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Tech Club in Your Pocket: Become a Member with a Tap of a Card

TIMELINE

4th Dec 2023 - 14th Jan 2024

MY ROLE

Product Designer, Product Manager

TECH STACK

Figma, Notion, Illustrator, Photoshop, Responsive Web

CLIENT

CISSA

CHALLENGE

A recurring task of onboarding new members has to be done at every event in order to verify student's membership. The lengthy process involves 5 touchpoints across 3 platforms.

OPPORTUNITY

To create a physical and novel product (NFC membership card) that is accompanied with a First Year Guide (FYG) webpage that encourages students to become CISSA members as well as improve their student experience through the FYG.

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Overview

CISSA’s (Computing & Information Systems Students Association) is the largest student tech club in Melbourne. They focus on connecting the students of the University of Melbourne with industry professionals, academics and students (in Computers Science, Data Science, Product Design) alike.

Events such as social gathering, industry nights and panels, workshops and hackathons are some of the ways CISSA give back to the community. They had over 2000 members in 2023; to maintain and exceed that level of membership, they were in need of a novelty item that would stand out among the other tech clubs. Therefore the need of the NFC membership cards were designed.

Challenges

Member onboarding was a lengthy process requiring 5 steps across 3 different platforms:

Instagram
Link in bio
Linktree
UMSU website
Sign up

The club required a consistent form of verification at every event. Event participants have to be members of the club, but the current verification process lies in the email inboxes of students. This requires them to dig through their busy inboxes for a weekly newsletter.
Wanted to stand out amongst other clubs: The product has to be something that other clubs don’t have that make them choose CISSA.

Solutions

Features and strategies implemented to solve the challenges in the Final Design deliverable

NFC Technology

Use NFC technology to reduce the number of touchpoints to sign up. It reduces it to 3 touch points:

Tapping the card
CISSA website
UMSU signup page

Moreover the blend of NFC Technology, software and physical cards creates a product to be both digital and physical creating something novel, innovative and useful; worthy of standout feature amongst the clubs.

Context & User Interaction

By clicking on to one of the building's speech bubbles, prompts a modal of information that is curated for First Year students. Creating a perfect entry into finding out more about life on campus.

On mobile, the large set of buildings have been framed individually, while having a horizontal scroll to view the whole guide.

The buildings you see above are carefully chosen to resemble iconic buildings from the University of Melbourne, such as the Arts West, Alan Gilbert, Student Pavilion, and Melbourne Connect building. As for the other two, these were to honour the club’s Diamond sponsors (highest tier) such as Jane Street and ANZ.

This design choice creates a sense of consistency and relevance between the students and where they are in. As for the sponsors, they will definitely get more attention to students who never knew them before, increasing the likelihood of getting the club more Diamond Sponsors.

Responsive Web Design

The platform spans across multiple device breakpoints — Laptop, Tablets, Mobile devices to ensure ease of accessing the information wherever the user is.

Physical Membership Card

With the NFC technology, it allows members to have an easy way to show their membership, while keeping up to date with any events whenever they want. This combination of hardware and software definitely stands out compared to other clubs.

With membership cards and merchandise, making it novel, aesthetic and easily identifiable is the best yields the best outcome. Therefore using consistent branding of CISSA while including the annual theme of pixel art allows to deliver those traits.

Ideation

The visual designs of the cards were very important as it is what attracts potential members in the first place. The concepts revolved around the club’s theme of the year (pixel art), cityscape to resemble the city of Melbourne, and students because that is the demographic of the members.