At the beginning of the week, in class, we decided to focus our persona on interpersonal connections within the context and circumstance of university students. We unanimously decided that in order to better understand the problem, the pain points, and in order to develop our Persona, we needed to interview a few more people and focus our interview questions a bit more.
Our interviewees this week:
Nell who is currently in her 3rd year of Biotechnology and Engineering at TAU.
Lidor, a 24 year old female and is in her third year of Communications and Political Science and first year of her Master's degree in Political Science.
Gabriella, a 26 year old female who recently began her Masters degree in Clinical Child Psychology at RU.
Some questions from the interviews included:
Our goal was, by the end of the week, to be able to describe who our Persona is, and formulate our "How might we" question using the Design Thinking Methodology.
A few insights, quotes, needs and challenges that stood out to us from the interviews this week included:
Needs:
The need to feel confident, wanted, loved, cared for, listened to and understood. The need to feel that our presence is meaningful. The need for all of the above to be reciprocated and mutual.
Challenges:
The challenge of approaching and initiating an interaction.
The challenge of trusting somebody new, reading the social situation and fitting in.
Overcoming the challenge of feeling physically sub-conscious, over-aware, over thinking.
The challenge of feeling lonely within the social context, and the challenge of dealing with the dissonance of fitting in but at the same time also being true to yourself.
How Might We:
“How might we help Yuval Shalom feel more comfortable in social situations amongst peers in the University setting, in order for her to have meaningful connections.”
