Turning dorms, apartments, and off-campus housing into connected communities.
— Because housing should be more than just a place to sleep.
Overview
Hangtight
Hangtight is a resident engagement platform that brings together student resident connection, involvement, and resident management, all in one place. From small RA groups to large properties, Hangtight scales seamlessly for on-campus dorms and off-campus student housing to keep residents in the loop and help staff drive better retention.
Project Scope
In this client project, our team of 3 students will work collaboratively with Hangtight's founders and stakeholders to improve user engagement and connection across on- and off-campus residential communities. Residents using Hangtight struggle to discover who is in their community and how to connect with them. We aimed to help students and residential assistants overcome barriers that prevent members of a living community from feeling supported, connected, and engaged with one another by giving them the tools to do so.
Residents need a way to promote and discover community events and make connections, while streamlining conversation and organization.
New ways to find friends on Hangtight.
Users noted that they primarily saw Hangtight as a messaging platform.
So, we added a People Hub.
Expand on groups that interest you to find real links to people within your community or related to it.
Discover circles that may be relevant to your mutual friends, interests, or living community.
Circle-based networking keeps privacy and community in mind while making it easier to make connections.
A new, focused People Hub.
With Hangtight, it’s supposed to be about building community.
And to do that, you need a page devoted to community; more specifically, to People.
Enter a name, search by interest, or view a suggested filter.
Users can view friend suggestions based on hobbies, and quickly identify if someone’s in their housing Circle by the glowing orange ring around their profile.
Find people who share your hobbies and are already in your Circle.
Or — find people who aren’t. Get suggestions for friends of friends, related circles, and more.
User Research
Before we started designing our user flows, screens, and prototypes, we conducted a preliminary round of user research with undergraduate students and resident assistants to understand how they use messaging platforms to communicate and build community. This allowed us to gain insight into which features help with increasing engagement and involvement, and which aren’t working.
“When organizing events, the RA struggles to track RSVPs, interest, or feedback…”
— Interview 1
“Many struggle to find people on the platform or are not aware of the networking features.”
— Interview 2
“Connecting people based on personality, interests, and even mood is appealing.”
— Interview 3
Before we started designing our user flows, screens, and prototypes, we conducted a preliminary round of user research with undergraduate students and resident assistants to understand how they use messaging platforms to communicate and build community. This allowed us to gain insight into which features help with increasing engagement and involvement, and which aren’t working.
What Hangtight wants to serve as:
A social connection and event engagement app for residential communities.
How users are currently using the app:
A logistical messaging and communication tool for resident events or conferences.
After
