Lunch Buddies

1. Prototype link (Please submit a link to a playable prototype, not a link to your design file) Link

2. Describe your project (max 150 words)

“Lunch Buddies” aims to make students’ lunch times less lonely by matching them with other people around campus based on shared interests. The app utilizes an onboarding system where the student chooses their college/university, grants the app permission to use their location, and sets up their profile and interests by filling out a short survey. Using the information gathered from the student, the app then matches them with someone who shares similar interests. Upon accepting this match, both can chat with each other and make lunch plans through a private chatbox, then join a public chat to interact with other students in the college community.

1. Describe your research process and findings. If you conducted any surveys or interviews, please include the survey form and/or interview questions here. If you conducted secondary research by pulling from online sources, please include a link to your sources. (Max 500 words)

Our initial research step was to ask ourselves and our friends about some common problems that students face. We brainstormed issues that we also struggled with as undergraduates, discussing a range of topics from crowded libraries and expensive textbooks to confusing registration and scooter theft. Through some trial and error, we reached the conclusion that a shared problem is the feeling of loneliness due to an unsatisfactory social life. We established that a particularly common manifestation of this issue is the situation where students dine alone. While nothing inherently wrong with eating by yourself, over a long period of time it could cause additional anxiety or stress.

We continued our research by exploring different online sources, such as social media sites, open forums and college publications. During this process, we discovered a multitude of posts where students would reveal their worries and discomfort associated with eating alone, some going as far as avoiding the dining halls or even eating. Even though a large number of students would acknowledge that it’s normal to eat alone, they would still report some degree of uneasiness associated with this process.

For this reason, we chose to tackle this issue and provide a platform for students where they could find a dining partner. To address the deeper background of lack of a community, we introduced a matching system based on shared interests. Hopefully, this would allow students to connect to their peers and build lasting friendships that would extend outside of lunchtime.

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

During our research, we found that many undergraduate students found difficulty in making friends and connecting with their peers, so we decided to design Lunch Buddies with the intention of making it easier for students to meet new people. We hoped to make the onboarding process and profile setup short and easy for the student user by creating a simple form for students to fill in their name, pronouns, age, and interests. Afterwards, the app takes care of everything else by automatically providing matches on a visualized map and creating private chats for them to use. While the main focus was to find partners for students, we also wanted to give them the option of connecting with a larger community in case they wanted to interact and meet more people at a time; thus; we designed for a public community chat room in addition to the private one created from the matches. To address accessibility, we used contrasting colors to make certain elements pop, and different fonts to help users distinguish the headers from regular text. We performed a bit of user testing with a few fellow undergraduates. According to them, the app looks nice and user friendly, and is indeed useful; some of them said they wished the app actually existed since they would gladly use it. They did not provide any more specific feedback regarding what could be improved, so the testing did not substantially change our final product.

Built With

• figma