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Overview
Pin-it is a mobile application concept developed as part of HCDD 113 at Penn State University. The project was motivated by a shared observation among our four-person team: despite the prevalence of social media, many people — particularly those new to an area — struggle to form genuine local connections because existing platforms are not designed around physical proximity and shared context.
Our solution focuses on the relationship between place and people. By enabling users to leave location-anchored posts visible only to others in the same physical area, Pin-it lowers the barrier for organic social engagement without requiring a pre-existing network. I led the UI/UX design effort throughout the semester, culminating in a high-fidelity prototype delivered during the final weeks of the project.
Role
UI/UX Designer
Client
People who are looking for connection in new area
Duration
User research & system design - 3 months
Prototyping - 2 days
Year
Spring 2023
Problem
Most mainstream social platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat) operate on a network-first model: to benefit from the platform, a user must already have connections in place. For individuals entering a new environment (a new city, a new campus, a new neighborhood), this creates a structural barrier. Without a seed network in the local area, these platforms offer little value for genuine community-building.
Through our initial research and ideation phase, we identified four core gaps in the current social media landscape:
No 'starting connection' pathway
Users who arrive in a new area without existing contacts have no low-friction entry point to meet local people through current platforms.
Location-agnostic content feeds
Mainstream social platforms surface content based on algorithmic signals rather than physical proximity, making it difficult to discover what is happening locally.
High social anxiety threshold
Initiating contact with strangers online — even with shared interests — carries social risk that many users, particularly introverted individuals, find prohibitive.
Community-building gap
While local communities benefit from stronger social ties, there is currently no digital infrastructure purpose-built to facilitate casual, context-driven local connection.
Group Project Idea Selection.docxUser Research
Our research process consisted of four complementary methods: persona development, scenario analysis, video ethnography, and use case specification. Together, these informed a design grounded in real user needs rather than assumptions.
Persona
Shirley Kim, a college student who left to new state to pursue her degree in Statistics. As an introverted individual, Shirley finds it difficult to initiate social interactions outside of structured classroom settings. She frequently hopes that others will start conversations with her but rarely takes that first step herself.
Shirley represents a broadly applicable user archetype: approximately 31% of U.S. college students leave their home state to pursue a degree (Ethier, 2021), and many face similar challenges integrating into new social environments. The design challenge her persona presents — reducing the friction of conversation initiation — became a central driver of our solution.
Course Project Personas.docxScenario
Our primary scenario, 'Cookie and Shirley's Adventure to a Local Café,' explored a realistic use case in which Shirley attempts to find fellow cat owners in her area. The scenario illustrated how current tools — Instagram, campus community boards — fall short for users like Shirley, either because her social network is geographically anchored to her hometown, or because cold outreach to strangers on general platforms feels socially awkward and ineffective.
A secondary character, Megan — a retired resident new to the city — provided a cross-generational perspective on the same problem, highlighting that the challenge of local social connection is not exclusive to college students.
Group Project Scenarios.docxVideo Ethnography
Due to course constraints, our team conducted video ethnography using recorded media rather than live field observation. I analyzed a short documentary exploring how Post-it notes are used to communicate meaning across physical space — a reference that directly informed our concept of location-anchored digital posts.
Three key insights emerged from this analysis:
Location creates inherent context: A physical space carries its own meaning, and information placed within that space gains additional significance from its surroundings.
Stationary information can carry dynamic meaning: A note left in a specific place can communicate different things depending on who encounters it and when.
Presence is not required for communication: A person does not need to be physically present to deliver information or evoke a meaningful response — the artifact left behind can do that work.
These insights validated our core design direction: enabling users to leave location-specific posts that others in the same physical space can discover organically, without requiring direct interaction.
Video Ethnography.docxUse Case Specification
I analyzed the 'View/Discover Post' use case. Key design challenges identified in this analysis included:
Content scarcity
Because visible posts are constrained by the user's physical location, the system must address the risk of sparse content in low-density areas, particularly during early adoption.
Location consent friction
Sharing location is a prerequisite for core functionality, making the consent experience critical. Users who decline permission cannot use the app, so the prompt design must clearly communicate the value exchange.
Edge case handling
Scenarios such as invalid registration credentials, forgotten login information, and zero available posts in a given area all required explicit design consideration.
Group Project Use Case Specifications.docxHierarchical Task Analysis
Cognitive Demands Table
The accompanying Cognitive Demands Table surfaced two high-priority usability risks:
Parameter overload in search
Users presented with too many search fields may enter overly narrow queries that return no results. The recommended mitigation was a progressive disclosure model — a simple default search view with an optional 'Advanced Search' panel for power users, combined with system-suggested keyword corrections for potentially invalid inputs.
Ambiguity in post deletion
Users were unclear about the distinction between archiving a post and permanently deleting it. The recommended mitigation included distinct iconography with high-contrast labeling, a confirmation dialog prior to permanent deletion, and a clearly accessible 'Recently Deleted' folder to support recovery within a defined time window.
Group Project Cognitive Demands Table.docxGoal
Reduce the friction of social initiation by providing a location-based discovery mechanism that creates natural conversation starters without requiring users to cold-contact strangers.
Bridge the social and spatial dimensions of human connection by tying content discovery to physical presence, making local community membership a natural byproduct of using the app.
Strengthen community cohesion by creating a platform where local engagement is the primary value proposition, not a secondary feature.
Prototype
Version 1 - Low Fidelity Prototype
Initial wireframes were developed collaboratively by the full team to establish the core information architecture and navigation structure before committing to visual design decisions.
Version 2 - Mid-Fidelity Prototype (PowerPoint)
A mid-fidelity prototype was developed in PowerPoint by the full team (Daniela Ordaz, David Oke, Kenzy Kim, Nicholas Falletta) to simulate the core user flows in sufficient detail to support structured evaluation. This version was used as the basis for the guided walkthrough evaluation.
Group Project Prototype v.0.2.pptxVersion 3 - High Fidelity Prototype
I developed the high-fidelity prototype independently at the end of the semester, incorporating all feedback gathered during the guided walkthrough evaluation and peer input collected throughout the design process.
This version represented the final deliverable for the course and was presented during the end-of-semester class evaluation.
Evaluation
Guided Walkthrough Evaluation
A guided walkthrough was conducted using the Version 2 mid-fidelity prototype.
Three significant usability issues were identified from this session:
Navigation ambiguity in the sidebar
The 'Events' and 'Update' tabs were perceived as serving overlapping functions, and the relationship between sidebar navigation and the home screen's own navigation was unclear. Users could not reliably distinguish which tab would take them where.
Icon misinterpretation in post recovery
The icon used for the 'Restore Post' action was interpreted as 'Archive' rather than 'Recover,' leading to task failure. The root cause was a lack of one-to-one correspondence between the pictogram and the intended action.
Insufficient system feedback
Users lacked confidence at several points in the flow due to missing status messages and error states — for example, during image uploads, search operations, and destructive actions such as post deletion.
Group Project Guided Walkthrough Evaluation.docxImpact
Pin-it was presented to the class during the final evaluation session using an investment simulation model: each student was allocated a virtual budget of $25,000 and required to distribute investments across all presented projects, with written justification for each allocation. The project with the highest total investment was ranked first.
Pin-it received $150,000 in total investment, placing first among all projects in the cohort. This outcome validated both the relevance of the problem space and the clarity with which our team communicated the design rationale and user value proposition.
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