Spring 2026

Date & discipline

Human-Centred Design

Cooped Up

Cooped Up

Cooped Up

Cooped Up — final app design

A campus social-planning app that brings weather, shared schedules and local information together to help students make plans.

Cooped Up

overview

Cooped Up grew from a group investigation into how weather affects everyday life at Imperial. Surveys, weather diaries and interviews showed how changing conditions could disrupt routines and discourage students from socialising. We developed an app concept that uses shared availability, forecasts and campus information to make planning with friends easier.

The project moved from research and concept selection to three interactive prototypes, task-based testing and a multi-day live trial. User feedback and usage data shaped the final planning flow, calendar, map and sharing features. The three documents below trace that process from discovery to the final presentation.

deliverables

Human-Centred Design

UX / UI Design

Interactive Prototyping

User Testing

01 — Discovery & research

Understanding how weather shapes student routines, social life and the use of campus spaces.

Cooped Up — Discovery report, page 1
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about

We surveyed 54 Imperial students, collected daily weather diaries from 15 participants over two weeks, and used interviews and observations to explore the experiences behind those responses. Affinity mapping, personas and journey maps helped us identify recurring issues around preparation, comfort, movement and missed opportunities to socialise.

The research informed 55 initial ideas, which we evaluated before developing three directions: Cooped Up, a weather-aware wardrobe app and outdoor desks. Cooped Up was selected for further development because it addressed the social barriers identified in the research. The report also recognises the limits of a study conducted mostly in wet weather and with many first-year participants.
View discovery report (PDF) ↗

02 — Development & delivery

Turning the selected concept into an interactive app through co-design, prototype comparisons and live testing.

Cooped Up — Delivery report, page 1
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about

Card-ranking sessions helped prioritise shared calendars, useful weather information and low-effort planning. We then compared three interactive prototypes with different visual styles, navigation and event-creation flows. Task-based testing showed which features were useful in practice, guiding a simpler planning process and clearer access to availability and weather.

A multi-day trial with 10 users recorded 37 messages and 27 friendships, but no map interactions. Eight participants said they could see themselves using the app in daily life; two were reluctant to add another messaging platform. These findings led to a redesigned map, clearer calendar, more flexible time slots and off-platform sharing, followed by further testing with five returning participants.
View delivery report (PDF) ↗

03 — Final presentation

Communicating the design journey and showing how research and testing shaped the final experience.

Cooped Up — final presentation, slide 1
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Cooped Up — final presentation, slide 9
Cooped Up — final presentation, slide 10

about

The presentation brings the project into one narrative: the weather-related barriers students described, the concept we selected, and the evidence that changed the design. It shows how card ranking, contrasting prototypes and live usage data helped us move beyond initial preferences to understand what people actually found useful.

The final flow brings friends’ availability and weather information into choosing an activity, time and place, then sending an invitation. Calendar improvements, a revised map and more flexible sharing support that journey. The presentation closes by showing how these features bring weather and timetable information into one social-planning experience.
View final presentation (PDF) ↗

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