Within 24 hours as part of the UX Fest competition, a student-run UX event at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, teams were given a prompt and had to present their project at the end to a panel of judges.
Prompt
Create a mobile/web prototype that aims to promote campus safety and well being on university campuses.
Project Overview
D.T.F. is a private community platform for college students and faculty to chat in a safe and welcoming space. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was hard for students, such as freshmen and transfer students, to socialize and connect with other students.
My team and I created a platform students can connect to their club members and classmates safely.
Brainstorming
After the prompt was announced, we decided to focus on improving campus well-being. We started listing off different ideas that can affect a student’s well-being and ideating how our app can help with the student’s problem.
Problem Statement
It is harder for students, specifically freshmen and transfer students, to socialize and find a safe community on campus where they feel like they belong to.
Project Overview
We talked to a few freshman ans transfer students to help us empathize with their social life during the pandemic. We noticed that there are similarities on the apps that they are using to socialize. Then we created a competitor analysis to help us understand what works and what does not.
Journey Map
We gathered and expanded the features we wanted to include in the app, from there we got a clear sense of the app flow.
Wireframes
With a finished user journey map, we started to sketch wireframes. Then we also created a Design System to keep the app consistent throughout the experience.
Solution
The objective of this app is to help students specifically freshmen and transferred students to connect with the campus community and maximize their college experience.
Based on the feedback we received from the judges, we analyzed that our product focuses on too many things while successfully tackling none. We realized that our product’s numerous features have blurred the product’s main goal: to promote well-being on campus. From this experience we learned to always go back to the problem the product is trying to solve while pursuing any project.
