ROLE & TEAM

Product designer and developer in a team of 3 designers/developers

TOOLS

A-frame
Arduino
Figma
GPT-3 / Dall-E

TIMELINE

10 Weeks

LINKS

Website

IDEATION

With our target population being first-years, we propose a social networking platform that caters to the needs of newcomers, where social translucence is key to forming initial ties with one another. Combining existing Wellesley-used platforms such as WeEngage and Wellesley FAQ (Facebook), our platform serves as a one-stop for all social networking platform for newcomers to connect with Wellesley student organizations and other individuals. We centered our platform around Wellesley organizations as they often serve as a facilitator for community finding and building. On our platform, users will be able to indicate interests, join student organizations, browse campus events and spam, engage in direct messaging, and initiate public discussions. These features will encourage first-semester students to seek others with similar backgrounds and interests to form initial weak ties that hopefully will develop into strong ones.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Based on personal experience, first-semester first-year students are thrown into a new environment in a new community and oftentimes find it difficult to initially connect with other students. How can we foster community through an online social network site which acclimates students to Wellesley culture and helps form connections with fellow students?

INITIAL SPECIFICATIONS

HTML Specifications: There are 4 types of HTML pages we will need to create. One page for the main landing area where student organizations will post spam for their events. A second page will show the discussions initiated by students. The final two types of pages will be profile pages: one designed for students and one for student organizations. Since the student and organization profile pages will contain different information and a student account has different capabilities than an org account, we decided it is necessary to have 2 types of profile pages.

Firebase Collections: There are four main collections we need: students, organizations, posts by students), and posts by organizations). Students collection contains individual students with attributes (name, class year, unique ID, etc.). Organizations collection contains similar information but for organizations (name, followers count, unique ID, etc.). Posts by organizations contain information like event spam, event description, and a unique ID. Posts by students mainly contain text content and a unique ID.

REFLECTIONS