Needfinding
Intro
To kick off our needfinding process we tried to get a general idea of related problems students meet during organizing or participating events. We had three hypotheses that we were testing out:
Majority students don't take events frequently but they can be motivated to take more by taking methods such as advertising.
Majority students use mobile calendar as a reminder so that our app can be practical.
Organizers are not satisfied with current advertising experience.
To achieve this, we distributed surveys to students and interviewed several students including publicity chair of a student organization.
Survey
Questions of the survey:
How many times do you participate in(or organize) campus events every week?
0, 1~2, 3~4, >4
How do you usually know the campus events?
By posters, Through websites, Friends' recommendation, Other
Main reasons for you not to participate campus events?
Time conflict, Don't know there are campus events, Have no interest in the theme, Forget the place or time that the events will be held, Other
Do you use calendar(mobile app) to help you arrange your schedule?
Yes
No
Why do you use or not use calendar?
(For organizers) What are the main difficulties in organizing events?
Budget constraints, Time pressure to complete the work, Sudden change on events' time or location, Poor attendance, Other
Do you have any suggestions for participating events or organizing events?
What's your major?
What's your gender?
Female, Male, Other
What year are you?
Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior, Graduate, Other
Link to the survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfRbWV49cfbtWD54yOeBNbh9bQzPxR8qVsDF4aQkQmR-Mhwgg/viewform?usp=pp_url
Results of the survey:
This showed us that most students participate in events once or twice per week. And 32.1 percent of students even don't participate in events which proved our hypothesis that a majority of students don't take events frequently.
Since most of the students use calendar and they mentioned they use calendar for reminding or arranging time, these results ensures the feasibility of our app which uses calendar to remind students to participate in events.
We were surprised to find that more than 78 percent of students know events from friends' recommendation, which enlightened us the recommendation function which can be added in the future.
The result suggested that except objective reasons like time conflict and boring event theme, don't know there are campus events is the main reason students don't participate in the events. Therefore, there is an opening for our product to tell users there are events happening and motivate them to participate more.
From the result, time pressure is the biggest problem for organizers. And the second concern is poor attendance. Luckily, improving the efficiency for organizers in advertising and creating a more positive activity atmosphere are two main goals of our app. Therefore, our app can definitely help with organizers.
Interview
The second method was an interview which provides explanations and opinions from participants. We selected three interviewees who would like to share their opinions. One of them is the publicity chair of a student organization. These interviews usually took five to ten minutes. The goal of the interviews was to gain details on what students think about social media and campus events, how they say the strengths and weaknesses of existing apps. We obtained more information and recommendations of how to update current apps.
During the interview, We introduced the topic of our project. We learnt more about young people who participate in various campus events and asked them about their experiences. Then, we went into questions that require more explanation. The last thing we asked was if there is anything they want to change, giving them a chance to critique.
Questions:
What’s your major?
What year are you?
How many hours do you participate in campus events every week ?
Do you use specific tools/methods to help you arrange your schedule? Why?
Do you try to get off Facebook because you don't enjoy how much time you spend on it scrolling through your feed?
Could you tell a story where you had to plan and advertise an event?
Do you think the tool/method you used has weakness?
Do you have any suggestions for participating events or organizing events?
The interviews allowed our ability to follow-up and questioning deeper into reasons. The interviewees usually use Facebook to obtain information about events and send posters. Using social medias like Facebook make their life easier. But the interviewees stated that they would like to spend less time on Facebook because they don't enjoy how much time they spend on it just scrolling through their feed. The social network has been integrated into people's daily life and forced into people's social interactions, so that the real circle of friends and the virtual network circle become overlapped. They would like to have an app/website including all information about campus events and reminding them on the event date.
Moreover, an interviewee talked about his view on the weakness of using social medias and the importance of participating offline events. When people enjoy accessing a variety of information online, some Neo-Luddites believe that technology fosters social inequality and social isolation. Nowadays, most people spend a lot of time on social networking platforms, ignoring the concern for their families and friends. People are immersed in social interactions through social networking sites, which will inevitably exacerbate the separation of real interpersonal relationships and lead to real interpersonal tensions. The communication through electronic devices causes separation between people and reduces the communication ability of people. The Internet improves the efficiency of communication, but it is unrealistic to use the Internet instead of offline communication. Some young people rely too much on interpersonal communication on the Internet and neglect the interpersonal interaction in reality. They usually express their ideas and opinions on social media such as Facebook and Twitter, and do not dare to communicate with people in a face-to-face manner. Thus, it is important for students to participate various events in their community.