College Tour App
- Oct 21, 2025
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 23
Digital Corps UX Training
December 2024
All students hired at Digital Corps complete a semester-long training program. For us in user experience, this training involves independently working through every stage of the UX process from start to finish. As part of my training, I developed a hypothetical mobile application that allows users to take virtual college tours, schedule in-person visits, earn badges for on-campus exploration, and receive rewards for completing badge milestones. This app would help prospective college students make more informed decisions about which college to attend.
Our UX process includes research, problem and success statements, high-level and detailed requirements, personas, empathy maps, sitemaps and workflows, Figma prototyping, and usability and QA testing.
Our process began with researching the pain points of prospective college students, evaluating existing virtual tour solutions, and identifying features that could enhance the overall college tour experience.
Based on this research, I developed a problem statement outlining two key challenges: prospective students who are unable to attend in-person tours lack access to comprehensive online alternatives, while those who do attend in-person tours often experience low engagement.
To address these issues, I designed an application that enables users to participate in interactive virtual tours or engage with in-person visits through a gamified badge system. Both approaches aim to increase engagement between institutions and prospective students while improving access to important information.
From this problem statement, I defined success using both qualitative and quantitative measures. Qualitatively, success would be reflected in improved user satisfaction and engagement. Quantitatively, success would be measured by increased interest in and applications to universities utilizing the platform.
Using these insights, I developed a set of high-level requirements outlining the core functionality of the application, including an interactive map with landmarks, tour scheduling capabilities, and a badge-based reward system.
Following the research phase, I created user personas representing key audiences: prospective students (the primary users), university admissions staff responsible for managing and uploading content (client), and a high-school teacher (indirect user). During this process, I received feedback that pushed me to consider more primary users with various needs, thinking less about the client and indirect users, and more about the actual users.
Next, we create empathy maps. In these empathy maps, I explored who these people were, what commitments they had, what they are seeing, hearing, doing, and saying in their day-to-day lives, and how they think and feel.
After developing a thorough understanding of users’ perspectives, pain points, and motivations, I moved into defining detailed requirements.
To support college selection, the app needed to include features for searching and recommending institutions. To enable digital tours, the app required functionality for guiding users through a structured tour checklist, displaying an interactive map, facilitating interaction with campus landmarks, and providing access to multimedia content.
For in-person engagement, the app needed to support a badge system that allows users to log in, schedule tours, track badge progress and requirements, submit photo verification, and earn rewards upon completion.
Click to view detailed requirements
To better organize these requirements, I developed a sitemap and user workflows. This helped organize the application’s features and explain how different features connected. Here, I highlight the processes for both virtual and in-person tours.
Finally, I developed a mid-fidelity prototype, which served as the culmination of my work. This project marked my first experience using Figma and creating an interactive, clickable prototype.
Through this process, I built a strong foundation in Figma while also navigating the challenge of ensuring the prototype behaved as intended.
While I am proud of the final result, there were several functionalities I was unable to fully implement. For example, I wanted to create interactive text input fields and an animated and layered hamburger menu; however, achieving this in Figma required more advanced features that I was not yet familiar with at the time.
Since completing this project, I have had the opportunity to further develop my Figma skills and can now create more dynamic interactions, including hamburger menus, dropdowns, and popups much more efficiently.
After developing the clickable prototype, I moved into the testing phase, where I conducted both usability testing and quality assurance (QA) testing.
For usability testing, I conducted three formal sessions with other Digital Corps team members. Participants were asked to complete a series of tasks, during which I recorded time on task, perceived difficulty (on a scale of 1–5), and any observations or feedback they shared during and after completion.
After collecting the data, I calculated the average time on task and difficulty ratings across all participants. This analysis helped identify which tasks were more challenging for users based on longer completion times and higher difficulty scores.
Overall, the results indicated that the prototype was generally usable; however, there were a few friction points, with language and labeling causing some confusion. Some users were left uncertain about the purpose of certain features.
Click to view the usability testing document
For QA testing, I conducted a self-evaluation to ensure that all of the previously defined detailed requirements were properly implemented and functioning as intended. Through this process, I identified a few requirements that had not been fully met and documented areas for iteration, outlining how I would address these gaps in future revisions.
Click to view the QA testing document
This project marked a significant step in my development as a UX designer and researcher here at the Digital Corps. Through independently executing the full UX process, I gained the hands-on experience I needed to become a valuable member of our UX team. I strengthened my ability to conduct usability testing, analyze both qualitative and quantitative data, and iterate based on feedback. Additionally, I developed technical skills in Figma, learning how to approach prototyping complex interactions. Overall, this experience deepened my understanding of user-centered design and reinforced my ability to create intuitive, engaging digital experiences.