WeConnect

Inspiration

Man is by nature a social animal (Aristotle).

We are all going through hard times. Social distancing is crucial and the fewer people go outside, the higher the chances to flatten the curve soon. However, people still need to buy food, cleaning products and medicines, thus they leave their homes.

In addition to this, fears of contagion are rapidly changing the way we interact with each other. Social distancing, travel limits and lack of physical love exchanges are affecting our psychology.

What it does

We aim at reducing this flow connecting each person with his neighbourhood. Through a well-designed interface, you can either easily create your own shopping list and let your neighbours help you get what you need or see what your neighbours lack and assist them.

WeConnect takes care of your mental health, too. It makes you feel less lonely while giving you a purpose: help each other.

How we built it

The interface was implemented via FluidUI editor as a fast but powerful platform to design app interfaces.

Challenges we ran into

1. Understanding the current situation and the possible psychological downsides.
2. Adapting the app so that it adapts to the situation in different countries.
3. Balancing between privacy and powerfulness. Especially with an app that has access to user location, collecting just enough information is important

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Successful application of the "Design thinking" principles learnt so far in the Human-Computer Interaction course of EPFL.

What we learned

People behaviour during the virus spreading

What's next for WeConnect

Extend shopping to borrowing, like borrowing a special tool from a neighbour while a person is working on a home improvement project.