Anya Pawar

Research and Interviews

The initial stages of research and interviews were the most significant learning experiences for me. As a new designer, I found that many of the prior roles I've had were focused on creating visually engaging, tangible deliverables rather than following a human-centered approach. While I had a design role on the team, I was able to practice much more than just design. Focusing on human-centered thinking, especially during the first few months of the project, gave me a deep appreciation for research and discovery. Also, I learned about conducting myself in a professional yet friendly way by observing and practicing the interview process. Before this job, the experience I had with interviews was for my small side projects. I had never considered the complexity of interviewing candidates and condensing the content into hundreds of qualitative data points.

Marketing

Like any human-centered design project, interviews were a crucial step in our process; it allowed us to recognize the perspectives of various stakeholders in the project. To recruit patients for our interviews, we designed and ran advertisements across Facebook. I focused heavily on creating inclusive designs that would compel people from all socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnicities, genders, and ages. The goal was to recruit a breadth of participants to help us in understanding the scope of the problem more accurately. More specifically, we were looking focus on adults who are advancing and switching in their careers. As someone with little experience in web advertisements, it was an exciting challenge to create meaningful media for Facebook, a platform used by millions!

Animation

The Reimagine project provided me with space to practice a skill that I had wanted to refine- animation! After talking to dozens of participants, the team began to develop frameworks that would later translate into our proposed curriculum for the University College. For some frameworks, a simple graphic was able to demonstrate the idea; however, for others, an animation was better suited. During presentations, the team used animations I created to help University faculty understand the frameworks we developed through months of interviews and research.

Understanding Barriers

The new curriculum for the University College focused on creating an environment that would support students facing individual barriers such as wavering confidence, challenges with balancing finances, or family responsibilities. The proposed redesign for University College would include a "Barrier Removal Team," filling the role of a cheerleader, coach, nanny, investor, and strategic partner. This team would help students reach their goals through both removing and helping them to overcome barriers. I created the following series of animations to demonstrate the role of the "Barrier Removal Team" in the University College redesign.

Design Systems

Throughout the year, we created dozens of documents used for internal team planning, synthesis sessions, ideation sessions, faculty-wide presentations, and final deliverables. As one of the few designers on this team, it was important for me to create cohesive design systems that the other members could easily apply to whatever type of document they were working on (both print and web). Also, I wanted to create a design system that would allow Reimagine UCollege documents to be recognizable as Washington University-related, while maintaining a separate charm and integrity.

Typography & Colors

Our typography and color system loosely followed the Washington University brand guidelines. Creating an adaptation to an existing brand guideline was a mindset that I was not extremely familiar with in the past, but heavily enjoyed.

Iconography

These icons were used by internal team members to generate storyboards for the "Ideation" phase of the project. Using clear icons in the storyboards allowed participants to quickly and thoroughly grasp the proposed concepts. Creating this icon set with my teammate Carrie, was one of my favorite parts of this project. Seeing how our team members were able to take these icons and create complex narratives was a gratifying experience.

Final Thoughts

Throughout this project, I played the role of a researcher, interviewer, designer, and much more. These roles were continually changing and forced me to think about my tasks in a way that I had not before. In a human-centered design project, no role and no task is genuinely separate. Even when designing marketing materials for Facebook Ads, I had the participants' stories in mind and created content that would support that information. The Reimagine UCollege project helped me gain a much clearer understanding of what it means to be a "human-centered designer," and I look forward to continuing in this line of work in the future. I am incredibly grateful to Washington University, and all the project leads, including Heather, Liz, and Annemarie, for allowing me to partake in such an extraordinary initiative.

For any further questions, comments, or suggestions, please feel free to contact me!

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