Background
During the pandemic outbreak, we, students of the University of Primorska (UP), have found ourselves in an unpredictable situation. We were largely cut off from normal life, and we often felt scared, insecure, sad, unmotivated, stressed, lonely, and out of control.
Within the psychological support of UP, qualified psychologists from the faculty’s psychology department offer assistance to students in the form of in-person or remote sessions. Students had to write them an e-mail and describe the problems they were facing, after which a meeting would be scheduled.
Defining the problem
Even though writing an e-mail is preferred, it is still a back-and-forth way of communication that lacks responsiveness. Describing difficulties students are facing, and filling out forms is a repetitive, lengthy process in which students disclose their data every time they request a meeting. Even so, they risk missing a critical update on their meeting status and have no feedback on the past meetings.
Proposal and design
I felt that there was an opportunity to have a dedicated place to connect students and psychologists more easily. The idea for MeetUP, a mobile app that allows students to schedule meetings based on their preferences, surfaced. Throughout the app, students could request and schedule meetings by choosing from the pre-defined set of topics they would like to talk about, and when and where they want to talk about it.
Note: Due to confidentiality reasons, sensitive information such as the user data, as well as the research phase, cannot be shared publicly.
