UX / UI / Product Design

Connect U

A campus community platform for University of Waterloo Stratford students and staff, designed to make events, carpooling, and like-minded community discovery easier to access.

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Connect U app mockup

Case Study

Making a small campus feel easier to enter.

Connect U responds to a specific community problem: people wanted to participate, but activity information and transportation coordination were spread across too many informal channels.

The Challenge

The Stratford campus is geographically separated from the main campus, and many students live in Waterloo. Without a central community hub, events, carpooling, and social opportunities were easy to miss.

The Approach

We moved from broad campus research into a focused event discovery flow, then tested whether users could find, search, create, and join relevant community activities.

Step 01Research
Step 02Synthesize
Step 03Prototype
Step 04Validate

Problem Framing

The core issue was not a lack of activity. It was that information was too dispersed across group chats, Facebook, program channels, and personal friend networks. The product needed to collect scattered signals into one searchable campus layer.

The Outcome

The final prototype gave users a clearer path to browse events, create posts, search carpool information, and understand what was happening around the campus community.

Research context

The University of Waterloo Stratford campus serves GBDA and MDEI students, but it sits away from the main Waterloo campus. Many students chose to live in Waterloo because it was easier to stay socially connected, even though commuting made daily life harder.

Our survey included 14 GBDA students, 6 MDEI students, and 5 instructors or staff members. The research highlighted a pattern: users wanted community, but the practical path to finding activities and transportation was fragmented.

My role

I was responsible for the Events feature section. I created task flows, explored low-fidelity wireframes, designed high-fidelity screens, and helped translate research pain points into a product path from browsing to joining an event.

20/25Participants lived in Waterloo
22/25Actively sought or posted activities
10/10Found add-new-feed quickly
7/10Understood fast carpool search

Research to Interface

Artifacts that moved the team from problem to product.

The strongest case evidence is the transition from campus pain points to a specific event discovery and participation flow.

Connect U research synthesis board
Research synthesisSurvey insights helped define the community and transportation problem around Stratford campus.
Connect U persona
PersonaA provisional persona clarified the student motivations behind community discovery.
Connect U event task flow
Task flowThe event flow focused on helping a user discover, understand, and register for an event.
Connect U low fidelity wireframe
Low-fidelity wireframeEarly layout exploration for browsing and adding events.
Connect U high fidelity event screens
High-fidelity prototypeEvents screens moved the feature from sketch to testable product experience.
Connect U redesign comparison
V2 redesignAfter the initial project, I explored a softer neumorphic interface direction to improve visual clarity and product feeling.

What Changed

Community discovery became more concrete.

The product direction turned an abstract desire for connection into specific actions: search, browse, post, join, and coordinate.

Centralize activity information

Events and carpool posts moved from scattered channels into one place users could intentionally check.

Lower the social barrier

Clear event context helped users understand what an activity was and whether it felt relevant to them.

Learn from validation

User testing showed that creation and event discovery were strong, while carpool search still needed clearer affordances.

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