Summary of your user analysis methods
The interview protocol consisted of questions that were aimed towards getting an understanding of the interviewee’s definition of gratitude and how they express gratitude at Wellesley College. All our participants were Wellesley college seniors and the interviews were conducted in dorms, dining halls, and over zoom. All interviewers knew the interviewees prior to the interview and were majoring in various different fields. Although we tried to maintain a neutral stance in the interview, we predicted that our target demographic (~21-23 year olds) would express gratitude through some form of social media and relate their experiences of gratitude to their friendships on campus. Thus, we directed our questions towards the end of the interview to inquire about how they use specific social media platforms to engage and interact with their friends. We also asked questions regarding their concerns about maintaining friendships after graduation to get a sense of some difficulties our interviewees may envision encountering regarding gratitude practices.
Key takeaways
Among current Wellesley seniors, we noticed that many of them maintain frequent communication with their on-campus friends. As such, before conducting interviews and observations, we hypothesized that seniors find it challenging to maintain friendships/ relationships that they discovered through the Wellesley community. When asked about their expectations for maintaining communication after graduation, all our interview subjects expressed that they were worried about long distance friendships. Not seeing friends in-person can make it more challenging to express appreciation and gratitude. This might be exacerbated by busy schedules or differences in time zones. More surprisingly, interviewees were worried about how conversations with their friends would be shallow after they graduated, since they no longer would be seeing their friends on a regular basis and would be living their own separate lives. However, the picture is not completely bleak—those who have Wellesley alum friends noted that they were still able to keep in touch, albeit less frequently.
Upon reflection on our interviews and interview protocol, we realized that we could have benefitted from structuring our questions a bit differently, and focusing more on how gratitude specifically plays a role in the challenge to maintain relationships. Some of the interviewers were seniors and they may have felt that we already identified with the audience and made assumptions and that may have influenced the interview protocol.
Determining a problem
A common problem that we identified through our interviews is that many seniors at Wellesley are worried about losing the friendships/relationships that they have created upon graduation. Many of our interviewees were very passionate about the relationships they’ve made on campus and are “appreciative of the growth” (Interviewee 1) they underwent together. Since many seniors experienced a semester away from Wellesley during Covid-19, many recount their experiences reuniting on campus with relief and immense happiness. Given the strong bond that the seniors have evidently established on campus, many of them, like Interviewee 3 who intends on living in the West Coast upon graduation, are concerned about “time zone challenges”, and the inability to sustain conversations that go beyond “simple, shallow conversations”. Hence, our population could lose opportunities to communicate gratitude to their Wellesley community.
Developing Personas
Gemma
Gemma is an economics major moving to New York City after graduation. As an introvert and anticipating a busy schedule at her job, she worries if she will be able to keep in touch with her friends, especially those in different time zones around the world. She feels that she will struggle with finding time to reach out on her own.
Ava
Ava is an extrovert and majoring in Psychology. She is going to take a gap year to apply to medical school. As a social person she wants to connect with her community and spend as much time with her friends as possible. She is someone who likes using all types of social media.