SETTING THE SCENE
This your first week of college and you are eager to make new friends. You join Club 123, an org with over 100 members. You are at your first (virtual) meeting and are overwhelmed by the large amount of unfamiliar faces.
You can only imagine how scary it is to join a large meeting with hundreds of unfamiliar faces.
THE PROBLEM
Our team noticed that there is a direct association between social anxiety and social isolation, and social anxiety has dramatically risen during the COVID-19 pandemic. This leaves concerns surrounding how people will re-engage in social spaces post-pandemic.
From our survey determining people's current metal state about social interactions (N=61):
72% of respondent currently do not interact with people outside of their family
63% of those sheltering-in=place have reported feelings of loneliness
Obstacles for making new friends include: social anxiety, awkwardness, and being remote
Multiple users have expressed concerns regarding social anxiety and their ability to make new friend via Twitter.
THE OPPORTUNITY
Given the challenges regarding social isolation and concerns re-integrating into large groups, we decided to focus on specific group that we feel will experience the most social anxiety post-COVID: first-year college students.
As first year college students move away from home for the first time and into a completely new environment, they are eager to make new friends... but they are overwhelmed.
63% college students experience social anxiety (Fall 2018 National College Health Assessment)
First year of college is especially high-risk time for onset or worsening anxiety
Unfamiliarity navigating large groups
Especially at a large campus like UCSD, students may have trouble approaching and feeling comfortable in large groups
We aim to mediate interaction for large organization socials and while helping new members make friends.
Playtonic is a guided friend-making experience to help break the ice in large org meetings. The goal is to reduce social anxiety at large org meetings and get members comfortable with each other.
INITIAL PROTOTYPE
We simulated the Playtonic experience using a large variety of mediums.
Egg phase: We provided a Google Form with 7 short agree/disagree questions for users to complete a personality test. Using Google Sheets, we created an algorithm to sort users into recommended grouping based on where each user's sociability scale. We aimed to create group with 1:1 of extroverts to introverts.
Caterpillar phase: To simulate a competitive game, we created a fun trivia with 5 random fun facts using Kahoot.
Cocoon phase: To encourage group members to get to know each other, we created a prompted discussion through Mentimeter. Users answer a prompt provided on the screen (fave hobbies, music preferences, etc), and have a chance to guess each others answers
Social butterfly phase: Once users have gotten comfortable with each other, they will have to the chance to reach out to people they want to get to know more. Users can share socials and organize a time and place to meet "in person" in CozyRoom, a simulated meet-up room.
After demoing and testing your prototype, we asked participants to fill out a short survey to evaluate your prototype. This might include both open-ended qualitative questions and quantitative rating question to assess he effectiveness of each aspect of our prototype and find areas for improvement.
PROTYPE EVALUATIONS
To assess how well our initial prototype worked, we deployed an evaluation form to all our participants. We asked the following questions:
How comfortable are you now with the people in your group?
How do you feel about the amount of introverts/extroverts in your group?
After this experience, how will are you to meet in-person with people in your group?
How helpful was the trivia activity in "breaking the ice"/ how helpful was the prompted discussion in learning about your group members?
Overall, 84.8% of respondents indicated to feel more comfortable with the people in their group, suggesting that our Playtonic experience is useful in creating reducing anxiety and creating a space for people to make new friends.
When evaluating the number of extroverts to introverts in a group, 55.6% respondents felt that there was the right amount of extroverts/introverts per group, indicating that our initial algorithm is somewhat effective in creating a good social atmosphere. However, with 39.3% of respondents requesting for more extroverts per group, we made changes to our algorithm accordingly
An objective for our prototyping session is to assess how effective the competitive and collaborative games were in improving social interaction amongst group members. When looking at the trivia activity, we notice a normal distribution with a slight shift toward "not helpful". Our main feedback was that the trivia game was not very engaging, it did not get people to talk. This prompted our team to focus on rethinking the competitive activity.
However, we saw that our Mentimeter prompted discussion and helping group members get to know each other, with 23/33 respondents indicating that it was either helpful or extremely helpful. During the prototyping session, we noticed that conversations sparked organically as people answered prompts throughout the activity.
Here are a few notable comments form our prototype feedback:
"I think facilitating the talking more with leading questions can help"
"I like the idea, just need to encourage more interaction"
"It's definitely a start in the right direction, I think with more time and in-depth interaction, it could be very beneficial"
"I like it a alto and it was very fun getting to know people"
"Anything is better than a giant zoom room"
ITERATION
Based on our prototyping feedback, we identified 3 key issues with our initial prototype and made the following improvements:
Issue 1: People preferred more extroverts in their groups.
We adjusted group-sorting algorithm from 1:1 → 3:2 extroverts to introverts ratio
Issue 2: People suggested more facilitation within groups to encourage interaction
Within our UI, we developed the feature of a highlighted box to call out the next person to speak. This feature can be used to "popcorn" to someone or motivate someone to speak when there is an awkward silence
We incorporated more discussion prompts within the games
Issue 3: Trivia game was not very engaging; it didn’t get people to talk
We added multiple other competitive options that encourage more conversation:
Mutter Nonsense game where everyone competes to answer funny prompts
Trivia game but with added time for discussion after each question
Backyard Co-inspired interface which includes a wide variety of games (drawing games, mafia, etc.)
Stage 1: Personality Survey
Stage 1: Matching into rooms
Stage 2: Competitive Game
Stage 3: Collaborative Game
Stage 4: Share contact information
DEEP DIVE
We sort out people into groups based on sociability scores for a balanced mix of extroverts and introverts (3:2). We use an algorithm that averages their responses, and they are accordingly sorted into zoom rooms based on sociability levels.
BEFORE: We used a Google sheet to simulate our group matching algorithm
AFTER: We created a UI with with questions for users to answers to assess their personality. Based on their answers, they are matched to group and placed in their respective "game rooms"
Users will now play a competitive game: Cocoon Maker
Bassed on the party game Mutter Nonsense
Players answer prompts with responses of their own
Players then pick the funniest prompts for the winner
At this point you can start picking up on humor types in the group
You can also gauge the sociability of the room based on who’s talking more or less
This is the game Mutter Nonsense, where users input responses to prompts and pick the funniest ones!
For the collaborative activity, users will play a "Cocoon Breaker Activity" similar to the one conducted on MentiMeter
This includes a collaborative presentation to share hobbies and interests
Snowballing Effect: Once you open up more, then you can start branching out with more organic and personal questions based on interests and hobbies
Once you share contact information with others, you become a social butterfly and can join your own groups you’ve made or still go into random rooms to meet people
In the final stage, this is our UI for how to connect and share social media and contact information!
REFLECTION
Through this experience, our team learned the following about the college social experience:
Groups need someone to lead the conversation: When meeting people for the first time, people are more willing to speak up when where is another extrovert or someone facilitating the conversation
People are willing to share about themselves and want to learn about others: College students are generally social creatures and are eager to make new friends. They enjoy sharing about themselves and hearing other's stories.
Increased willingness to open up in smaller groups : We noticed that people feel more comfortable in smaller groups. When prototyping, we saw more people smaller groups turn on their cameras and unmute (compared to those in larger Zoom meetings
If given more time, our next steps would be:
Develop a more fluid scale for group matching (since introvert/extrovert is binary, we want to rethink how to assess sociability for optimal group-matching)
Test our modified prototype to receive more feedback on its usability
Create and polish a UI mock-up for the entire experience
Aiden Jauffret: 3rd year Cognitive Science Design & Interaction
Survey analysis, prototyping logistics, UI mockup, final presentation
Amandeep Singh: 4th year Cognitive Science Design & Interaction
User interviews, prototyping logistics, prototype evaluations, final portfolio piece
Erika Dinh: 3rd year Cognitive Science Design & Interaction
User interviews, prototyping logistics, UI mockup, final presentation
Julia Chu: 4th year Cognitive Science Design & Interaction
User interviews, prototyping logistics, prototype evaluations, final presentation, final portfolio piece
Odemuno Ogelohwohor: 3rd year Electrical Engineering
Survey analysis, prototyping logistics, prototype evaluations, final presentation