Empower Students. Simplify Planning. Build Community.

Imagine a single platform that brings the entire school community together in event planning. Our event planning website is designed specifically for schools to streamline the process from start to finish. For administrators, it’s a one-stop shop where they can effortlessly oversee and approve all campus events, ensuring everything runs smoothly and with confidence. Faculty moderators can balance their teaching duties while guiding student leaders through the event planning process with ease, thanks to our intuitive tools. For student leaders, it’s an opportunity to gain real-world skills in planning, organization, and leadership, all in a collaborative, supportive environment. CUBBiE empowers schools to create successful events while building skills and confidence in the next generation of leaders.

  • Role

    Theoretical End-to-End UX/UI Designer

  • Timeline

    June-August 2024

  • Skills

    User Research, Usability Testing, Graphic Design, Prototyping

  • Tools

    Figma, Optimal Sorts

  • Perspective #1

    You just started your new job as a principal. The previous principal was not very organized and before the school year even starts, faculty and students are flooding your inbox with requests for approval and questions about events they are running that need to be answered. How do you make sure you address every event issue so that faculty and students don’t fall behind on preparations all because of you?

  • Perspective #2

    You are a full time teacher and also the Director of Activities. You have 4 class student councils and an ASB student council to manage, each group simultaneously planning AT LEAST 1 event each a month. How do you oversee 4-6 events a month, train new leaders how to plan them, grade for your 5 class periods and also teach??

  • Perspective #3

    You are a student leader, AP student, and an athlete. You have never planned an event before and you are aren’t sure what task to prioritize first or which adult to go to first to get things approved. All the shared documents and meetings are overwhelming. The administrators’ inboxes are too full to see your requests. How do you get what you need to done???

Problem

Schools are not all about academics. Part of being a school is being a school COMMUNITY. Community involves building connection, empowering individuals, and engaging the outer community...but how do you do that when under-funded, under-resourced, and under-staffed?

CUBBiE solves the issue of complexity and inefficiency in event planning for schools, particularly in environments where resources and time are limited. With the student leadership changing from year to year, and entire leadership groups cycling out every 4 years, it is hard for students to consistently gain experience in events. Admin & faculty are constantly reassessing how to guide/teach.

Ultimately, CUBBiE solves the problem of fragmented and inefficient event planning in schools, empowering every user to contribute to successful events while building essential skills and creating a more organized, productive school environment.

Personas

For Administrators, Principals, Vice Principals, Presidents, Directors of Advancement, etc...

Effortlessly Oversee Campus Events: Administrators aim to efficiently manage and approve events through a centralized platform that simplifies oversight.

Ensure Event Success: They seek a tool that helps guarantee that all events run smoothly and with full visibility, ensuring no detail is overlooked.

For Faculty, Staff, Program Directors, Club Moderators, Coaches, etc...

Balance Teaching and Event Planning: Faculty need tools that allow them to easily guide student leaders in planning events while managing their teaching responsibilities.

Mentor Student Leaders: They want to empower student leaders to learn essential organizational and leadership skills through an intuitive platform, without feeling overwhelmed.

For ASB, Student Council, Link Crew, Club Councils, Class Representatives, etc...

Develop Real-World Skills: Students aim to learn and apply skills in event planning, organization, and leadership in a supportive environment that mimics real-world processes.

Collaborate and Lead Effectively: They seek to build confidence in their ability to work in teams, coordinate tasks, and take ownership of events from start to finish.

Timeline

CUBBiE Brand System

The brand system was heavily influenced by my experience as a student and also as an educator. I wanted to encourage creativity and also empower users to take initiative in their school community, whether they are administrators, faculty, staff, students, or volunteers. I am happy with the end product but see a future of color variations and additional features for customization, optimization, and overall inspiration!

  • I was brainstorming what shapes or images reminded me most of organization and tasks in a school setting. I thought about the use of cubbies for organization, especially in preschool/kindergarten when you would keep all your work and personal items in your cubby. I thought about the cubbies (really drawers) my high school students would use to turn in their homework and/or pickup graded work to check comments from me as their teacher.

  • When thinking about the palette, I wanted something that sparks creativity. So by color psychology, purple was an obvious choice. Then I chose a split complimentary combination for the secondary colors.

  • What better way to create visual rewards for task completion than with a mascot like Duo from Duolingo? Since I chose cubbies, and ultimately a cube for my logo, i decided a bear of some kind for the mascot would be fun. Cubbie, cubs, bear cubs! My favorite animal is a polar bear so I’m excited to incorporate this into the branding.

Research

Background

There are many websites online that have streamlined wedding planning with suggested to do lists, vendor lists, reminders, timeline generators, etc… but there aren’t many planning websites that are just as thorough or visually rewarding for school events, Filipino Debuts, Quinceneras, 60th Birthday Parties, smaller house parties, etc… How do we create a website like Zola or The Knot but for other types of events.

Goal, Objectives, Questions

Goal 

We want to know what are common tasks in event planning (across event sizes) so that we can streamline them with automated suggestions. Example being, food vendors for school events, large birthday parties, etc… OR small businesses for giveaways and decor.

Objectives 

  1. Understand pain points for event planners when working by themselves or in a team.

  2. Determine what tasks are “must haves” or “would be nice” across events of all kinds and sizes.

  3. Learn what notification systems and reward systems help people to get their tasks done (i.e. progress bars, countdowns, text reminders, email reminders, unlocking items/”prizes”)

Questions

  1. What are the most important parts of the event hosting/planning proces?

  2. What are some small but tedious tasks that are often forgotten?

  3. Why would this event planning website be better than others?

  4. What would a free membership look like (fundamental things) versus a premium membership?

  5. What are essential things for a free version and what would people be willing to pay for in a premium membership?

CUBBiE Home Page History

  • 1. Wireframe

  • 2. Digital Wireframe

  • 3. High Fidelity (Version 1)

  • 4. High Fidelity Final Version