My Role
Identified opportunity gaps
Conducted two rounds of user testing
Designed interactive prototypes
Project Details
4 people group project for the course Social Web @ CMU
Completed in 8 weeks
Context
College students struggle to meet new people and engage in authentic in-person social interactions.
Although most colleges have resumed in-person classes since the outburst of the covid-19 pandemic, I noticed that university students across classes still struggle with loneliness. This made me wonder how we can help students engage in face-to-face social interactions.
The Solution
A centralized platform that allows students to post and join all types of events, streamlining the process of meeting new friends
Customize your profile to connect with others
Display your hobbies through tags
Express your personality with a short bio
Add courses to find peers to form study groups
Filter postings to find events that align with your interests & goals
Explore events casual hangouts to study sessions
Expand your circle by hosting events and seeing new faces
Find popular events happening now on campus
Form genuine friendships with people that you met
Use provided icebreakers to initiate conversations
Get a weekly match to a peer-based on your interests and events attended
Add event participants to your friend list to stay in contact
“73% of Gen Z aged 18-22 report sometimes or always feeling alone”
“71% of heavy social media users reported feelings of loneliness”
— 2020 Cigna U.S. Loneliness Index
“Students closer to graduating faced increases in anxiety (60.8%), feeling of loneliness (54.1%), and depression (59.8%).”
— BMC Psychology
Research | Literature Review
College students experience increased loneliness since the outbreak of the pandemic according to recent studies.
The increase in loneliness among college students and the correlation with increased social media usage reveal an opportunity space to design an online platform that acts as a stepping stone for college students (both under and upperclassmen) to meet others offline.
Research | Competitive Analysis
Popular social platforms lack a safe, virtual community space that provides opportunities for meeting new people in-person.
Affinity Diagram
Research | User Interview
Semi-formal User Interview
To understand the process and pain points of meeting new people, we conducted six user testing by asking CMU students questions such as:
“What activities allow you to form new meaningful connections?”
“What propels you to socialize with peers?”
“How likely are you to approach people you don’t know on campus?”
Students primarily have the opportunity to meet people in club events, social gatherings, and study sessions
Based on the affinity map, most students meet others through club events, social gatherings, and study sessions.
Some common pain points include…
Synthesis | Key Insights
Students lack a safe community space that allows them to easily find events and safely connect with those sharing similar interests or goals.
Key Insights
Persona
Synthesis | Persona
We crafted a persona based on a introverted CMU sophomore whose goal of meeting someone outside of her major.
Problem Statement
How might we…
provide a centralized platform for college students to easily meet their peers and build organic, meaningful relationships with new friends?
Design Iterations
Profile page: added an avatar to provide a level of anonymity and a judgment-free space
Friends page: created for event participants to communicate with each other
To address the three key pain points, we designed:
events page, a safe community where only verified college students can host or join events
profile page with tags to display interests and information about student’s major and courses
friend list for users to connect with attendees post events
Low-Fidelity Wireframes
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes
High-Fidelity Wireframes
Changes based on second round of think-aloud testing:
preview of attendees to show friends attending and provide incentives for users to go
filter and categories to help users find specific types of events (i.e. upperclassmen socials)
avatar for profile pictures and verified student information to give users a level of anonymity without compromising safety
Changes based on the first round of think-aloud testing:
Events Page: provided a preview of each event, showed different types of events, ranging from casual hangouts to formal club meetings
Event Details Page: added location, time, map, and number of people confirmed attending
Final Solution
UniMeet
The final prototype addresses the issue of loneliness among college students by providing a centralized hub for students to post and join meet-ups, explore events happening near them, and connect with others that share similar interests. These key features help streamline the process of meeting new friends.
Results
65.2 % of users say they are likely to join an event for meeting people using our app compared to 16.3 % in the initial survey
Based on the final survey of 6 CMU students…
Reflection
What I’d do differently next time…
I would spend more time on performing user research by conducting more user interviews early on in the project. This would help me identify the core needs and pain points more efficiently.
If I had more time, I would conduct more user testings on the lo-fi so I can make changes early on when color and font are not added yet.
I would iterate more on the design and flesh out the main feature better before working on sub-features.
I would add more micro-interactions, such as feedback and animations, that would enhance user experience.
Challenges:
narrowing down the scope of the project
determining target audience (Pittsburgh students vs only CMU students)
communicating with team members that are unresponsive