D.T.F – Down to Find
A social app for students
UX fest is a student-run UX competition at California Polytechnic State University. This project was done in 24 hours as part of the competition, working with three other student UX Designers. My team and I presented to a panel of judges where we were placed as final 5. The prompt was to 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 faculties 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 connect with other students.
My team and I created a platform where students can connect to their club members and classmates safely.
Brainstorm
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
Research
We talked to a few freshman and 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 doesn’t.
Journey Map
We gathered and expanded the features we want to include in the app, from there we get a clear sense of the app flow.
Wireframes
With a finished user journey map, we start sketching 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.