A web app that helps students who commute find out what is happening on campus, and find
each other.
I ran the research, designed it and built it, front end and back end.
The three cards are the three findings, in order.
What CommU is
Students who commute arrive for class and leave again. CommU puts campus events in
one place, lets commuters find each other by the days they are on campus, and lets
any student post a meetup of their own.
I made it for a human-computer interaction course, which asked for a working web
app rather than a prototype in a design tool.
Why this project
It was my project for Human-Computer Interaction, CS 2520. I chose commuters because
most campus tools are built for students who live in the dorms, and commuters often
struggle to feel like they belong.
5interviews, at three schools
19questions, a guide rather than a script
3findings, each answered by one part of the app
1answer that changed what I built
01
What I did
Recruited and ran five interviews: four commuters, and one student who lives
on campus, chosen on purpose, because a study made only of people who agree with you
cannot prove you wrong.
Turned them into three findings, and built nothing that no finding asked
for.
Designed and built the whole app: eight pages in HTML, CSS and JavaScript,
with a Flask and MongoDB backend.
02
Try it: what they said
I usually just show up a couple minutes before class and after school I have to go
to work, which is about 30 minutes away. So, I usually don’t spend much time
on campus.
P2, community college, one hour commute
Time on campus is only for class. Not from indifference: there was
no room in the day for anything else.
Sometimes I get sent an email about upcoming events, other times it’s word of
mouth through friends, and posters that are around buildings.
P4, engineering, walks in
Nobody knew what was on. So the app puts every event in one place,
with search and filters.
Yes, I would love to connect with people. I love meeting new people, but I just
don’t put myself out there. If there’s an easier way, then yeah.
P5, allied health, 30 minute drive
The barrier was never motivation. There was just no place to meet,
so the app gives them one.
03
The answer that changed the build
I first pitched CommU as a place to discover events. Then one student, asked what he
would change, said this:
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, on what he would change
He did not want a better feed. He wanted to call the meeting himself. So posting
became something any student can do: an event appears at once and expires on its own
when the date passes. And a profile leads with which days you are on
campus, because the schedule is what decides whether two commuters can ever
meet.
Events, answering finding 2. Filters and search exist because the finding was that
information is scattered, so the fix is one place with a way through it. Shown with
seeded demo content.Connect, answering finding 3. A profile shows major, where you commute from, and
which days you are on campus, because those are the three things that decide
whether two people can actually meet.
What I would do next time
Take it back to the people I interviewed and watch them use it. The whole premise is
that they have no time, and I never measured whether CommU costs them any.
The three cards are the three findings, in order.
Events, answering finding 2. Filters and search exist because the finding was that
information is scattered, so the fix is one place with a way through it. Shown with
seeded demo content.
Connect, answering finding 3. A profile shows major, where you commute from, and
which days you are on campus, because those are the three things that decide
whether two people can actually meet.
