be ineffective, due to spontaneous incidents or bouts of unproductively within parties. By keeping both people motivated and engaged within a brief, the solution constant attention may improve and better the project- this itself could be a feature of the solution. It is also interesting to wonder if the collaborations page only ignores posters because they don't actually take it seriously for collaborations anymore, and a larger response rate would come from another platform. An AB test or more feedback would be the best way to determine this.

Introduce a group message/sharing system, where workloads could be split and alerts sent to keep people communicating and engaged 

 The second piece of feedback here about having profiles is essential, as the work should be why you are collaborating with someone, not just because you have a mutual friend. This is evidently what needs to be highlighted and solved. Also, the issue of people not responding on the Facebook page is concerning, yet from discussions with people and additional focus groups it is clear people want to drive their practice, so may be starting to become more confident and ballsy to speak to more people within the creative courses here at uni.

 Honesty and openness within the tone of voice and solution

The importance of a college link has been highlighted through the survey responses and so I will intergrate a feature to login with eStudio or connect via eStudio. Alternatively, another idea entirely could be a plug in feature for eStudio where the page is ran by the college, just repurposing the concept. By gathering primary research I have identified the areas for development and how the UX/functionality of the website can itself solve these problems. 

However, I cannot look at the LCA target audience too niche and rule out the wider social benefits this solution can bring to other institutions, which may have different codes and ways of doing things than LCA, making any LCA specific design essentially void. The design needs to have growth room.