Course project, University of Iowa, 2026
CommU
I talked to five commuting students and built them a working web app to find campus events and each other. I built the front end and the back end.
Campus apps are built for students who live on campus. Commuters come in for class and leave, so they miss what’s going on and have a harder time feeling like they belong.
Before and after
Before
Commuters heard about events through scattered emails, word of mouth and posters. They had no way to find other commuters on campus the same days, and no easy place to meet.
After
Every campus event is in one place, with search and filters. Commuters find each other by the days they’re on campus, and any student can post their own meetup. Past events remove themselves, so the list stays current.
How I worked
Research
Five interviews, three schools
I interviewed four commuters and one student who lives on campus, using a 19-question guide: a list of topics, not a fixed script. Talking to the on-campus student showed me which problems were really about commuting.
Define
Three findings, nothing extra
Commuters are on campus only for class. They don’t know what’s going on, because the information is scattered. They want to connect, but have nowhere to do it. If a finding didn’t ask for a feature, I didn’t build it.
Design
Profiles lead with campus days
A profile shows which days you’re on campus, your major and where you commute from. Those three things decide whether two people can actually meet, so I put them first.
Connect, built for finding 3. Each profile shows major, where you commute from and which days you’re on campus. Build
Eight working pages, both ends
I built it in HTML, CSS and JavaScript, with Flask and MongoDB as the server and database that store events and profiles. Each event removes itself once its date passes, so nobody has to clean up the list.
The three cards are the three findings, in order. Test
What I’d test next
I haven’t tested it with students yet. Next, I’d take it back to the people I interviewed and watch them use it. The whole idea is that they have no spare time, so I need to know how much of it CommU takes.
The turning point
The fork in the road
I started out building a place to find events. Then one student told me he wanted to host one himself.
Why I went this way
He had neighbours in his own complex he’d never met. A list of events only helps people who have time to browse. Posting lets a commuter set up something that fits their own schedule. The easier path was a polished events list. I added Post Your Own instead, with no approval step.
The proof
- 5students interviewed, at three schools
- 19questions in the guide, topics instead of a script
- 3findings, each one a card on the home page
- 8working pages, front end and back end
“It would be to host some sort of event to meet other people, because there have been people that I’ve met that live in my same complex and I had no idea.”
P4, asked what he would change
What it meansEvery feature comes from something a student told me, so nothing is there just to fill space. It’s a working app, ready to put in front of the students it was built for.
