Problem

How can Green Dot administrative staff maintain communication with Green Dot alumni attending college in order to decrease drop-outs?

Solution

Create an application that creates a community for Green Dot alumni that the administration can push user-specific updates as well as gamify the college experience to encourage participation in alumni responses.

Team members

• 1 project manager
• 2 designers
• 5 developers

Process

Our process included many meetings with the client to determine what features were needed for the mobile application and the administrative website, as well as working with students to understand what their needs were. Working with an agile work flow, we went through many iterations of flows, wireframes, visual identity, and mock-ups.

Interviews

We conducted a focus group with 11 recently graduated Green Dot alumni to get an understanding of their relationship with Green Dot while a student and how Green Dot can help them succeed in their college experience. We also asked for feedback on the usefulness of features that the client and our team ideated for the app. Through these interviews we learned that gamifying the experience would lead to more interaction/communication with Green Dot.

Visual Identity

Starting with Green Dot's given branding, we replicated their fonts and chose colors that would give the app a consistent feel.

Login

Because we only want users that have pre-existing Green Dot email addresses to be able to access the features of the app, we created a multi-step process to create and verify accounts.

Notifications

Because one of the client’s biggest need was to notify alumni on various topics, notifications became a large part of our app. Organized into different categories, users would receive notifications and be able to access their history and take action on specific notifications.

Alumni Profile

In order to allow Green Dot alumni to fully benefit from the Green Dot network, we created public profiles for each user, of which they can update and edit preferences.

Alumni Search

Alumni can search for specific users that may have been fellow classmates of there’s, or connect with alumni that go to their school. This encourages the Green Dot network to flourish.

Roadmap

To address the goal of encouraging alumni to stay in touch with the Green Dot administration, we created a gamified experience called the College Roadmap. Prompting users to fill out “checkpoints,” alumni receive points that will accumulate to winning a prize determined by the administration at the end of each year. This allows Green Dot to be aware of what support the alumni need in order to encourage them to stay in college.

Admin Website

Using Django, we created a portal for the Green Dot administration to view and manage data for the Alumni application. Here, they can organize alumni in their system, create new notifications, and create new checkpoints for the Roadmap.