There and Back Discover • Rekindle • Maintain

Meet the Team Ryan Cole Amanda Lim Sara Valderrama James Carroll

Problem Domain We seek to explore how to connect people on college campuses by providing them with more channels to form new bonds and how to maintain those connections once they’re made.

Initial POV We met Ellen, an undergrad at Yale. We were amazed to realize that she felt as though communities could not arise spontaneously, so she had to rely on existing structures to meet new people. It would be game-changing to find a way to facilitate the meeting of new people that does not revolve around existing clubs and organizations.

Additional Needfinding

Kendall sophomore at TCU “A 90 year old alum came and taught us the school cheers...it was really striking how long these traditions had been around.” Meet Kendall, a sophomore at Texas Christian University who is a member of several different student groups on campus. While she had met some friends through these organizations, she also felt that similarities with these people sometimes ended at that one common interest, and wished that she could connect with other people who share more of her values. She also talked about some of TCU’s traditions and how they make students feel connected to each other and to past generations of TCU students.

Kevin freshman at Stanford “When we see something that reminds us of one another, we’ll reach out and laugh about it.” He talked a lot about wanting to remain close with his high school friends despite not being in the same location and now going through new experiences in many different parts of the US.

Luke senior at Stanford “BioE can be such an intensive major that it can be hard to meet people outside of STEM. It would be great to find friends outside of classes and study groups.” Drifted away almost entirely from HS friends Hard to meet people in the humanities, most friends are bioe

Albert recent Stanford grad “Most people want to get to know other people… they’re just scared and awkward. What it takes is one person to acknowledge that and pay the fixed cost of it being awkward. It takes this minor act of social courage to build community.” Reconnected with ex It only takes one person to create a connection

Revised POVs & HMWs

POV #1 We met Kevin, a freshman at Stanford. We were amazed to realize that despite being very busy with work and transitioning at Stanford, he was determined to maintain old friendships. It would be game-changing to make it easier for friends to keep up their relationships.

How might we prevent friends from losing contact with one another? HMW #1 How might we prevent friends from losing contact with one another? From POV#1

POV #2 We met Ellen, an undergrad at Yale University. We were amazed to realize that she felt as though communities could not arise spontaneously, so she had to rely on existing structures to connect. It would be game-changing to have more spontaneous ways to meet new people.

How might we incorporate meeting new people into existing habits? HMW #2 How might we incorporate meeting new people into existing habits? From POV#2

How might we bring people together who otherwise might not interact? HMW #3 How might we bring people together who otherwise might not interact? From POV#2 Luke (different majors) upperclassmen/underclassmen East campus/west campus

Prototypes

Prototype #1 Assumption: People are more likely to reach out and reconnect with old friends if directly prompted to do so. Google form asked takers to name one person from their freshman dorm they were close to but hadn’t talked to for a while. It then gave them the option to send a message to that person. We also asked why they were no longer connected and why they chose to send/not send a mes

Results “I've been meaning to hang out with Quint, 30 responses 27 fulfilled reconnections Busy, living apart, forgetting to keep in touch Assumption validated “I've been meaning to hang out with Quint, but I just keep having trouble remembering to make time” Worked: lots of responses, lots of people willing to reconnect when prompted The reasons most people listed for not reconnecting were “busy” and “living in different places” followed by “i forget to keep in touch”. Assumption seemed to be supported! Overall Takeaways: Many people have friends who they have grown distant from despite wishing to keep in touch People may intend to reach out, but busy lives and physical distance often cause us to forget. When prompted, people will act on the desire to reach out. Didn’t work? → Of the 3 no’s, two said they were no longer close to the person and one said they didn’t want to inconvenience the person. These created new assumptions for us. New Assumptions: People have old friends that they just don’t want to connect with (and that’s okay!) The easier it is to reconnect, the better!

Prototype #2 Assumption: People will be more likely to attend an event if they can first read about its history and see pictures from it. Assumption: People will be more likely to participate in traditions after learning more about their histories and seeing images from them. Making Prototype: We made a Google form, first asking participants’ likelihood of attending this fall’s Big Game rally, then providing more information about the rally and images from past years and asked how it affected them.

Results 34 responses Excited to learn more Put off by pictures of different demographic Helped them make an informed decision Assumption inconclusive “Knowing an event's history makes it more meaningful, and it helps with stoking pride in long-lasting traditions.” Testing: sent out the Google form to 3 different dorm email lists, and got back 34 responses on average, reported being more likely to attend after reading the information and viewing the pictures Takeaways: intrigued by the description of the event, enjoyed the opportunity to learn more pictures discouraged some people from attending because they did not feel like they fit in with target demographic showed that framing of description and images can powerfully affect impressions of the tradition. Reflection: increase in likelihood of attendance was small, not overwhelming evidence to support our assumption. most people did seem to be able to make more informed decisions about whether or not they would want to go to the event, so having more information did help them in that sense.

Prototype #3 Assumption: People are willing to do things they would not normally do to earn points or keep up a streak. Prototype 3 was a coin flipping game where the goal was to get as many heads in a row as possible. It tested the assumption that people want to keep up streaks and are willing to do a little extra to for that cause. We coded a game that would flip a virtual coin and once a significant streak of heads was built, we offered the participants an extra chance of getting heads IF they did some small, but out of the ordinary task (like a jumping jack or texting a loved one).

Results 5 participants 4 wanted to keep up streak 1 person didn’t care Meaningless streak ➞ Real world actions Assumption validated The streak alone got people to smile, clap, spell, do a jumping jack, high five a stranger, and text a loved one. Assumption: People are willing to do things they would not normally do to earn points or keep up a streak. Making Prototype: We constructed two prototypes to test this assumption. The first was simply asking student in a class to take a picture of a relatively boring subject and send it to as many people as he wanted through Snapchat. Afterwards, we would offer him a piece of candy for every person he sent the same picture to and see if that would change how willing he was to send it. For the second prototype, we constructed a virtual coin flipping game. The game flipped heads 65% of the time to speed up the game, unless the user earned a “boost” (85% chance) by performing some action (e.g. texting a loved one). Testing Prototype: For the first prototype, when we asked a random student in our class to send a picture of the next lecture slide without any incentive, he just said no. However, once we offered him the candy, he sent it to 15 people. We asked him to send us a screenshot: With the second prototype, we asked 5 participants to play the game and get as many heads in a row as they could. 4 of the 5 actually performed the actions (including a jumping jacks) to earn a boost. Takeaways: People care about keeping active streaks alive (enough to do some funny/weird things). Small incentives can cause people to do things they would not otherwise do. Reflection: Our tests found that point/streak systems (where the points/streaks are essentially meaningless) motivate people to do things they would not normally do. People seem to like increasing numerical totals intrinsically, suggesting we can use such a system to motivate users to do real world things.

Summary People … will reconnect when prompted forget to connect because of busy lives and physical distance will do fun things to keep a streak alive can make informed decisions about a tradition from knowing its history