Timeline
2 months
(Mar ‘22 - April ‘22)
Project Type
Social Web
Social Media
Skills
User Research
UI/UX Design
Prototyping
Tools Used
Figma
Adobe CC
Team
Sihan Wu
Susie Kim
01. Context
In Spring of 2020, 87% of undergraduate students at postsecondary institutions experienced enrollment disruption due to COVID-19. Students were removed from on-campus housing, and began taking classes remotely from their hometowns. In Spring 2020, 87% of undergraduate students at postsecondary institutions experienced enrollment disruption due to COVID-19. The number of students enrolled in distance education grew from 7.3 million (37% of all students) in Fall 2019 to 14.3 million (73% of all students) in Fall 2020.
For those 7.3 million students, their college experience has been entirely untraditional. A recent study observed the mental health impacts of the pandemic on college students, stating that:
60.8% of students closer to graduating experienced feelings of loneliness
59.8% of students closer to graduating experienced feelings of depression
61% of all students found it harder to complete the semester at home
Institutions have only recently begun fully re-opening their campuses and welcoming students back to in-person synchronous classes. However, students may still feel the negative mental impacts of isolation.
How can we help to rebuild the college community after the COVID-19 pandemic?
02. Goals
The goal of UniversityMeets is to provide a social media that uses the shared experience of attending the same college to foster new, lasting connections while encouraging spontaneity. UniversityMeets combines the benefits of semi-anonymous profile with the asusrance of same-college status to discourage social anxiety, promote trust, and encourage new meetings.
Our primary goals are to:
help students (particularly upperclassmen) to create meaningful and authentic friendships in the era of remote learning
create a platform for acquaintances to become closer through spontaenous meetups
to revert the negative mental effects of isolation due to COVID-19
to provide students with a safe space to meet and connect
03. Research
User Research + Data Collection
A study and interview was conducted on 16 college students from undergraduate freshmen to graduate master’s status in order to evaluate how COVID-19 has shaped their college experience. The results of the study are listed below:
on average, students listed that they had 4.2 close friends, but wished they had 7.1
students found it difficult to make new long-term friends at college
students felt dissatisfied with the number of close friends they have at college
upperclassmen students felt it was difficult to join campus-affiliated activities, such as clubs, Greek Life, and other extra curricular activities
students felt their social live had been somewhat negatively impacted by COVID-19
students were discouraged from joining new clubs due to meetup times not matching up with their availabilities
Students could not accurately predict whether they will have compatible personalities with new people they meet at school-affiliated activities. Consequently, the success rate of new friendships is low.
Problem Space
Persona
1. Schedule Conflicts
School-affiliated activities have their own meeting schedules. If students cannot make the commitment, they will have much less opportunity — if any at all — to participate in these activities.
Pain Points
3. Lack of Shared Interests
Students do not know if the new people they meet at school-affiliated activities will have compatible personalities or common interests with them outside of that activity. Thus, new connections are often a “hit or miss.”
2. Difficulty Retaining Connections
Students do not pursue new connections because they find it difficult to meet with people they meet at school-affiliated activities outside of those spaces. Many school-affiliated activities have also adopted remote meetings because of COVID-19, and students cited lack of face-to-face time as one of the main hurdles to forming lasting connections.
4. Opportunity Cost of Joining Activities
Many school-affiliated activities accept new members only towards the beginning of the semester. Students are limited to the number of activities they can join due to time constraints. Since they cannot ensure that they will get along with new people they meet at those activities, if they fail to do so, then they may have sacrificed potentially successful relationships that they could have made at a different activity.
Competitive Analysis
Current apps on the market were evaluated in order to answer what app aspects encourage more…
in-person meeting
community building
candid and authentic conversations
A look at the top 10 searches for “make new friends” and “meet new people” in the App store brought up results which can be placed into 2 different categories:
Swipe-based apps based on a user’s photo and listed interests (Bumble Friends, Tinder, Hinged, Wizz, Wink, Hoop)
Instant-messaging and video-call based apps (LMK, Yubo)
Social media apps that were centered around community curation were also considered in this analysis, including:
Reddit, Discord
To summarize our competitive analyses…
The apps best at fostering communities allowed users to join or follow use-rcreated pages based on interest.
The shroud of anonymity offered by apps such as Reddit or Discord encouraged users to interact more candidly. While these anonymous communities are robust, they usually remain online.
Apps that were successful at bringing people together in person utilize real photos and profiles, which may offer the user more assurance that the person they are meeting is who they claim to be
Tinder and Bumble both have photo verification features for safety reasons, and use location settings to connect users and mimic how real life social networks form
The UI of swipe-based apps may be appealing to college-aged users because they feel used to the profile-based app structure, as more than 80% of undergrades reported having used dating apps.
Anonymity encourages candidness of conversation
People want assurance that they know who they are actually meeting
Interest-based groups encourage community building
Location-based options encourage in-person meeting
Main Takeaways
UniversityMeets is a meetup-based social media app that is made by college students, for college students. It combines the strengths of apps that are great at fostering communities in order to foster not only individual connections but also the college community as a whole.
UniversityMeets gives students the opportunity to experience social situations where they have complete control over when, where, why, and for how long they will be in them. Students can curate their social lives, create authentic and long-term relationships, and combat the negative mental health effects caused by isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
04. The Product
Style Guide
The font “Light Beach” was chosen for the logo due to its allusion to the “cheerleader” font, which is associated with college.
The sans serif font “Montserrat” was chosen for its clean and modern look. These sans serif fonts are also popular with other dating and meet-up apps that college students typically are used to using, so that the UI feels familiar and intuitive for the target demographic.
Blue tones were chosen for their association with trust and safety, to encourage users who may be shy or socially anxious.
Purple tones were chosen for their association with mystery, creativity, and empathy. These feelings allude to the spontaneity of meeting new people, and encourage users to empathize and connect with each other.
These colors are were also for their gender-neutral associations, and to give the UI a modern feel.
Start Page
Safety: Users must sign up and verify their college email account to ensure their enrollment status at their specified college. This way, all users know can ensure that they will be meeting with other college students that either attend the same university, or a university in their college town.
Profile Creation
Customization: Users can build an avatar to represent themselves, giving them control over their representation and partial anonymity to combat social anxiety and create a judgement-free environment. On this page, users can also write a short bio, and explore, add, and edit tags and courses.
Sign Up Process
Sign up: Users are prompted to enter their name and year of graduation. They can also add tags that they are interested in to their profile, which will incorporate the interest-based group aspect that makes apps like Reddit so successful at building communities. The tags users follow will be the main way they will find events and other individuals to meet up with. Dark blue tags are open to all students attending university in that college town, while light blue tags are only open to same-university students. Users can also input their classes.
One piece of information is asked a time to create a sense of anticipation.
Exploring & Accepting Events
Browsing Meetup Requests: The first button in the menu bar is the “Explore” page. Here, users can scroll through events occuring that are separated under certain categories, such as “All”, “Following”, “Friends,” “Trending”, or “Anonymous.” The user can click on the event to find out more information about it, such as the exact location and list of attendees. Users who accept events will gain access to a chat so they can talk about the events and discuss details. The Anonymous section allows users to post and accept events anonymously, without revealing their name. This may help users who experience social anxiety.
My Events
Accepted, Hosting, & Past: In the “My Events” tab, uers can view events created by others they have accepted, the events they themselves are hosting, and events they have attended in the past. They can go here to revisit details about these events. If the event has not occurred yet or is currently occuring, users can access a chat with all attendees. However, 24 hours after an event has ended, the chat for that event will close. This will incentivize people to share contact information and connect outside of the app.
Creating an Event
Accepted, Hosting, & Past: In the “My Events” tab, uers can view events created by others they have accepted, the events they themselves are hosting, and events they have attended in the past. They can go here to revisit details about these events. If the event has not occurred yet or is currently occuring, users can access a chat with all attendees. However, 24 hours after an event has ended, the chat for that event will close. This will incentivize people to share contact information and connect outside of the app.
05. Conclusion
I received very positive feedback after rudimentary user testing, and a lot of students seem to be excited by the idea of this app.
Some constructive criticism I received:
“I think that this idea is really great and think that one thing I’d be interested in is being able to meet up for group-based activities rather than 1 on 1 as that may be awkward for people, while groups may make people more comfortable. I think that another thing could be that the app prompts people to meet up with people again, because meeting once is definitely a possibility but I know that I would feel awkward asking someone to meet up again, especially if it’s someone that I just met.”
“I love the concept of this app, and especially over the pandemic this would be very helpful as a way for college students to meet others with common interests/classes. I wonder if there is a way to also consider ways to create more virtual chat centered interactions vs jumping straight into in person interactions which might seem intimidating for students who do not know each other. Maybe this could also be similar to Piazza, where students can post questions/arrange study groups to get support.”
In the future, I would like do more user testing so I can continue to build on this idea. I would also love to pursue this app idea as a campus start-up project. I myself have had trouble making new on-campus friends after spending two years taking courses remotely from my hometown, and the inspiration behind this app resonates with me personally. I had a great time working throughout the entire process of ideation, user research, and prototyping, and I am really happy with the product!