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College Sauce
Digital Platform

Building an experience application that is intuitive, fun, and engaging to help college students find what they are looking for and succeed in their college journey 

DURATION

12 weeks

TEAM

College Sauce

UX/UI Design Team

ROLE

UX Design

UI Design

College Sauce Inc
UI/UX Design

College Sauce is a nationally available, locally focused (users must be current students on their campus) technology platform that will enhance the on-campus academic and social lives of users.  It is designed by a professor and a large team of college students and is focused on solving academic and social problems students have.

We help create a community on campus and allow only members of your campus to participate on the app. Use College Sauce to make college more fun, more connected and to find your people.

During my last year of college, I joined College Sauce as a UI/UX Designer and I had a chance to lead the design team to design the user interface of the platform.

It was an amazing experience for me to work with others to build it from scratch, launch the app, and watch the number of downloads grow. I worked closely with cross-functional team to understand user needs, business goals, and design objectives for the MVP. The goal was to build an experience platform that is intuitive, fun, and engaging to help college students find what they are looking for, find their people, find their things.

Overview

Problem

The challenge: How can we help students improve their college life?

  • College Students Networks are both too large and too small.

  • College Students’ in-person networks are often too small when looking for college/campus specific information. 

  • Because of this it is harder than it should be for college students to find on campus information, academic help, events, and connections. 

  • Colleges and Universities have invested in sites attempting to connect college students BUT they are the customer, not the student. Students do not use them. 

Process

Research

College students are increasingly lonely and disengaged.

Research shows today’s college students:

  • Sleep more

  • Socialize less, spend more time alone in their dorm rooms

  • Spend more time on their phones

  • Join fewer clubs

  • Exercise less frequently

  • Report increased rate of crippling anxiety. 23% rise between 2019 and 2021.

  • Are less likely to ask for help from peers and professors when they fall behind. 

We interviewed and researched about how students, especially freshman and introverted ones, think about their current college life as they begin their first semester at college.

A persona was created to understand the current situation in general

Solutions

Based on the persona and research, we have concluded that the first two goals to be accomplished were to help students, especially freshmen, to make friends and get involved in campus activities and don't feel out of place in a new environment.

The first 3 features that were given were Class Group Chats, Live Event Map, Profiles and Tags, Leaderboad.

Why would students who already use IG, Snap, Discord, GroupMe be likely to join a new platform like College Sauce?

Because it serves as a Hub of solutions to their everyday practical problems.
Need help in a class? Group Chats- easy to access.
Have nothing to do? Map-On 
Wanting to find friends? Profiles and Tags. Low stakes way to find/communicate with people who have a similar interest and are also actively looking to connect. 
Have questions about a class, professor, internship, study abroad trip, club, services on campus? Check out the chats/boards to get answer from a student.

The sketches were given as a direction to explore the layout of the interface

DESIGN 

On-boarding process

I wanted to make the onboarding process short and straightforward, while also giving users a clear understanding of the app's features and how they can enhance their college experience.

DESIGN 

Class Group Chats

In Group Chat feature, students can connect with classmates, easily join class group chats, participate in study groups, ask or answer questions, and build meaningful relationships with their peers.
I found that a simple and familiar interface worked best through usability testing. My goal was to create something that not only fostered collaboration, but also made it easier for students to find and connect with each other, making their learning journey smoother and more enjoyable.

DESIGN 

Common Tags

Profiles and Tags feature offers an easy way to connect with others who share your interests and are actively looking to connect. Whether you're looking for peers in your graduating year, major, or dorm, this feature helps you find and communicate with like-minded students effortlessly.
I used a color-coded system to help students quickly identify how many things they have in common with others in a group chat. By clicking on a profile, they'll see which tags they share, and they'll have the option to send a direct message or connect with them. 

DESIGN 

Live Event Map

Live Event Map feature allows students to learn about and be prompted to attend social and club events on an off campus. 
Designing the map feature was a complex task, I was asked to design it so that students could easily find the event or party they wanted. However, how would it be organized since there were so many different events? How would students find the event they wanted quickly without getting confused? How would those who were participating spread it to other interested participants? My solution was a simple map that uses different types of emojis with different colors for each type of event instead of traditional pins to make them more clear. I also added a filter that allows students to sort events by type, making it more convenient and saving them time.

DESIGN 

Leaderboard

This is the last feature added before launching the app. Its purpose was one of the promotional strategies to get students to participate and spread the use of the app to their friends. Students can earn points and get the prizes based on the points they received.
 

DESIGN 

Edit / Set up Profile

The goal was to design the profile screen where users can set up and edit their profiles easily. My solution was a clean and simple interface that also worked well within other tools.

Takeaways

This project gave me the opportunity to improve my problem-solving skills, attention to detail, and focus on user needs. In the end, I was able to deliver features that somehow make students' college life more engaging and more fun. 

Collaborating with cross-functional team taught me how to think about different scenarios and understand how the backend works, which helped me ensure features were easy to use and effective. Balancing design and functionality was rewarding, as I created a solution that met the needs of students.

I also developed my communication and leadership skills by working closely with stakeholders and leading discussions. The experience was invaluable, and I am excited to apply what I learned to future projects.

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