Branca

Promote a sense of belonging among students at the University of Toronto, who live everywhere, while protecting their privacy. 

Stakeholders

University of Toronto

Innovation Hub



Timeline

Sept - Dec 2022

Tools

Roles

At a Glance

What is the problem? 

At the University of Toronto (UofT), students live in various locations across the Greater Toronto Area. Many of them are unable to stay on campus after class for activities that foster connections and end up feeling like outsiders.

Lacking a sense of belonging, students are more likely to internalize other negative emotions associated with it, leading to relatively low student satisfaction with the college experience. 

A source found during secondary research: a Reddit post in which a commuter student is crying for help: 


Visualization of data gathered from primary research : 

Bar chart: UofT students who are more satisfied with their school experience tend to socialize on campus more often. 

Pie chart: 50% of the UofT students who participated in the survey indicated that they live far from campus and are commuters like the person who wrote the Reddit post. 

How can we help?

In collaboration with the University of Toronto's Innovation Hub, which is committed to improving students' experience at the University of Toronto, we created Branca.

Branca is a social networking mobile platform for the University of Toronto students to securely communicate and create a mini-UofT community in their neighborhood. Branca helps students develop a sense of belonging and enhances their college experience. 

Design Process: How Branca was made?

Branca is the Latin word for "branches." 

We named our platform after it to resonate with "Quercus," the oak tree on our school crest that represents the University of Toronto. We hope that Branca, the app, will connect students everywhere just like the branches of an oak tree, and this connection, as our school motto says, "can grow as a tree through the ages." 

To gain a deeper insight into students' perspectives and their inclination towards building connections with peers, our team executed 5 semi-structured interviews, surveyed 30 representative students, and analyzed various pertinent resources. 

Alongside the visual representation of our quantitative data through graphs, we employed an affinity map to encapsulate our qualitative insights.

Key Insights 

1_The barriers to connecting with schoolmates

Our respondents identified commuting as a primary obstacle to connecting with peers. Intriguingly, we discovered that even students residing close to campus often depart right after classes, suggesting either a dearth of motivation or a lack of avenues to initiate connections.

2_The difficulty of maintaining connections outside of class

While in-class activities facilitate initial interactions among students, sustaining these relationships can be challenging. Though school events promote bonding, the restricted campus hours for commuter students hinder their participation, making it tough for them to establish and preserve connections beyond the classroom.

3_The need of setting personal boundaries

One of the most interesting findings from the research phase was that students at UofT have a high willingness to meet new people as long as it is convenient and accessible, but at the same time, they are concerned about intrusions on their personal space. Maintaining a balance between social life and personal space is important for college students nowadays.

Meet the User

After analyzing both qualitative and quantitative research data, our team summarized and condensed the common traits among our target users into the persona of Amelia.

Feel

Her Journey 

Amelia struggles against the feeling that she doesn't fit in. She actively reaches out to her classmates and searches for events on the UofT website, but at the end of the day, she feels upset and defeated because all the people and events are far away from where she lives. 

Define

Her Needs

Generate Big Ideas 

To effectively address Amelia's needs, the team came up with a variety of ideas and selected 15 that aligned with the design goals.

We carefully evaluated the feasibility and impact of each idea and plotted them on a prioritization grid to identify the most promising options: 


Re-examine Her Journey 

The team mapped out Amelia's journey again with the help of three ideas that were voted on. This time, Amelia is not alone at the end of her journey as she found a UofT community in her neighborhood where she can feel a sense of belonging. 

Up until this point, the team had addressed the problem of promoting a sense of belonging outside of UofT campus by generating three major solutions (see "big ideas recap"). 

Within the limited time, the team progressed from low-fidelity to medium-fidelity prototypes, conducting one round of usability tests after each iteration. 

Low-Fidelity Sketches

Working towards Amelia's new journey with a happy ending, the team sketched out the ideas generated during the ideation phase, resulting in the following user flow. 

Lo-Fi Evaluation

With the low-fidelity prototype, the team conducted usability testing with three representative users following the think-aloud protocol. The insights gained from this round of testing informed updates to the navigation bar and the addition of a series of new features, including a contact list and profile page.

On top of all the minor updates, an insight that we identified earlier in the empathize phase emerged repeatedly during the usability tests as a major issue: People need personal space while socializing. How can we protect their privacy in an app that promotes neighborly connections? 

Medium-fidelity 

Prototype

Within a one-week sprint, we iterated to create a medium-fidelity prototype that demonstrates our solution to the question above: giving users more privacy controls.

Eliminate the risk of address exposure

Displaying the status and location of UofT neighbors on a map can enhance the sense of community, but there is a risk of exposing their location. 


To maintain a sense of community while protecting their privacy, we use a profile gallery that shows the profiles of all active users instead of a map. 

Announce your arrival, or hide at will 

During the usability test, we found that our participants often chose "No, Thank you" when asked if they wanted to announce their arrival because they were unsure if they could reverse this action later. By adding a hide/unhide toggle on the page, we give them the freedom to be visible or invisible at will.

Send event invites, or undo

Attending neighborhood events is one of the main ways to meet people on Branca, and we understand that sometimes users may accidentally send invites to the wrong person or change their minds. As a result, we added an "Undo" function in the event section. 

Talk to anyone, or don't

Branca gives users access to talk with the active University of Toronto students in their neighborhood, but users also have the right to choose who they want to talk to. To respect this choice, we have added a "block user" feature that allows users to block others they encounter on the home page or through the neighborhood forum. 

Med-Fi Evaluation

We tested our revised interactive mid-fi prototype with 3 representative users to identify areas for improvement through observation and user interviews. These areas will be addressed in future iterations: 

Hi-Fi Prototype

The homepage displays visual representations of local public spaces and allows users to view profile pictures of nearby residents. This way, users can discover their neighbors without revealing their exact location, providing a buffer against being overwhelmed by a large group of people. 

Reflect and Grow

Create a roadmap to guide your design process, but be open to deviating from it as needed. Ideally, the design process is linear, but in practice, the team may need to jump between different design steps in order to make adjustments and iterate on our design decisions. A roadmap helps to establish the overall direction, but it is important not to be afraid to take some minor detours as needed in order to explore different options and find the best solution.

UX design involves a balance of generating ideas and narrowing them down. It is essential not to become too attached to any one idea, no matter how seriously you may have considered it, as this can hinder the design process and prevent the exploration of other potentially better options.

Trusting your teammates is crucial for creating a healthy and constructive criticism environment. As we worked on creating Branca, our team developed profound trust that allowed us to communicate openly and appreciate different perspectives. Trusting your teammates and being open to their input and feedback can help lead to a more effective and successful design solution.