Cybergrad
Safeguarding the future workforce
OVERVIEW
In 2020, the world is digital and everyone is more connected than ever. But does this make people an easy target?
As part of my university capstone course, my team was assigned the brief; to promote cyber awareness in young people.
My team and I, CyberGrad, a mobile cyber security awareness tool to bolster the awareness and engagement of young people in an engaging way to promote cyber commitment & participation.
For this project we scored a High Distinction.
DURATION
8 weeks
THE TEAM
Jasen Yu (Project Leader)
Connie Shi (UI & UX)
Emily Law (UX & Dev)
Alex Huang (Dev & BA)
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TOOLS
AdobeXD
Figma
Android Studio
MY ROLE & JOURNEY
In this project I was both a UX designer and developer [See my journey below]. As the designer I was responsible for drafting up wireframes, user flows and conducting user testing. Using Android Studio, I built the MVP with Java programming language.
DISCOVERY
Problem space: Tech-Savvy millennials entering the workforce are seemly most vulnerable to cyber threats and continually engaging in unsafe cyber practices despite the negative consequences associated.
At the outset of the project the team didn’t have a clear mission or specific objectives regarding the cyber security solution. The team decided to conduct some secondary research to better understand the problem domain. We hoped that this secondary research would provide a solution theoretical foundation in preparing us whilst we performed our user research.
Understanding the users: What are they thinking?
"I don't think there is a problem with my security behaviour ... but yes I always do use the same password"
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UNSW Student, Male, 21
I conducted preliminary 1 on 1 unstructured user interviews with individuals from the UNSW campus who were identified as a part of our target user; millennials, recent or soon to be graduates about to enter the workforce. The findings suggest that millennials may be overestimating their digital skills and thus putting their employers at risk.
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DEFINING THE PROBLEM
From the user research, we identified key problem areas causing this unwanted relationship between young people and the topic of cyber security.
I organised an affinity mapping exercise to affinity diagram was very useful in allowing us to organise and consolidate a large number of ideas into small more manageable themes without information that was overlapping.
Problem statement
How might we engage Information System Graduates in Cybersecurity by proactively addressing their lack of awareness for cyber issues and promote continuous cyber commitment amongst them by 2023?
We hypothesized that by drawing attention to a user’s actual lack of security awareness they will then actively start addressing these unsafe practices and issues. Our solution envisioned the use of engaging modules we want to shine a light on their weak points and thus ensuring they know where the users need improving.
OUR PRODUCT
PROTOTYPING
Before I started coding, I wanted my team to help me design the user flows and screens to help me write pseudocode. We started with paper to “fall cheap and fast”.
Together with the other UX designer, we conducted a sketching tournament. We spend 2 minutes sketching out our ideas then each person presents. Worthy designs are passed through to the next round by a vote until a winner is chosen. It’s very fast and ultimately makes better ideas with the whole team conjuring up their ideal solutions. Consequently, as a result, the team product visions also developed as one making us more confident in making assumptions and decision making later.
Sketching exercise
Paper prototypes
Initial wireframes
VALIDATING THE DESIGNS
Revisiting our original interviewees.
I wanted to test the usability of our solution at the earliest opportunity so that I could quickly identify design or implementation flaws prior to proceeding further. After sprint 2 I invited previous interviewees to participate. Additionally I used google sheets and excel to document my findings and delivered a summarised usability report to present to my team. As a result we were able to sit together and discuss the findings in order to improve out solution.
OUTCOME
We scored a high distinction grade!
We received a top score for our concept and process used in the project. Here is a sample of our walkthrough
SOME MVP SCREENS
News
Purity test
Cyber simulation
Reward system
TITLE OF THE CALLOUT BLOCK
LESSONS LEARNED
1. Fighting against my comfort zone (from waterfall to Agile)
Yes, so it was my first time using Agile SCRUM to complete a project. From my past experiences in product development I had always used the traditional waterfall method and therefore I was naturally inclined to plan deeply rather than take on the
empirical approach that Agile promotes. If I could turn back time, I’d let myself take a few more risks in developing hypotheses and conducting more extensive user testing through design process. Overall I can now really appreciate that Agile is not just about speed to market but also having the flexibility to adapt to user needs to produce a product of greater quality.
2. Just draw it!
Throughout this process I continually found myself struggling to communicate my design ideas to my team, especially during online meetings. I found that in the context of design, putting pen to paper and drawing up a quick sketch was the easiest way for me to show what I had envisioned in my head. It might not have been the perfect artist creation but my team mates found it much easier to visualise than words. Now you can see me with a pen and paper always at my side.
3. To sprint or not to sprint
I now strongly believe that sprints are about quality not speed. With the flexibility to end the sprint early we were able to adapt according to feedback. Thus allowing us to create a product that aligned with our sponsors vision.