Bridges
Rethinking the social experience of London universities
Service Design| UI/UX Design | Strategy | User Research
Adobe XD | Adobe Illustrator | Miro
THE OUTCOME
A gaming/social mobile application designed to virtually solve the social problems that come with fragmented university campuses in London. The app matches students based on their shared interests and gamifies the whole social experience.
ROLE
User Research, Interaction, Visual Design, Prototyping
In collaboration with Layla Lock, Louis Barrett, Madison and Chang Chang Gao.
BACKGROUND
London has great universities but unhappy students.
The International Student Barometer, finds that international students in London are less likely to recommend their university than those in other cities in Britain. New York City, is an equally densely populated city with campuses scattered across the city. And yet, Columbia University, has one of the highest student ratings. So what’s the problem with London?
DISCOVERY
User Interviews
The goal of the interviews was to determine if students were truly unhappy and if they were, what was causing it. We conducted interviews with students from the University of the Arts, London.
Here is what we found:
Creating a feeling of community is particularly hard for London universities, some of which suffer from the lack of a campus. For example, University of the Arts, London, has 6 separate college buildings.
Being a foreign student can be tough, especially when one cannot afford to return home during the holidays. A diverse group of foreign students could contribute to social fragmentation.
A focus on research sometimes comes at the expense of teaching. It is research excellence that wins an institution a top spot in the three global rankings that matter—Times Higher Education, QS and Shanghai.
WHAT STUDENTS ARE SAYING
"In my first year, I found it a really lonely experience. You walked out of halls, it was so busy but yet you were completely isolated.”
— 2nd year student at Central Saint Martins (UAL)
“My friend who lives in Edinburgh, she has much more of a social life than those of us in London do. Some people have said it’s the cost of London. It makes it harder to just go do stuff. Also the campuses of UAL being really spread out, whereas my friends in other unis are 20 mins down the road from each other.”
— Anonymous
“I think it would have been nice to know who my flatmates were before school started. That would’ve been nice to already have that connection as soon as you meet.”
— Anonymous
DEFINE
Ideation
During our research, we consulted a Therapist in London that specialises in dealing with feelings of isolation and loneliness. Here is what she has to say with combating loneliness:
“In order to combat loneliness we need to start feeling more similar than dissimilar, more connected than separate, because theoretically you could be friends with anyone.”
Users Pain Points
They feel that they lack a social life
Even in crowded places, they feel alone with no way to forge genuine connections with people
Doing fun things are expensive
College campuses are too spread out and hard to get around
Users Needs
Students need a way to connect with other students from other colleges
Students need a central hub for searching for events happening across college buildings
Users Wants
Students would like to see better organised events in their halls and at university
Students would like to have the option to know flatmates/classmates before university begins
Students want accessible and affordable events to attend
They want genuine connections
They want better amenities in student halls
How can we exceed their expectations?
By creating a mobile app that not only connects them to a circle of friends but also helps them forge bonds with their groups through guided mini games on the app.
Helping students match with students of similar interests
Helping students search and book events that are affordable and within their area
Onboarding process has to be secure for students
Mobile app has to be easy to navigate especially when it has many functions
DEVELOP
User Flow
As there were multiple key functions within our app, we mapped out a user flow diagram to identify the flow of the app.
DELIVER
Final Outcome
Safe and Easy Onboarding
First time users sign in using their school email. After which users can specify their college campus and interests and make their avatar. This will allow Bridges to pair the user in groups relating to their interests and locations.
Gamified social experience
Build metaphorical and virtual bridges with one another. To build a bridge, users have to collect bricks. To do so, users play collaborative arcade games in their social circle. As they collect bricks, they can redeem special rewards that they can share with their group in person.
Browse and book events
This tab provides relevant recommendations for free/affordable student events that users might enjoy based on user’s interests. Furthermore, the application allows them to view their connections who are attending, to encourage attendance.
Converse with one another
Bridges offers a messenger feature for social circles to keep in touch. Users can easily send invite links to events through the chat function.
Check your profile
This is where users will be able to view their level, achievements, progress of friend groups and coins collected.
They gain coins through attending events with their friend group and completing quests. Coins received can be collected and used to redeem special gifts.
Key Takeaways and Reflections
I would owe my current pursuit in Service Design and UX Design to this project. Previously, I worked mostly within Visual Design and Motion Design. It was particularly rewarding for me to be more involved in research, the practice of conducting interviews and learning to do rapid prototyping. I was able to gain experience in the UX design process and learning to consider the user first in my work. I was very impressed with the work my team and I did in a short span of 2 weeks.
My team was made up of 5 of us from different courses; Graphic Design, Product Design and Ceramic Design. While I contributed to the ideation and visual design elements of the project, I couldn’t have done it without my teammates skills of conducting qualitative, quantitative research and analysis.
As we didn’t have time to do so — moving forward, I hope to conduct user testing with our prototype. My team and I believe in our idea and we hope to see it being of use to our target users.