Roots to Routes

Prototype Link

Prototype link: Link

Link
A link to your team’s prototype, whether that’s Framer, Figma, or another design tool.
The playable prototype must include at least 6 hi-fidelity screens.

Video Demo

A video demo with a maximum of 3 minutes:
Please prioritize walking through the app you designed, explaining key features.
Information about your research and design process should be included in the free response answers.

Responses to questions about the user research and design thinking process

(1) Describe your project (Max 150 words)

Our project, Roots to Routes, is designed to bridge generational divides by celebrating each generation’s unique background and authentic roots. By focusing on shared interests and overcoming communication barriers, we aim to foster meaningful connections between Gen Z and older generations. Our research revealed that Gen Z often interacts with older individuals mainly during family occasions and faces challenges like language differences and time zone issues. Roots2Routes is crafted to transform these differences into strengths, creating pathways for achieving common goals and shared visions. By promoting mutual understanding and inclusivity, we create a digital space where all generations can connect and grow together.

(2) Describe your research process and findings.

In our project, we aimed to understand the communication barriers between Gen Z and older generations. We conducted surveys primarily targeting Gen Z respondents to identify gaps in understanding and connection. Our findings revealed that Gen Z often interacts with older generations mainly during family updates or special occasions. Communication challenges, such as generational language differences and time zone issues, were significant barriers.

We found that 80% of respondents noted that older generations often struggle with understanding modern slang or emojis, and 40% found it difficult to find mutual topics of interest. These insights highlighted that preconceived notions often prevent meaningful connections and create a barrier to intergenerational engagement.

Our research also showed that while Gen Z respondents were comfortable with digital tools, there was a bias in assuming that older generations might not be as tech-savvy. This underscored the need to create inclusive solutions that bridge the digital divide and promote genuine interaction.
In summary, our research emphasized that both generations need to be more open and willing to engage, turning differences into strengths rather than obstacles. Ultimately, our goal is to foster a space that celebrates these differences and encourages deeper, more meaningful connections.

(3) Describe your most important design decisions. What research findings and/or user testing results led you to make these decisions? (Max 500 words)

Many of our design decisions were based on ensuring that the functionality of our prototype was accessible to those of any generation. During our research through a brief survey, we learned that respondents often struggled trying to find mutual topics of interests with others in different age groups. This led to our implementation of an interests screen, where users could pick out their values/interests which they’d like to have conversation in, allowing them to be placed within these sub-communities and engage in relevant conversations with others of any age range. This helps focus communities on a particular topic they have a shared interest in rather than on the differences developed solely due to generational gaps.

In order to make our app more accessible for all, we tried to keep our design and implementation as simple as possible, with intuitive features. Although our voice feature isn’t completely functional yet, we do intend to offer the option as some may find it easier to communicate verbally and transcribe their information rather than typing it out, offering an extra level of support across all language and hearing abilities. This type of verbal communication (through voice notes, voice replies, and automatically generated transcriptions) may also feel more personal to the individual and other users.

We especially want our users to feel this sense of community as they grow to interact with each other, which is our main motivation behind adding the connection tree. As of right now, the connection tree visually represents how the user’s relationships with other individuals on the app seem to strengthen over time through repeated interadctions. Moving forward, we’d like to offer users the ability to friend others on the app and perhaps directly message them as well (or form groupchats). And of course, this tree connects directly back to our project title: Roots to Routes.

(4) If applicable, describe how you utilized AI in your design process in detail. Please explain where AI fit into your workflow, which tools you used, and the specific purpose AI served at that stage. Include a concrete example of how AI influenced a design decision. (Max 500 words)

We used AI in our design process to help us implement our prototype and bring our vision to life. While we planned our concept and foundations, including the features we wanted to implement, the different screens we wanted, and the functional and transitional logic within our app, we utilized FigmaMake to actually transform our idea into a functional and usable implementation. We spent most of our time researching and collaborating to develop a concrete idea that we were all comfortable with and wanted to focus on bringing this idea to life, without needing to worry about the limitations of our technical knowledge and available time.

We provided an initial prompt that designated layout, specific texts, interaction logic, transitional logic, and more to create a sufficient working prototype. Then, through testing the prototype, observing what worked and what didn’t work, and running through different test cases, we provided feedback prompts to refine our prototype and direct it closer to our vision. In the case that we had very specific or nuanced changes to make, we manually adjusted the TypeScript files in the Figma Code to make these minor fixes. This iteration process also allowed us to test out different features and layouts without needing to fully commit all of our efforts.

While AI played a significant role in helping us implement our design, it served solely as a collaborative design tool and all decisions were made by our group. Our use of AI helped us have a more iterative and reflective design process, allowing us to focus on our ideas and design decisions rather than the technical details (and knowledge necessary for implementation). We directed our focus more towards generational dynamics and the emotion and tone of comfort we want to convey through our design. Overall, our use of AI helped us bridge the gap between vision and implementation, just as our vision attempts to bridge the gap across generations.

Built With

• figma