Uni:Verse

Gravitating university students together

Role

UX Designer

Timeline

May – June. 2023

Tools

Figma

Category

SNS

Goal/Problem

Due to the impact of Covid-19, many university students found it difficult to engage others and felt socially isolated within the academic community; students were disconnected and struggled to reconnect. How might we leverage a social media platform that fosters a strong sense of offline connection among its users?

Result/Solution

Uni:Verse is a social networking app for university students to easily connect, meet, and socialize offline with other students on their campus. By forging everyday interactions, the app attempts to solve the loneliness epidemic among students.

Sign up & create profile, safe access to your university.

Get started & settings, find and connect in your favorite campus sites.

Finding a connection, effortlessly transition from online to offline interactions.

Problem Space

Before diving in, I was aware of our cognitions in demonstrating the causal relationship between heavy usage of social media and feeling disconnected and lonely. So as my hypothesis, I created a simple model which was to escape the cycle from within.

Competitor Analysis

Social media apps were too focused on the online experience, namely, its features gave exposure to false portrayals, social validation feedback loop, and insecurity from distorted depictions.

User Interviews

I conducted 10 user interviews from current university students to direct my goals in an equitable standpoint. The main finding was that 70% of the participants responded that they have 0 meaningful in-person interactions a day, multiple times a week.

HMW leverage a social media platform to foster a strong sense of offline connection among its users?

Uni:Verse Promote everyday in-person interactions through a campus-dedicated platform.

Information Architecture

An effortless flow

Iteration

Through multiple rounds of moderated usability testing, I was able to gain user feedbacks and understand the customer journey in achieving the single goal of finding a connection. KPI of time on task, user error rates, and SUS were observed for this task.

Top level view -> search bar to reduce visual clutter

Interactive map + shorter list, integration of screens to minimize cognitive load

Greater focus to the action, increase in white space

Not a messaging/chatting app; ends chat after meeting

Greater focus to the action, increase in white space

Please email me if you'd like to discuss more!

(James Lee)

Please email me if you'd like to discuss more!

(James Lee)

Please email me if you'd like to discuss more!

(James Lee)

Please email me if you'd like to discuss more!

(James Lee)