MatchMate

Levelist

Idea

Developing a to-do list and agenda app specifically for university students to help them manage tasks more effectively. Our goal is to create a simple, engaging tool that uses gamification features—like streaks, rewards, and progress bars—to boost motivation and reduce procrastination.

To inform the design, we’re conducting user research through surveys, interviews, observations, and focus groups. These help us understand students’ current habits, pain points, and what they want in a productivity app. Early findings show a strong need for tools that are easy to use, keep users engaged, and make completing tasks feel more rewarding. This research will guide feature design, user personas, and app development.File:Example.jpg

The Project's Vision

We want to build an app that helps students form ideal project groups based on shared preferences, availability, and working styles. The app should be easy to use, inclusive, and flexible. It will guide users through the matching process using short questionnaires or inputs and return suitable partners they can contact directly or be matched with automatically. Our prototype will focus entirely on the user experience: input forms, result pages, and user flows. AI will be assumed to function in the background but will not be implemented

The Project's Goal

Our goal is to simplify and improve the process of forming project groups at universities. By offering a digital, user-friendly solution tailored to students’ preferences and academic needs, we aim to reduce group work stress and improve learning outcomes. To achieve this, we need to fully understand how students currently form groups, their frustrations, and what they expect from a better solution.

Contextual Inquiry

Preparation - Current Status of similar Solutions

Before developing a user-centered application, it is essential to analyze existing solutions that offer similar functionalities. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of comparable apps helps identify what already works well and, more importantly, where current tools fall short. This benchmarking process ensures that our app doesn't merely replicate existing features, but instead fills concrete gaps in functionality, usability, and user experience. By studying similar platforms, we gain valuable insights into best practices and potential pitfalls, allowing us to create a solution that is truly innovative, relevant, and tailored to the needs of students working in groups.

1. StudySmarter

• Use Case: Digital learning platform for students (offers flashcards, summaries, and group features)
• Similarities:
  • Offers collaboration features and study groups
  • Focused entirely on students and academic needs
  • Includes scheduling, shared resources, and goal setting
• Strengths:
  • Strong educational content creation and sharing tools
  • Large user base among students, tailored to academic progress
• Weaknesses:
  • No smart group matching (students join groups manually)
  • Collaboration features aren't deeply project-focused (more general studying)
  • No integrated task or role distribution within groups

2. TeamUp

• Use Case: Simple tool for organizing teams and managing availability
• Similarities:
  • Helps form and organize teams, manage schedules
  • Useful in both academic and casual contexts
• Strengths:
  • Very intuitive calendar-based interface
  • Good for seeing when team members are available
• Weaknesses:
  • Not designed specifically for university or academic group work
  • No intelligent matching (manual input only)
  • Lacks collaborative features like chat, file sharing, or task assignment

3. Tandem App (for Study Groups)

• Use Case: Originally for finding language exchange partners, but adapted for finding study partners/groups
• Similarities:
  • Focused on matching individuals based on interests, goals, and preferences
  • Designed for student collaboration
• Strengths:
  • Smart matching algorithm with profile preferences
  • Encourages meaningful connections and goal-based study sessions
• Weaknesses:
  • Not structured for project-based teamwork (no shared tasks, file exchange)
  • Less functional when it comes to organizing full teams or long-term collaboration
  • Mostly mobile and geared toward 1-on-1 interactions

The most relevant existing apps—StudySmarter, TeamUp, and Tandem, each offer useful elements such as content sharing, scheduling, or user matching. However, none of them fully support project-based group work in an academic setting. While StudySmarter excels at study material sharing, it lacks structured group matching; TeamUp handles scheduling well but is not tailored to academic collaboration; and Tandem offers user matching but is limited to one-on-one connections. Our app addresses this gap by combining intelligent group formation, task distribution, and collaboration tools specifically for university group projects.

Planning of the Contextual Inquiry

Goals & Objectives of the CI

We want to understand how students currently find and select group members for university projects. Our goal is to learn about their workflows, frustrations, needs, and wishes, so we can design a matching app that truly supports and improves this process.

Target Users We have two primary user types:

• Students
  • from different departments & levels (Bachelor & Master; Design, Business Psychology, Management, etc.)
  • Students with experience in forming or joining group projects
  • Form the core user base of the matching tool
  • Will offer insights into preferences, experiences, frustrations, and expectations
• Lecturers/Professors
  • Assign or supervise group work
  • Provide insights on what makes a group effective from an academic perspective

Recruitment of Participants

• We will contact students in our own networks (classmates, friends, students from other programs) and recruit via student group chats or email lists
• Target number of participants: 3 interviews (two students and one teacher/professor), at least 10 students for surveys

Activity We Want to Support We want to support the formation of effective student groups for coursework (projects, assignments, etc.) by building a digital tool that matches users based on preferences, availability, study style, and personality. The activity includes:

• Searching for potential teammates
• Evaluating compatibilityCommunicating initial expectations
• Forming and starting group work smoothly

Where and When Does the Activity Occur?

• The group formation usually happens at the beginning of the semester or project phase
• It often occurs:
  • In class (announcements)
  • Through university learning platforms
  • In informal online channels (WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack groups)
  • Via social media or word-of-mouth
• We can investigate it by:
  • Asking participants to show us how they currently do it (re-enactment)
  • Discussing their last group formation experience

Roles, Jobs, Tasks to Investigate

• Roles: Students looking for a group or recruiting members
• Tasks: Searching for partners, posting requests, evaluating candidates, agreeing on forming a group
• Problems: Identifying skills/availability, dealing with unreliability, coordinating first meetings

Methods and Techniques for Data Collection

• Interviews:
  • Semi-structured, guided by tailored interview guides
  • Conducted remotely via Teams (with permission for screen sharing if needed)
  • Audio recorded (with consent) + field notes
  • Duration: ~10–15 minutes
  • Materials:
    • Interview Guide – Students (Design & Business Psychology)
    • Interview Guide – Teaching Staff
    • Consent & explanation form (verbal or written)
• Survey:
  • Online questionnaire created with Google Forms or Typeform
  • Mix of Likert-scale, multiple choice and open-ended questions
  • Focus: group formation process, group challenges, preferences for future app
  • Duration: ~5 minutes

Duration & Documentation

• Interviews: ~10–15 minutes per session
• Survey: ~5 minutes
• Recording & Notes:
  • Teams recording (audio and screen, with consent)
  • Backup: written notes taken during/after session
  • All data anonymized
  • Raw results stored securely for team access

Interview Guidance & Procedure

We have created multiple procedures to follow for all of our observations depending on the participant of the interview. All interviews were conducted on Teams and the sessions were recorded with their permission.

Introduction (all the same) "Thanks so much for participating! We’re developing a new app that helps students find better matches for group work. We’d love to learn more about your experiences and preferences."

1. Would it be okay with you if we record our meeting today?

Procedure (Students)

1. What program are you studying and in which semester?
2. How often do you do group work in your classes?
3. What types of group work do you usually encounter (projects, presentations, case studies, etc.)?
4. How are groups usually formed in your courses (self-organized or assigned)?
5. What do you like or dislike about this process?
6. Have you ever had a particularly good or bad experience in a group? Can you describe it?
7. What kind of people do you prefer working with (e.g., similar work styles, same goals, same program)?
8. What qualities do you think are important for a successful group (e.g., communication, reliability, similar skill levels)?
9. Do you think it would help if a tool matched you with others based on interests, schedule, or work style?
10. If there were an app for finding group members, what features would be essential for you?
11. Would you be open to working with people from other study programs if you shared common interests or goals?
12. Do you see any risks or disadvantages with such an app?
13. Would you use such a matching app if it existed? Why or why not?

Procedure (Lecturer)

1. Can you briefly describe your role and the types of courses you teach?
2. How often do you use group work, and what’s usually the main purpose?
3. How do students currently form groups—do you assign them, let them choose, or both?
4. Did you experience like a difference in like the quality of the group work or the quality of the results?
5. Have you used any tools or platforms for this?
6. What are the biggest challenges you observe when students work in groups?
7. In your experience, what makes a student group work well?
8. If there were an app to help students find better group matches, what features would be helpful?
9. Would you want any control or insight into how groups are formed?
10. Any final thoughts or suggestions?

End "Thank you so much for your input and the time you took, we are very grateful for the insight you gave us! If you are interested in the results of our project, we would be happy to provide you with the final results of our project. Do you have any feedback for us or any further questions?

Survey Questions:

1. Are you a (university) student?
2. Which degree program are you enrolled in?
3. Which study program are you enrolled in?
4. What year of study are you in?
5. How do you usually find partners for group work?
6. How easy is it for you to find suitable partners?
7. Have you ever had problems in finding group members?
8. What do you look for in potential group partners?
9. How important would a matching app be for you in group projects?
10. Which features would you find useful in a group-matching app?
11. What is your biggest frustration when forming group projects?
12. If you could design the perfect group project tool, what would be the most important feature?

Results of the Contextual Inquiry

In total 3 interviews with two students, one design student, one business psychology student, and one interview with a professor were conducted. Using the interview guildeline these lasted from 25 to 40 minutes. Additionally 17 survey participants gave input for our results of the contextual inquiry. For an initial structuring of the results a table was created, separating the results into themes with insights, quotes from participants and implications for our Matching App.

(Sources of Quotes: S = Survey; D = Interview – Design Student; BP = Interview – Business Psychology Student; L = Interview – Lecturer)

The combined insights from the survey and interviews show that students face recurring issues in group work, most notably unequal contribution, low motivation, and poor communication. These frustrations were strongly reflected in both student interviews and open survey responses, where terms like “free-riders,” “lack of responsibility,” and “miscommunication” appeared repeatedly.

A second major issue is coordination and scheduling, with many students struggling to align availability. Both students and the lecturer emphasized the need for better early organization, including clear role division and planning.

Interestingly, while students often work with people they don’t know, many expressed openness to interdisciplinary collaboration, if goals, motivation, and work styles are aligned. This shows that match quality matters more than just studying the same subject.

The lecturer echoed these concerns, highlighting the need for better visibility into group dynamics and contribution levels without micromanaging.

Overall, there is strong demand for a tool that not only matches students based on key criteria but also supports ongoing collaboration, task distribution, and accountability. MatchMate directly addresses these gaps and offers meaningful value to both students and teaching staff.

Next Steps

Once all data from interviews and surveys had been collected, we analyzed the responses to identify recurring themes and patterns. By clustering key insights, we were able to draw connections between different users’ experiences, highlighting shared frustrations, expectations, and behavioral tendencies. We also paid attention to contextual factors such as the frequency and timing of group formation, as these aspects inform not only feature design but also the development of realistic user personas. This analysis gave us a clearer understanding of how students currently approach group work, what they value in the process, and where the greatest potential for improvement lies. These findings form the foundation for our design decisions moving forward

Personas

As a result of our contextual inquiry we created three persona, who represent our target groups. Two student personas and one lecturer persona, as they are identified as the most relevant users. For the creation of the personas, all available information out of the interviews and survey results were used in addition to fictional details to complete the profiles.

Persona 1: Prof. Dr. Maria Schulze

Persona 2: Julia – Design Bachelor Student

Persona 3: Max – Business Psychology Student

Scenarios

coming soon...

Requirements definition & Use Cases

Analyizing CI Findings

We collected requirements for MatchMate out of the contextual inquiry and categorized them into needs of user, wishes of users and ideas of users. Afterwards these requirements were priotitized into three categories:

• Relevant for current project (green)
• relevant, but out of scope for the current project (yellow)
• Not relevant for current project and out of scope (red)

While prioritizing, we focused on requiements that were cruicial for the initial group matching process, and set lower piority to requirements that were related to other aspects of the general process of group work.

Requirements Collection

Use Cases