UX Research Case Study: Identifying the needs and problem of the student to face SNMPTN
In Q1 2021, Many students in Indonesia have to face one of the university selection called Seleksi Nasional Masuk Perguruan Tinggi Negeri or, in short, SNMPTN. SNMPTN is one way to be accepted into university without any test, only with your score during your three years of study in a high school and some achievement you have already got during high school.
As the SNMPTN is getting closer, Akademi's.Id saw an opportunity by providing the services that would help them make better choices in SNMPTN. We called it “Rasionalisasi.” Rasionalisasi is a service that would predict your choices in SNMPTN, whether you could get into the university that you want or not.
But before that, we as a researcher in Akademis would like to know their pain points on SNMPTN and would like to know their needs and motivation on Rasionaliasi on our potential users to deliver a market fit services for our users.
My Role
In this project, I was assigned to my stakeholder and manager to handle this research as consumer research and reported it back within a week to see the research results.
Background of the Research
Akademis.id is an educational start-up that provided various services such as Tryouts and Virtual classes. Akademis.id try to develop a new product called “Rasionalisasi” after Akademis saw an opportunity from the registration phase of SNMPTN.
Rasionalisasi means an SNMPTN prediction system. But as a product in an early stage of the product design scenario, “Rasionalisasi for SNMPTN” needs research to ensure that the services will be delivered to the correct user and create a more significant impact. Further research about SNMPTN and prediction system on SNMPTN is required to build the “Why” of the services we should make and create the user persona for these services.
Why do we want to conduct this research?
By conducting this research, I would like to :
1. Discover their opinion on how SNMPTN works in Indonesia
2. Learn whether the user wants to use a prediction system for SNMPTN
3. Identify the goals, needs, frustration, and expectations from the respondent and potential user.
Methodology
After knowing the objective of this research, I tried to look up to my manager and decided to use both User Interview and Survey. User Interview to collect We tried to collect all the qualitative data to discover and insight regarding SNMPTN and their opinion about the Prediction system. While the survey, we want to look more to the quantitative whether users want to use prediction system and also their thought about prediction system in SNMPTN.
For the user Interview, We tried to come up with a few research question that will answer this research :
1. Are you interested in using Rasionalisasi? and Why?
2. How do you choose a platform for Rasionalisasi?
3. What kind of problem will make you do not use rasionalisasi?
4. Do you have any advice about Rasionalisasi?
Because we would like to discover about one of the ways to enter university in Indonesia, We also come up with target participants that fit and not biased for this research which I would explain below :
- Final Year of High School Students
- Eligible to participate in SNMPTN! (Because not everyone is eligible to join SNMPTN in Indonesia)
- Tech Savvy
By acquiring these participants, I could understand their needs better and frustration while dealing with SNMPTN, especially in Indonesia.
Insight: Research Result
Before explaining the result, I will show you the participant demographic that we got from the survey.
According to the data, I could simplify into several points that are:
- 62,9% respondent from this survey is a woman whereas 37,1% is a man. From the survey, we could see that mostly the respondent is 18 Years old, mostly a final-year high school student.
- 96,8% of respondents said they often use an electronic device for more than 4 hours a day.
- 56,5% said they are mainly using smartphones and laptops for their daily use.
These demographic pictures what Akademis users look like that is a final year high school student and a tech-savvy person, making them able to operate technology pretty well according to their usage.
Mostly, respondent said the Negative side of the SNMPTN
According to the data, 53,13% of respondent said the negative side of the SNMPTN, whereas they were frustrated with the system because :
- They tend not to believe in the current system of SNMPTN because it lacks information and transparency.
- They could not predict what the outcome of SNMPTN is because there is missing information.
These two pain points make the respondent frustrated and feel that SNMPTN is unreliable because they could not get the information easily and hard to predict.
By knowing these, we also ask whether they are willing to use the prediction system to predict their result in SNMPTN, and the answer is Mostly YES!!!
- 74,2 % of respondents said they want to use the SNMPTN prediction system because it could help them create a strategy for SNMPTN!
Mainly, the respondent said “Yes” to the Prediction system of SNMPTN because they want to know their chances about their selection, and, by using this prediction, they could build a strategy for SNMPTN. Minority, the respondent said “No” because it lacks accuracy and could be a morale destroyer.
After knowing these results, I tried to ask more about their needs, pain points, and motivation for using a prediction system for SNMPTN or Rasionalisasi.
According to the affinity mapping, we could take some key outcomes :
Pain Points :
- They think that system is still unknown because there is no information about the prediction system.
- Most of them think that the prediction system is not accurate.
- They tend to believe that their personality (Lazy, not confident, etc.) would interfere with using and trying to look for more information about the system.
Needs :
- They want to get the chance to consider their choice for SNMPTN after using the services.
- They also expect to have a high accuracy prediction system for the services to ensure that they know their probability for their selection.
Motivation :
- They want to know the probability of their selection in SNMPTN by using the prediction system.
- They want to make a better selection after using the prediction system.
Then there are several key outcomes that this research highlight :
- Mostly, respondents think that the prediction system would help them know their selection chances, but another respondent also said that it would be a waste of time because it will not be accurate.
- According to the data, 74,2% said yes to the prediction system means, it is a product that users wait to be released soon.
- They demand a more transparent prediction system to know how the system will work and think if it will be accurate.
By knowing this research insight, I could make a user persona for the services, so at least, we could make a marketing strategy based on the persona that We have been created. There are three types of persona that we are created.
Recommendation
with these findings, I give several recommendations about “rasionalisasi” that are :
- Make a Tagline that will enlight some words of Accuracy and Maximise your chances so it at least it will make them want to use Rasionalisasi
- Create a marketing strategy that will make them know about our current system to make our services more transparent to our users.
Conclusion
By knowing all of the results of this research, I could answer all of the objectives that I have created before; This research made me believe that many students in Indonesia confuse the SNMPTN scoring system and how to maximize their effectiveness change in SNMPTN. That is why they still need a third-party prediction system such as in Akademis.id.
There was a limitation on this research: the user interview is very narrow and not deep enough to discuss the reason for their answer. And it is limited to the time limit of the research because the product will be launch one week after the research is done, so that’s why this research is like quick research to strengthen the marketing strategy for the product.
Quick Updates :
Rasionaliasi becomes one of the highest contributors to diamond sales from February to march. We decided to use “#MaksimalkanPeluangmu” as our tagline for Rasionalisasi :)
