This research project centers around the college partying experience. We looked at students who attend The Ohio State University and asked them about this experience.
Planning
Planning
We began this project by creating a strict schedule. We decided when to have our preliminary research, experiments, and analysis done. The preliminary research consisted of finding scholarly articles on our topic of partying and popular college websites / blogs. We then decided on the three activities we would do for the experiment section (below).
Activity One
This is a collage activity. We gave the participant a group of images and had them decide if they were necessary in their ideal Saturday night. After sorting, the participants would place pink stickers on the top unsafe items and green stickers on the safest items. We aimed to understand if the unsafe items generally landed in necessary or do not want.
Activity Two
This is a shopping list activity. We told participants they had unlimited money and could plan their ideal Saturday night. After doing this, they were told they only have a budget of $75.00 and needed to narrow down their lists. We aimed to understand what was truly important for them to have.
Activity Three
This is a modeling activity. We created a floorplan for an indoor and outdoor space. We also gave the participants different items, and the sticky notes were for extra items we did not provide. They were asked to create the ideal space for a Saturday night experience. Participants dragged in their items and then added in the characters to show how busy the scene would be. We aimed to understand the activities and business that would be present in their party scene.
AnalySis
Analysis
This image is a wide preview of all the analysis we did. We used Miro to get an on-the-wall experience even though we were virtual.
Activity One Analysis
Activity Two Analysis
Activity Three Analysis
Here’s a closer look!
We each took sticky notes and wrote in observations we thought were insightful.
Clustering
The best part of this analysis was clustering. We made groups, clusters, and buckets. Our three buckets were Activities, Atmosphere and Party-Goers.
Insights
After analyzing all of our data we picked out the key information we found. These were our key findings:
After this, we created four party personas to better format our findings. This allows others to understand what we learned from this research.
Party Persona One
This represents all the students who prefer a non-alcoholic Saturday night with friends. Safety isn’t high on the priority list since there isn’t much risk. The main goal is to have fun with friends.
Party Persona Two
This represents the students who like to go to host house parties. Safety is a main goal and top priority.
Party Persona Three
This represents the students who want to get wasted. Their goal is to drink and do drugs. Typically going to larger parties possibly hosted by frats. Safety is still of medium importance.
Party Persona Four
This represents the students who tend to hang out at bars and drink casually. Safety is of medium importance. Hanging out with fun people is top priority.
After creating personas, we created an app to help Ohio State students better navigate the party scene safely.
Initial Wireframes
Final Wireframes