BobCat Clubhouse!
The Brainchild of the student life group
Finally!! I’m actually pretty excited to write this entry becase I get to talk about what we actually created. After brainstorming, surveying, debating, creating numerous empathy maps and arguing over which font to use for what felt like forever, our team is proud to present our final solution:
Bobcat Clubhouse!
What is Bobcat Clubhouse you ask?
We determined that the reason that students were having trouble joining clubs was because there was no way to find exactly what they were looking for. We have over 400 clubs at Texas State University, but the navigation system used to find them is outdated and impractical. There are few keywords that you can search, and the search is only conducted by name, which discounts all of the clubs that are named something different than what you might be looking for. Many of the freshman I spoke to had wanted to join clubs, but didn’t know how to find information about a club that was related to something they were interested in. For example, the photography club is called Middle Grey, but there would be no way to find out about it unless you already knew the name of the club. And no one wants to spend hours clicking on and sifting through the lists of clubs on the Texas State Website, not to mention that it’s out of date.
Enter, Bobcat Clubhouse, a new section of the Texas State App that makes club search easier and more personal. It includes keyword search, a quiz to help users find their interests and then the clubs related to them, information about each club that is relevant and up to date, as well as a map that dispalys club events happening near you that is updated by club officials. All of these components would be easily found under the “clubhouse” section of the Texas State App, which will hopefully generate more user traffic for the app as well as make student involvement less intimidating and more accesable. Don’t have the app? Luckily, Bobcat Clubhouse will also be a feature of the Texas State Website, with all the same components and easily accessible sections to make club navigation easy and exciting.
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We want the students at Texas State to get motivated about joining their community, not be detterred from the club experience by disorganization. Finding a community should not have to be a chore, and we hope that with Bobcat clubhouse, we can offer students an easier way to feel at home as they navigate their way through the college experience.
Here is the link to our in depth presentation which includes a simplified version of the ideation process, as well as our prototype for Bobcat Clubhouse:
I genuinely hope that we can add this to the app, I think it could be very helpful to many students, new and returning.
As always, thank you for reading, and know that I’m rooting for you!
Best,
Emily
