Design an experience for university students to discover new clubs, on-campus events, and connect with other students sharing a similar interest.

• Many students find it challenging to discover new clubs and connect with other students sharing the same interest or passion.

• There's no common platform or local database for all clubs and events. Information on the website is not updated regularly.

• Students find it difficult to connect with people who have the same interests as you, engage and start a conversation with them.

• There are more than 50 clubs in some universities, and students get overwhelmed with all the information floating around.

• People lose interest in seeing the same publicity everywhere, which might lead to missing out on something that interests them.

• They don't have time to attend the events of all the clubs. They don't know which club best aligns with their interest.

• Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, universities have moved towards remote online classes. Students are facing challenges in getting accustomed to this new pattern. It's essential to stay connected with friends and college happenings.

• Feeling of togetherness helps to stay happy and cheerful as new students are in an unknown environment, far from their homes.

• To make personal connections and build communities to help them with their academics, co-curricular activities, and future career.

• Many students miss important events and workshops as they're not aware of them due to a lack of proper communication channels.

• Paper booklets aren't personalized for every student. They often don't have enough interest to go through it, and they also get lost.

• One single platform for all the information will also help better communication between the clubs to avoid overlapping events.

• To improve the engagement of content created by the students.

I started with exploring some existing solutions which address the similar problem to gather more insights on the primary feature set.

• University apps that provide basic information about the campus, academics, and student life.

• Students have made Discord servers and LinkedIn groups to connect with their friends and seniors and share information.

• Some universities use Telegram channels to notify students about upcoming events.

• Hearing about clubs and events from friends or through social media pages of clubs or student WhatsApp groups.

• The communication methods are scattered between various mediums. Students jump through their emails, WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, Discord to keep themselves updated.

• University apps act as a passive source of information, and it's not an intuitive experience for the students.

• Students get to know only the basic info from the university app. There's no information about past events or club members. Most apps direct to the social media handles of the clubs.

• There's a certain learning curve with Discord and LinkedIn, and most students aren't on these platforms.

To understand the user needs and pain points, I had one-on-one interviews with 5 users. The target audience for this product will be university students. The participants were students comprising 2 freshers, a club president, a sophomore, and a club member.

• 3/5 were confused about which clubs to join, so they just followed their friends. Freshers don't know the location of events on campus.

• 3/5 users felt that it's hard to follow conversations when there are many members in a club's WhatsApp group.

• 2/5 didn't attend clubs' orientation events as they weren't sure if that club might be of their interest.

• 5/5 have turned off group chat notifications of their club WhatsApp groups because they feel overwhelmed with many messages.

• 3/5 don't open the shared links that take them outside the current app into web browsers or other apps.

• 2/5 said that they don't want to use a separate app just for university unless it makes their lives easier.

• 5/5 users said that they do not check their emails regularly. They visit the social media handles of the clubs when required.

• 3/5 users said that they love to hang out in online communities.

• 4/5 said that they're most active on Instagram.

Next, I did desk research to gather more insights into the problem and find popular platforms among university students.

• Students want flexibility, convenience, speed, and security from their campus mobile app.

• University students are familiar with digital products and use apps like Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp actively.

• India is the biggest market for users for Facebook and WhatsApp. Food, education, finance, and career-focused influencers receive the most engagement.

• Between October 2019 and 2020, India saw a 20% growth in its Instagram ad audience size—a pace that could soon see the nation overtake the United States for the top position.

• Insights from the above research indicated a need for a digital product to assist the students as they're more close to digital technology. Students more actively use native mobile apps over websites. Thus, a web platform isn't a solution.

• There are around 3.14 million apps on Google Play Store and almost 2.09 million apps on Apple App Store. Making a separate app isn't the solution. It'll require a lot of development effort for both iOS and Android platforms to ensure a good user experience and support the primary feature set.

• There's a need for a personalized solution that enhances the discoverability of clubs and events that align with an individual's interest and allows sharing events with their friends. A solution that makes it easy to get quick help from other students.

• I started thinking on the lines of integrating this solution with an existing social media app. Social media apps are common among university students.

Based on all the research and exploration, the answer was clear.

Instagram.

• Instagram is most popular among college students. They're familiar with using it. Clubs are posting actively on Instagram. They already have accounts and don't have to set-up things from scratch.

• Instagram's recommendation algorithm is strong to suggest the best clubs and provide a personalized experience.

• It provides the simplest interaction with the content without creating an information overload. It has a visually appealing user interface.

• It's quick and easy to make a new account and get started with using Instagram. Its privacy and safety features are also helpful.

• Students can post simultaneously on Facebook and manage connected experiences across apps with Accounts Center.

• No need for online forms for quick polls or conducting a survey. Instagram stories provide helpful features such as polls, questions.

• Professional account features such as post insights, quick replies, FAQs can be helpful for monitoring engagement.

Understanding Instagram's mission was essential to validate why Instagram for university should exist and if this aligns with Instagram's values.

Instagram's Values

• Community first

• Inspire creativity

• Simplicity matters

I decided that having a separate dedicated university space would be a better solution for many reasons.

• It'll show only the relevant content in the feed and will provide a better way to explore clubs by categories in the explore section.

• A verification step can be added while connecting the university to ensure transparency and establish trust.

• Students can sync contacts to improve their recommendations to help Instagram suggest better clubs for them.

• Clubs can post exclusive university content which will be visible only to the students of the same university.

• All the university content like posts, Reels, IGTV, Guides, and conversations and activity stay at the same place. It eliminates the need for a separate university or mentor app.

• Students won't miss important stories or post even if they're following many accounts, as this would be a separate dedicated university-only feed.

• Switching between personal and university accounts won't create extra friction as people are already familiar with switching between multiple accounts.

• Students can disconnect from their university anytime.

Other ideas were to 'pin' the stories of favourite accounts or toggle switch to toggle between personal feed and university feed. But these solutions didn't work out with all the use cases.

I explored some of how Instagram can announce this new feature on their platform. The option to connect to a university is kept at the same place as switching to a professional account.

After gathering the insights, I started analyzing the user flows and information architecture. Then I started designing the screens. I tested the prototype twice with 4 users over video calls.

GOALS FOR USER TESTING

• Rate of error

• Analyze complexity

• Check language

• Identify usability issues

• I designed a solution in which only clubs and creators can post in university space. This'll prevent the experience from getting diluted and avoid spam information. There might be a better alternative.

• I had to skip some ideas due to time constraints as they would require more user testing and further iterations.

• The current verification mechanism of connecting universities relies on using an official student email id or identity card, which could fail if there's a delay in allotment of these by the university.

• As this was a personal project, I didn't have access to Instagram's business and product goals. It would be essential to make sure that this addition doesn't go against future goals.

• User testing makes all the difference

It's important to understand that apart from having goals and pain points, people have fears. UX microcopy shouldn't be neglected. It should be straightforward, concise, and clearly stated.

• Opportunities are limitless, resources are limited

It's essential to know where to stop to avoid deviating from the primary goal. Understanding the 'why' behind every decision is critical to analyze if it's adding any value to the experience.

• Balance time

Balancing time between analyzing and designing is essential to avoid jumping to any solution. More time gets spent in ideating when technical and business constraints come into the picture.

For now, I've used already available features of Instagram so that students can start using it right away without any learning. If this is successful, we can push other features like scheduling events like Facebook and timeline view of events. I also thought about introducing gamification with task completion reward points so that students would receive badges.

This challenge allowed solving a problem that was relevant to me. It helped me to learn how to fuse new features into existing designs. I wish I had the developer's input to analyze the feasibility of this solution. I also realized during testing that if the product is not easier to use than what people are already using, no one will use it.

Instagram for university is a dedicated university-only section in the Instagram app specially designed for students to discover clubs, events and connect with others sharing a similar interest. Students can connect their university after a verification process to access their university platform. Clubs and creators can post campus-related content on the platform. Small businesses around campus can set up business accounts to promote their offers. It'll help in building a safe, reliable, and supportive student community.