JournaLink

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  User Persona/Journey Map

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  login page

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  home page

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  discovery page

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  journal info page

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  my course page

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  workspaces page

What is the problem your solution addresses?

Through mapping a user persona of a typical college student, we identified how our target audience frequently needs to participate in research for their coursework such as papers and projects. However, if the process of obtaining information is too complicated or time consuming, it hampers their progress and slows down the pace of discovery. Imagine a student trying to write a quantum physics paper, only to spend hours sifting through irrelevant materials because their library's search system is not user friendly nor collaborative.

These problems are reinforced by our conducted user interviews where university students declared feeling discouraged from utilizing their university libraries to conduct research. In addition to the challenging search system, students are overwhelmed by the abundance of resources, compounded by their diverse personal needs in seeking materials to fulfill specific academic goals. This leads to further frustrations and inefficiencies which impede accessibility of their needed resources.

Why did you pick this solution, and how does it address the problem?

JournaLink improves accessibility to academic resources which students need for their studies, including books, journals, articles, and online databases. Through an initial in-app survey, JournaLink caters to students’ specific majors/minors and studies of interests by suggesting relevant topics. Students receive quick access to library resources without the need for in-depth research.

JournaLink features a main discovery page to browse through resources from simple keyword searches. Once students find a resource, they can add them to personalized workspaces, organized by course or a particular group assignment, which allow for collaboration with peers. These resources can be saved to the workspaces, connected to taglines or downloaded to students’ devices for offline access.

Overall, JournaLink is a helping hand in the search, collaboration and organization of study resources, encouraging students to take advantage of their universities’ libraries more frequently and efficiently.

Built With

• figma
• slack