Description
Same Boat is a community-based platform that connects recent college graduates through shared interests and life skills they want to learn. Users are grouped together through a family system, which provides them with a built-in support network and helps foster accountability and community.
Date: April 2020
Collaborators: Batool Naqvi, Marissa Fong, Kyle Atkinson, Rupa Duggirala
My Contributions: Figma prototype, ideation and design, research and testing
Interactive prototype
Motivation
As college students about to graduate, my team faced a shared sense of uncertainty about transitioning to life after college. We realized that many of our peers shared similar concerns about moving to new cities, starting careers, living independently and building meaningful lives. This common experience inspired us to explore how we might help young adults navigate life and address challenges such as:
Developing life skills like cooking, fitness and maintaining a healthy lifestyle
Managing finances and housing
Building and sustaining friendships
Finding purpose and pursuing fulfilling careers and hobbies
These conversations highlighted that many of us felt alone, despite sharing the same worries. This realization led us to our central question: How might we help young adults navigate life and foster relationships after graduation? We reframed this into a design challenge: How might we enable young adults to learn life skills while building a support system?
We conducted a survey of twenty graduating seniors to better understand what they care about. Key findings included:
Cooking, fitness and exploring new cities ranked highest.
80% of respondents expressed concerns about their social lives after graduation.
90% were open to participating in group-based experiences.
These insights helped us focus on building a platform that facilitates both skill development and social connection. We learnt that figuring out life on your own can be difficult and tedious, and sought to connect people based on the skills they want to acquire. From these findings, we developed three core user personas and designed for them.
We began with brainstorming sessions and a design sprint informed by our survey data. Through post-it note exercises, we clustered ideas into categories and developed low-fidelity mockups of major app features. We discovered that while addressing deep existential concerns about purpose was beyond the scope of an app, teaching actionable life skills was feasible. This realization guided our focus toward practical, community-driven learning experiences.
Our solution is a design prototype of a community-based platform that connects users through shared interests and life skills they want to learn. The core of this is a family system called Crews, which provides users with a built-in support network to foster accountability and community. Moving to a new city can be isolating. Crews provide a ready-made support system where members can participate in curated events and workshops, learn practical life skills together, and build meaningful friendships.
Key Features:
Crew Matching: Users are grouped into Crews based on mutual interests and desired skills.
Verified Community: Users must verify their identity through a school or enterprise ID for added safety.
Curated Experiences: Partner with companies like MasterClass, Skillshare, and Airbnb Experiences to offer workshops, events, and learning opportunities.