Final Student Project
covid2thecurb
At the beginning of NDP, our team had to brainstorm ideas about issues revolving around us and our community. A lot of our ideas were the following:
- We wanted cambridge citizens to get active and better our community as a whole
- We hadn’t seen a lot of local businesses near us
- We wanted more local connections places like libraries or local coffee shop, and some more socially distanced community projects such as cleaning up our parks and our lakes.
We quickly noticed that the reason why these were happening was due to the lack of social connections!
TEAM 10
Edlawit
Jaelyn
Prionti
Joshua
Coach
Dan Vlahos
Mentors
Ifrah Yousuf
Josh Kery
ISSUE DEFINITION
What is the issue?
We’ve noticed a lack of social bonds in our Cambridge community due mainly to COVID-19.
Why is it important?
Community and these social relationships are essential to us as an outlet for our mental health, but also as relationships we can rely on. Community is what unites us. Community makes us a part of a bigger thing. A sense of belonging.
RESEARCH
Summary
We individually conducted interviews all with similar formats.
Through these interviews, we were able to dig a little deeper with specifically those around us, and see how COVID had individually affected them.
We also sent out a survey to 56 people.
Insights
- A lot of people have been affected by the lack of social bonds
- They’re interested in promoting safe, but fun activities
- They’re interested in restoring communication among Cambridge residents
- People are looking for ways to reconnect
Smaller, more frequent community gatherings that are free and not overly influenced by networking, social issues, or commerce.
Cambridge needs to use an equity lens when allocating resources and making policy decisions. It needs to create healing spaces focused on racial equity and specifically address the harm done by members of our community who have privilege.
I already promote activities quite frequently, I have less time to participate in them outside of my job because I have too many family/home responsibilities to be able.
DEFINE
The point of our projects is to
- To have an access point for Cambridge residents regarding social gatherings,
- information about COVID 19
- resources for teens and families.
Why are we doing this?
So that we can connect the Cambridge residents together again after the hit of COVID through social interactions, all while supporting them through any other problems they may have.
IDEATION
Creating a website
- Advertise for small businesses
- Advertise virtual and in-person events
- Keep it’s viewers “In the Know”
- What’s happening with COVID
- How to encourage safety along with having fun
Coordinating with the City of Cambridge for the following
- Block parties
- City clean ups
- Film screenings
We were also thinking of creating a range of social media platforms for easier access
- Although it won’t contain as much information as the website, it would be a great way for an easy access to get that front-line basic information
PROTOTYPES
Initial Prototype
Testing & Reiteration
- Our original prototype lacked specificity and information
- We had people try to navigate going down through the slide, but with the format, or lack thereof, they weren’t able to navigate through it easily. By accepting the feedback from our first prototype, we first created dropdown menus for the general subjects of “Events,” “About,” and “Resources,” on the top of the page. Doing so simplified navigating through the website.
- Most of the other feedback was about changing the way our information was on the page. Using that feedback, we came up with our next prototype…
Final Prototype
When I had my friends test our second prototype, only minor changes needed to be made, such as outlining the dropdown menus, and adding images to increase visual aesthetics.
Main Features & How We Incorporated Feedback
- Hotline on bottom of page
- Dropdown menu: By underlining the dropdown menu in usage, we show the user that they’re using the feature
- Pictures: We tried using bright and clear images to add to the aesthetics
REFLECTION
- What would we do differently?
- Using our time better to be able to finalize other parts of the project
- What do we like about our project?
- The colors scheme and how they work well together with out images
- What do we wish we could do with the project?
- Have others use our template to spread information about important things as charities, wellness, education, etc.
NEXT STEPS
- Use a website creator, such as Wix, to turn it real and make it usable
- We would like to talk to other nonprofits and see how they work out budgeting, because if we were to start finalizing and planning actual events, we would need a way to get that money.
- We would also talk to similar people doing projects like us, for insight.
