Remember when the popular catchphrase, “We have an app for that,” was the new big thing? You might not if you’re as young as the NC State University students who recently participated in the 11th annual SAS-NC State Design Project, but back when we could still count 21st-century years in single digits, smartphone apps were emerging as quite the phenomenon. Of course, now we have apps for pretty much anything you can think of, and they’re a routine part of our daily lives. But maybe not so much when it comes to data- and AI-powered analytical apps. And that’s where this story begins.
Bespoke: Designing apps using SAS® App Factory
For this year’s project, the NC State College of Design students were tasked with creating analytical apps using SAS’ newly released SAS® App Factory product, which enables even analytics neophytes to easily create cloud-hosted, full-stack, AI-driven applications for a wide range of purposes and users. On April 18, the students presented the results of their work: five product prototypes, one for each of five different industries:
- Education
- Social media
- Gaming
- Retail
- Media and entertainment
SAS Head of Product Design Rajiv Ramarajan opened the event by welcoming attendees and thanking participants and supporters. He also discussed the impetus behind this year’s project assignment.
Professor Jarrett Fuller of NC State’s Graphic and Experience Design program took the stage and expanded on Ramarajan’s project overview, which he began with a humorous bit of irony.
He described the students’ design process, which comprised the following stages:
- Concept development
- Competitive analysis
- Persona creation
- Task flows
- Wireframes
- Visual exploration and branding
- High-fidelity prototypes
Product Design Manager Macklin Frazier , who led the project from the SAS side, thanked all involved and offered some closing remarks. Pictured left to right: Rajiv Ramarajan, Jarrett Fuller and Macklin Frazier.
Student presentations
The following sections provide high-level summaries of the student’s designs. Unless you just really prefer text to video, do yourself a favor: Stop reading and go watch the video to fully appreciate what these remarkable future designers produced. The descriptions can’t possibly do the presentations justice.
Education group – Homework Wizard
Team members: Seraphina Bieniek, Kadamma Jackson, Megan Mersch.
Student pitch: Homework Wizard is a digital platform for educators to track students’ progress, identify learning gaps and assign personalized homework. It generates custom questions, offers insight into student responses, and adapts to content-based learning patterns.
The App Factory tech stack they used: GenAI, machine learning, data storage, extraction and visualization.
User persona: Mrs. Anderson, a third-grade teacher with 15 years of experience.
Social media group – Aizel
Team members: Natalie Jolley, Grace Xiang, Julie Monjanel-Townsend.
Student pitch: A smart AI social media manager for small businesses that helps enhance their online presence. Aizel allows businesses to analyze social media usage and trends to implement marketing and communication recommendations.
The App Factory tech stack they used: Data visualization, decisioning assistant, generative AI, forecasting.
User persona: Cameron, a coffee shop owner in Raleigh.
The walkthroughs for each group were described in detail during the presentations.
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