Turning dorms, apartments, and off-campus housing into easily connected communities.

Because housing should be more than just a place to sleep.

Residents need a way to promote and discover community events and make connections, while streamlining conversation and organization.

Collaborators

Isha Khirwadkar

Hope Amend

Client App

Hangtight

Purpose

To curate an enjoyable community connection and event discovery experience

Date

April 2026 - June 2026

Date

April 2026

- June 2026

Tools

Figma

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 Overview

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.

User Research

Before we began designing our user flows, screens, and prototypes, we conducted a preliminary round of user interviews with undergraduate 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

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.

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.

Final User Testing

After developing high-fidelity prototypes of our screens, we conducted another round of interviews with undergraduate RAs and presented our designs to our primary stakeholder.

We decided to focus on these key pieces of feedback for our final redesign that we repeatedly heard from users and stakeholders:

  • Too visually dense and cluttered

  • The orange outline around mutual friends is unclear; easily lost

  • Want a way to expand a profile instead of having a follow button

  • Not aesthetically fun or youthful enough

  • Disliked the fonts

After

Before

Final Prototype

Pressing and holding a profile suggestion opens an expanded view with their bio, details, and a button to message.

Thicker orange rings around profiles who share the same circle improve engagement and promote close connections.

Newly designed cards provide a cleaner, more modern look and feel that aligns with the app’s youthful branding.

COGS 127: Date-Driven UX/Product Design provided a great opportunity to work on a project and a relevant case study that is actually beneficial when presenting a portfolio. Projects like these are among the best ways to make connections with classmates, practice your skills, and even work on your weaknesses.

Due to working within the constraints of the COGS 127 course, as well as my team choosing to do a client project, some challenges of the project included:

  • Fast timeline in accordance with course assignment deadlines and requirements

  • Conflicting needs of course/project requirements and best decisions for the client

  • Limited research scope (small sample size)

  • Large project scope (existing app with numerous tabs, features, screens & goals)