NewRoots

An app that helps newcomers settle into new areas

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NewRoots - Web & Mobile App

Blossom Where You're Planted

01 - Problem Moving to a new location is always stressful, especially for a student. Two of our group members can relate to this situation. On top of the stress these students face with the logistics of moving away and focusing on their studies, building a social network in their new area can also be a challenge. A lack of opportunities to meet others increases isolation for these students, keeping them from fully settling into their new surroundings.

Design statement: How might we develop a social tool that allows post-secondary students in new areas to connect to other people in their community easily?

02 - Project Goal

What it does

NewRoots helps students abroad to “blossom where they’re planted”. The platform allows students to connect with other students living in a new place and looking to build their social network. Making new friends in new places can be a challenge, and NewRoots aims to reduce the stress and anxiety of forming new connections by helping users easily find others at their school and in their area, and connect through in-person events posted through the app.

Thoughts on other similar apps and our inspirations Our initial idea was to develop a tool that provided access to essential resources for students moving abroad. These resources included information about applying for visas, finding affordable housing, vaccinations & medical advice, assistance with finding internships, and general information about the city they were moving to. We also thought of social space & messaging features as a secondary idea, allowing students to connect with others in the same position and build a social network. However, as we converged on our ideas, we realized that this might create a sense of information overload for users, and we weren’t certain if we could meet all of these requirements by the hackathon deadline. We then decided to focus exclusively on social connections, and designing a platform for students living abroad to connect easily through messaging and posted events.

We also conducted a competitor analysis on similar apps to determine which features we liked and disliked. These apps included Instagram, TikTok, Yelp, Tripadvisor and Meetup. Instagram and TikTok were analyzed for their feeds and messaging capabilities, whereas Yelp, Tripadvisor and Meetup were analyzed for how easy it was to search for places/events and find reviews.

A handful of the features researched were considered for our project:

  • The ability to search for events in the area by filters: we decided that instead of letting users post about their lives like on traditional social media, we wanted to focus primarily on posting about events in the area for users to meet up at in real life. Therefore, users must be able to find local events as easily as possible.
  • Mutual connections going to events: The best way to encourage people to attend events is to know who else is going amongst their friends. Users can post about events they attend, which will appear on their friends’ feeds.
  • Connection recommendations based on account personalizations: what differentiates our app from different social apps is that upon completing the initial personality questionnaire when registering, users immediately gain 5 friends added to their network who closely match their profile (based on the same location, same school and similar interests & personality traits). This removes the awkwardness of requesting to friend random people online, giving users instant access to similar-minded people that they may likely hit it off with. From there, users can continue to grow their friend network through mutual friends and suggestions of other users in the same location and/or at the same school.
  • Simple DMs: This is the baseline of forming any valuable connection online, so friended users need to be able to communicate with each other easily.

03 - How we built it

  • Process
    • Design
    • Mood board
    • Logo
    • Typography -Colors -Design System

04 - ## What it does in detail Description app features

Event Search Filters: Users can use filters to easily search local events in their area that cater to their interests.

Connection Recommendations Users are prompted to complete a questionnaire when first registering for an account - this automatically connects the user with 5 friends based on mutual interests and commonalities. Users expand their network mainly through mutual friends and location/school-based suggestions.

Mutual Connections at Events: Users are shown which of their mutual friends are attending certain events. When attending the event, users can post about it, which will show up on their mutual friends' timelines. This eventually encourages attendance for other future events down the line.

Direct Messaging: Users can message their new mutual connections through private messaging - a simple yet effective way to establish new connections and form relationships online.

Challenges we ran into

One of the challenges we faced was learning how to adapt to each other's approach for parts of the design process. While we needed to prioritize features for the sake of time, it took some time for everyone to be on the same page to move onto the next stage, In addition, we had a bit of trouble deciding on the final execution of our solution because of the text input feature in our search bar.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud of the product that we were able to produce in this short amount of time, and our ability to complete it all under this much pressure, which is not an easy feat. We’re also excited that the work from this experience is a project that we can all proudly showcase in our portfolios.

What we learned

This project helped us to brush up and improve upon our Figma skills, as well as get to test out some new platforms as well (including Framer and Tempo Labs, even though we did not end up implementing these tools into the final design). As for being hackers, it was a valuable experience in working with a team, and under an immense amount of pressure (something we don’t usually face as much when we have weeks to complete school projects).

What's next for NewRoots

If we had more time to expand upon the app, we would have put more time into developing this tool with code or importing it into a platform such as Framer. We would have also included the use of MongoDB for creating a database and storing user data. Additionally, we would have loved to implement the use of Tempo Labs into our project more, however, due to some bugs we encountered while testing it out, we decided it would be most efficient to focus solely on Figma. Finally, we had an initial idea of awarding users with badges depending on their answers to the personality questions in the profile login, so given more time we would have further fleshed out this concept.

Built With

  • figma
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