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September 2020
Virtual Sheridan
This product was conceptualized for Design-a-thon 2020, a design competition hosted by the McCormick School of Engineering. I worked in a team of four over the course of four days to brainstorm and present this concept to a panel of judges.
Product Development
Pain Points, Journey Mapping, Pitching
My team and I started by interviewing Northwestern students to ask what kinds of interaction they had during our first quarter of virtual classes and what they missed about being in-person. We found that their major pain point was shrinking social circles due to a lack of spontaneous and casual conversations.
Based on our feedback, we decided to create a virtual platform to allow students to connect more easily. Named after our busiest road through campus, Virtual Sheridan is a digital platform that recreates a walk down Sheridan Road. Users input their class schedule or toggle on their availability and the program creates Zoom calls with others when they have free time. They can also add friends and request the program to match them with their friends, friends-of-friends, someone in their classes or clubs, or someone new. When matching complete strangers, Virtual Sheridan uses shared interests to choose who to connect.
To show how our product would work, my team designed a mockup of a web interface that shows how a user would input their information and be matched with somebody to chat with. We pitched this during the Design-a-ton and made it to the finals!
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Website Mockup
