Project
QUT Mobile App
CX · UX · UI · Product · Strategy
Queensland University of Technology
2023/4
Role: Lead Designer & Product Owner
Overview
A mobile app for students, staff and alumni.
As Lead Designer and Product Owner, I directed the QUT mobile app team and established a $2m project to redesign the university's mobile experience. I assembled a team of 6 members to deliver the project and shape its vision. Working collaboratively, we developed a scalable design system, created comprehensive roadmaps, and implemented a monthly release schedule with ongoing UX testing.
Approach
To maintain our monthly release schedule, the team followed a "triple diamond" design methodology. This approach added a co-design discovery phase before entering the traditional double diamond process. By combining Google Analytics usage data with regular student and staff workshops, we could confidently gather both qualitative and quantitative data to inform our decisions.
The task - Design a scalable mobile product
Since the original product was built with Flutter, we leveraged Google's Material Design system (MD3) to develop our own scalable experience. This enabled a faster design-develop-release cycle for the business. By focusing our team's delivery efforts here, we could conduct quantitative research through Google Analytics while frequently gathering qualitative feedback to co-design the future app users wanted.
Design System:
From isolated product to ecosystem:
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Designing maturity
With the new brand and design system in place, we needed to enhance the organization's ability to deliver diverse content and services. This involved implementing a new CMS, establishing connections with key data services, and streamlining organizational operations. These improvements created a solid foundation for delivering an excellent mobile-first experience to users.
Roadmap development to close the gap
The Mobile app's success hinged on four key elements: a user-friendly interface, intuitive UX design, consistent updates, and responsiveness to student feedback. By actively engaging students in the development process, we gained valuable insights that drove continuous improvements.
Through voting on desired features and participating in ideation and validation, students helped shape the product's direction—resulting in a truly human-centered experience.
Outcomes
QUT's mobile app delivered new and improved features monthly, established a UX research program that benefited other teams, and achieved all outlined project benefits. I secured strong technology partnerships and oversaw the development of a new design system and brand. We built both product and operational capabilities to ensure QUT could maintain these assets independently after project completion.
Contact
Want to view more of this project? Feel free to reach out to hello@mattmc.me