Students Colour Client with New Tech Solution
Ara Institute of Canterbury Tech Colab students Stella Bauer, Mason Snape and Fei Yan have successfully developed a web-based design called Colour Me Safe that will help hair salons manage their skin tests when customers book hair colouring sessions.
The solution is a result of an external client project the students were assigned to over the first semester.
“We created a web-based solution for Colour Me Safe to communicate easily with customers and salons during their skin test process,” says Stella Bauer, a Tech Colab student and one of Colour Me Safe’s team members. “Our Word Press solution with multiple forms enables customers to register, order test kits online and upload photos from anywhere.”
For the Colour Me Safe team, the solution offered online test reviews, record keeping and automated notifications to customers and salons. “We believe we inspired the client to using her website to increase efficiency, and as a result, she will receive a great uptake on her skin test products," Stella says.
The students gained the opportunity to work with a real customer through Tech Colab – an Ara establishment that produces digital products and services for various enterprises around Canterbury.
Being a part of Tech Colab means the students gain not only the experience of working with proper clients, but also the skills to keep up with the scope of a client’s needs.
“In Tech Colab, client requests are always changing, just like they would in the real world,” says Amit Sarkar Tech Colab Project Supervisor. “So we have developed a more agile way of working to help the students adapt to these alternate ideas and they have done an incredible job. The project will be featured in our next Emerge Exhibition and then go to a national conference in information technology and computer science teaching in October.”
Bhaswati Ghosh, Tech Colab Client Relationship Manager, has also confirmed that the client is very happy with the outcome of the project and has even employed one of the students to further develop the web programme.
“All the students were fabulous and very resilient with the project, which is great for them to show off in their portfolios,” Bhaswati says. “They all secured a good grade and should be very proud of themselves.”