Stanford DAWT — “Does anyone want to?”

Social connection and interaction is decreasing throughout the world. In conversations with Stanford students who had studied abroad, a pattern emerged: they felt less socially connected on Stanford’s campus than they were abroad.

Students are hesitant to create new friendships after forming their social networks freshman year, feel constrained by Stanford’s demanding academic schedule, and feel that social experiences on campus lack spontaneity and adventure. Abroad, they felt more freedom and willingness to engage with new people.

I reached out to peers to find students who had studied abroad, then conducted interviews over the phone. Going in, I hoped to learn about the social experiences they had abroad and how they compared to their time on Stanford’s campus — what social activities happened abroad, and what Stanford students are missing when it comes to community and connection.

Ideas were plotted on two prioritization grids — cost versus impact, and ease of implementation versus potential for impact — to narrow the field. Three concepts rose to the top:

The selected idea — Adventure Drops — lets students state their activity and social preferences through a sign-up form. To mitigate unintended consequences around safety, students can sign up as a private group, student ID numbers are required at sign-up, and conversation prompts are included during activities so participants don’t only talk to people they already know.

The flow of the idea: users sign up on the app, the mission becomes available 24 hours prior, they arrive and follow prompts, and the mission is complete.

To test it, I built a working prototype: a Google Form served as the sign-up flow, a text blast sent 24 hours before mimicked the app notification, and printed notification prompts were handed to participants during testing. The app screens were designed and built with Lovable, accessible through a QR code.

Initially, my idea was that people would only sign up solo and get paired with strangers to make new friends — under the name “Adventure Drops.” After critique in class, I received valuable feedback that caused me to make changes.

I added the feature of signing up as a group of friends to reduce anxiety and potential safety hazards. I was also advised to change the name, with Stanford already having many platforms named “____ drop.” My peers really liked “DAWT: does anyone want to” from my other idea of a friend hotline, and suggested I use it for the activity drops concept instead — which I did.

After testing the prototype, I realized people may have a difficult time carrying a conversation for the entire length of the activity, which is why conversation prompts were added. I also added safety check-ins throughout the activity, so students have the option to leave if they feel uncomfortable or unsafe.

24 hours before testing, I texted participants details of where and when to meet and what to bring. The next day, they met at the meeting point and were prompted by paper instructions to bike to the campus Arizona Cactus Garden, where they walked and explored for 20 minutes. The activity continued with a prompt to go to Tressider for a snack and hang out — after that, participants were free to leave whenever they desired.

Throughout testing I observed how users reacted to the activity. This group was eager to engage and connect with the other participants, and expressed excitement and curiosity towards the spontaneity and adventure of the activity.

I enjoyed this experience because I got to explore the process of needfinding into making and testing a prototype. The initial insight was that Stanford is lacking social experiences that are spontaneous and adventurous, and it is difficult to engage in these activities due to demanding school schedules.

Through my testing, I believe the prototype accomplished the goal of creating a spontaneous and adventurous activity. However, I do not think it successfully navigated around the issue of the demanding academic schedule at Stanford — it was difficult to get participants who were willing to sign up, likely due to demanding schedules. I am also curious how the activity would have run if I was not there: throughout the activity, participants defaulted to me to lead them through it, rather than the prompts I had given them.