FetchUW

An all in one app to manage your club and connect with students.

Role

UX/UI Designer

Industry

Education

Timeline

3 months

How might we centralize UW Registered Student Organization outreach and communication to enhance relationship satisfaction with students?

The Problem

HuskyLink, the official RSO database, is outdated, cluttered, and unreliable. Promoting clubs on Instagram and Discord is labor-intensive and inaccessible to students without social media.

My Solution

We designed FetchUW, a mobile app that centralizes RSO management and student engagement. Clubs can easily promote events, track memberships, and communicate with students all in one place.

This project was created for INFO 360: Design Methods in a team of 5. In this project, I engaged in user interviews, surveys, and usability testing.

The Problem

HuskyLink, the official RSO database, is outdated, cluttered, and unreliable. Promoting clubs on Instagram and Discord is labor-intensive and inaccessible to students without social media.

My Solution

We designed FetchUW, a mobile app that centralizes RSO management and student engagement. Clubs can easily promote events, track memberships, and communicate with students all in one place.

This project was created for INFO 360: Design Methods in a team of 5. In this project, I engaged in user interviews, surveys, and usability testing.

Meet

FetchUW

Interest Tags

Select topics (aka tags) you’re interested in during sign up
Algorithm uses tags to suggest students RSOs and events that are aligned with their unique interests
Helps facilitate student-RSO connection and discovery

Integrated Event Planning

Plan and promote in one place
Integrated room booking
Integrated event RSVPs
Set: event name, date/time, maximum attendees, and require RSVPs

Student Messaging

Quickly ask RSO leaders questions
Send cool opportunities to friends
Create a social network for campus and student life

RSO Messaging

Quickly answer student questions
Efficiently send updates and changes to events
Facilitate collaboration with other RSOs

Discovery

Find events and register with ease
Discover new clubs by category and filters

Profiles

Your interests, friends, events, and clubs all in one
Centralized hub for an RSO’s information

View Prototype

Interviewing student club leaders

We conducted 3 semi-structured in person interviews with leaders from administration, a large membership-based RSO, and a smaller non-member RSO to understand frustrations with current tools.

Role / Organization	Pull Quote	Key Takeaways
Associate Vice President, Student Life	“There are campuses using tech and AI to recommend opportunities based on student interests. These are becoming more popular on campuses.“	Emphasized limitations of HuskyLink, which most RSOs don’t use for outreach. Suggested AI-driven platforms could improve student engagement by recommending relevant activities based on individual interests.
Outreach Coordinator, Hiking Club	“A centralized tool would be incredibly useful to the club IF widely adopted across campus. It would save officers time and improve accessibility.“	Emphasized need for widely adopted platform. Make outreach more accessible to students without social media. Recommended integrating club registration to improve efficiency.
Editor-in-Chief, The Garden of Ideas Club	“We need to reach non-members with event ads. Live updates and event booking integration would be a huge benefit.“	Highlighted the challenges faced by smaller non-member RSOs. Emphasized need for system with real-time updates and easy event management.

Role / Organization

Pull Quote

Key Takeaways

Associate Vice President, Student Life

“There are campuses using tech and AI to recommend opportunities based on student interests. These are becoming more popular on campuses.“

Emphasized limitations of HuskyLink, which most RSOs don’t use for outreach.

Suggested AI-driven platforms could improve student engagement by recommending relevant activities based on individual interests.

Outreach Coordinator, Hiking Club

“A centralized tool would be incredibly useful to the club IF widely adopted across campus. It would save officers time and improve accessibility.“

Emphasized need for widely adopted platform.

Make outreach more accessible to students without social media.
Recommended integrating club registration to improve efficiency.

Editor-in-Chief, The Garden of Ideas Club

“We need to reach non-members with event ads. Live updates and event booking integration would be a huge benefit.“

Highlighted the challenges faced by smaller non-member RSOs.

Emphasized need for system with real-time updates and easy event management.

33 UW students shared their thoughts on HuskyLink

We conducted a user survey via Google Forms, gathering 33 responses from current undergraduate students at UW through snowball and convenience sampling to understand student experiences with current RSO discovery and management tools.

2.6/5 - effectiveness of HuskyLink
4.2/5 - effective of social media for finding clubs and events
3.6/5 - likelihood to use an RSO search app

Survey participants found HuskyLink ineffective for discovering clubs and events, highlighting widespread dissatisfaction with the platform.

Students said…

“I can never find any clubs that actually interest me on there/there isn’t relevant information for the clubs.”
“I have used the RSO database once and it was not really up to date.”
“I didn’t even know it existed.”
“It works, but it’s overwhelming and sometimes info isn’t updated”
“A lot of RSOs that I found on the database were outdated and no longer had regular meetings”

Usability Testing

We conducted in-person and remote usability tests with 7 UW students (3 students, 4 RSO leaders) to validate our design decisions and gather qualitative feedback. Our goal was to identify pain points in navigation, language, and feature accessibility to inform iterative design improvements.

RSO leaders tested admin-specific features like creating posts, events, and leadership openings.

Students tested features like saving events, browsing RSOs, and checking notifications.

Tested Interface	Final Design
Users were confused by the icons for Feed and RSO Page	We adopted more intuitive icons (home and search)
Confusion over “Save Post Draft” vs “Save New Post” Users weren’t sure if their actions were completed	Changed button language from “Save New Post” to “Post” Improved clarity and action feedback
Uncertainty for what the “Search” button would search for Button language seemed unrelated to task of searching for room availability	Changed button language from “Search” to “Search Availability” Clarify function
Unified feed mixed too many post types (events, updates, opportunities) Users felt overwhelmed with information overload Users wanted to filter content but found filter button hard to locate	Introduced tab-based feed navigation (General, Events, Open Positions) for quicker access Moved topic-based filters (cooking, diversity) into separate filter icon Simplified visual hierarchy for easier scanning

Researching the Problem

Student clubs are important.

Involvement in student organizations significantly enhances psychosocial development, including purpose, educational engagement, career planning, and cultural participation (x). Campus clubs play a crucial role in helping first-generation and minority students thrive beyond academics (x). However, inaccessible or unclear information can discourage potential members and damage club credibility (x)

What's wrong with HuskyLink?

Screenshot	Description
	Empty screens
	Broken links
	Limited filters

User Personas

Using findings from my expert interviews and user survey, we developed user personas that represent FetchUW’s target audience, ensuring the design addresses both student engagement and club management needs.

Persona	Goals & Pain Points
Charlie, an introverted freshman at UW.	Goals: Charlie wants to easily discover clubs that align with her interests and help her build a sense of community on campus. Pain Points: Limited time to search for clubs. Frustrated by HuskyLink’s outdated and unintuitive interface.
Jo, a senior at UW and president of Hiking Club.	Goals: Jo wants a more efficient way to manage the club’s 100+ active members, streamline event promotion, and improve communication with students. Pain Points: Spends too much time managing outreach across 5+ platforms. Struggles with decentralized, inefficient tools.

Persona

Goals & Pain Points

Charlie, an introverted freshman at UW.

Goals: Charlie wants to easily discover clubs that align with her interests and help her build a sense of community on campus.

Pain Points: Limited time to search for clubs. Frustrated by HuskyLink’s outdated and unintuitive interface.

Jo, a senior at UW and president of Hiking Club.

Goals: Jo wants a more efficient way to manage the club’s 100+ active members, streamline event promotion, and improve communication with students.
Pain Points: Spends too much time managing outreach across 5+ platforms. Struggles with decentralized, inefficient tools.