User Journey Map and Stakeholder Matrix

At the beginning of the project, we mapped the experiences of both local and international students.

We compared their actions and emotions across key moments of university life.

The goal was to understand where interactions happen naturally and where opportunities for connection are missing.

These initial insights guided the following research phases and helped us refine our project direction.

Semi Structured Interviews (SSI)

After the initial journey map, we conducted semi-structured interviews with three different perspectives: international students, local students, and an Expert (people connected to the International Office).

The goal was to understand how local and international students experience social connection differently: where they meet, what makes interaction easier or harder, and what prevents international students from entering existing local communities.

We used a semi-structured format, so we had prepared questions, but we also allowed the conversation to stay open and follow the participant’s real experiences.

From the interviews, we found that international students often want to connect with locals, but they face barriers such as language, lack of information, not knowing where to go, and low confidence when joining existing groups. Local students, on the other hand, usually already have established routines, friends, and activity-based communities.

This helped us shift the project focus from simply “meeting people” to understanding how international students could discover, access, and confidently join existing local activities.

International interviews:

Opening

Tell me about yourself and your life here as a student: where are you from, what do you study, how long have you been here?

Why did you choose to do Erasmus? Was it social reasons, academical reasons? What are your expectations from this experience?

Social world

Walk me through a typical week socially: who do you see, where do you go? what are your favorite places to hang out?

Who makes up your main social circle right now? Where are they from? How did those people come into your life (through ESN, housing, class?)

How important is it to you personally to connect with local students?

Contact with locals

Do you have any local students in your circle, even loosely? (if yes →) How did you meet? Is it a one-on-one relationship or in a group? Do you speak the same language or is it in English? (if no →) do you feel like you are missing out? what do you think makes it difficult to connect?

Think of a specific time you actually talked to or spent time with a local student. Walk me through what happened exactly. What was going through your mind during that interaction. did anything feel awkward or were you comfortable?

Did it lead anywhere, or did it stay at that one interaction?

Closing

Anything I didn't ask that feels important?

Local Interviews:

Opening

Tell me about yourself and your life here as a student: how long have you been here, what do you study, where do you live?

Social world

Walk me through a typical week socially: who do you see, where do you go, what are your favorite places to hang out?

Who makes up your main social circle right now? How did those people come into your life (through uni, neighborhood, childhood?)

Do you have any international or Erasmus students in that circle, even loosely? (if yes →) How did you meet? Is it a one-on-one relationship or in a group? Do you speak the same language, or is it in English? (if no →) what do you think makes it difficult to connect? do you think you are missing out?

Contact with internationals

Do you have Erasmus or international students in your classes or building? What's your general impression of them: do they keep to themselves, do they try to mix?

Think of a specific time you actually talked to or spent time with an international student. Walk me through what happened exactly.

Did it lead anywhere, or did it stay at that one interaction?

Closing

Anything I didn't ask that feels important?

Expert Interview:

Opening

Could you briefly introduce yourself and your role at the International Office?

How long have you been working with international students?

What kind of interaction do you usually have with students?

Understanding the Current System

What kinds of activities or support systems currently exist for international students?

Which activities usually attract the most participation?

Who usually joins these events?

Are local students also involved sometimes?

From your experience, how do international students usually build their social circles?

What patterns do you notice between local and international students?

Where do interactions between them usually happen?

Are there situations where interaction happens more naturally???

Barriers

What difficulties do you observe when it comes to connections between local and international students?

Are there groups who participate less often?

What usually prevents deeper interaction?

Have students ever shared frustrations or difficulties with you?

Can you remember a specific example?

Existing Events

Which types of events work best in your opinion?

Which events tend to attract the same people repeatedly?

Are there students who seem interested but rarely participate?

What makes participation difficult sometimes?

Opportunities & Reflection

Have you ever seen a moment where local and international students connected really naturally?

What made that situation work?

If you could change one thing in the current system, what would it be?

What kind of interaction do you think is currently missing?

Closing

Is there anything important we didn’t ask about?

Is there something students experience that people usually overlook?

Would you recommend speaking to anyone else?

Cultural Probe(Social Constellation)

After the interviews, we wanted to understand local students’ social lives in a more visual and personal way. Instead of only asking them to describe their friendships, we designed a cultural probe called The Social Constellation.

Participants mapped the activities that shape their everyday life, such as university, work, sports, hobbies, volunteering, and social events. Around each activity, they placed the people they usually meet through it and added symbols to describe what each relationship means to them.

The goal was to see how local students’ social worlds are structured and where international students might realistically fit in. This method helped us understand that local students are not necessarily missing more people. Their social lives are already active, but they are organized around meaningful recurring activities.

The probe showed that friendships often emerge through repeated participation, shared interests, and friends-of-friends networks. This confirmed our direction: instead of designing forced networking, we should design ways for international students to discover and enter existing activity-based communities.

"How might we" question

Based on the insights from our interviews, journey mapping, and cultural probe, we formulated a “How might we” question to guide the next phase of the project.

A How Might We question helps translate research findings into an open design challenge. 

How might we

ACTION

WHAT

for WHOM

in order to CHANGE SOMETHING

The aim is not to describe a final solution, but to frame the opportunity in a way that is focused enough to guide ideation, while still open enough to allow different possible concepts to emerge.

How might we help international students discover, access, and confidently join existing local communities and activities?

For us, the important part of this question is that it does not start from creating a completely new social space. Instead, it focuses on the communities and activities that already exist. The three words discover, access, and confidently join became important because they describe the steps international students need to go through before a real connection can happen.

We kept the question open on purpose. The answer could become an event, a tool, a game format, a guide, a buddy system, or something else. What mattered was that the solution should support connection through shared activities, rather than forcing people to network directly.

Ideation Workshop

The ideation workshop was designed to collaboratively transform our research insights into potential service concepts. Rather than starting from assumptions, the workshop built directly on the barriers identified through interviews, the cultural probe, and our „How Might We“ question.

The workshop followed the logic of the Double Diamond, moving from understanding the problem to exploring and developing possible solutions. Each activity was designed to gradually guide participants from reflecting on root causes to generating, evaluating, and refining ideas together.

To encourage equal participation between local and international students, the workshop combined individual reflection, pair discussions, collaborative voting, and concept development. This structure ensured that every participant could first express their own perspective before negotiating ideas as a group.

The workshop consisted of five main stages:

Welcome and creative warm-up

Understanding barriers using the 5 Whys and reformulating them into How Might We questions

Individual and collaborative idea generation

Voting and selecting promising concepts

Concept development using an Idea Napkin

Throughout the workshop, visual templates, structured worksheets, and facilitation prompts were used to support discussion, maintain focus, and encourage participants to build upon each other's ideas.

By the end of the workshop, participants had generated multiple service ideas addressing different barriers. Through discussion and voting, the most promising concept was selected and further developed into a structured service proposal.

The final concept evolved into a Game Night service, designed as a playful entry point for international students to naturally connect with local students. Instead of creating another networking event, the concept encourages meaningful interaction through shared activities, lowers the social pressure of first encounters, and helps international students gradually enter existing social communities. To increase motivation, participants compete in teams throughout the evening, with the winning team receiving a university sports voucher, creating an additional incentive for participation while keeping the primary focus on social connection.

Prototyping

After the ideation workshop, we selected the Game Night concept and started turning it into a first service prototype. The aim was to create a low-pressure activity where local and international students could interact naturally through teamwork, playful challenges, and shared goals.

The prototype was developed as a complete event format, including a run sheet, team structure, game rounds, scoring system, materials, budget, and final reward. The idea was not only to make students meet once, but to create a bridge toward existing local activities. For this reason, the prize was designed as a group sports voucher, encouraging the winning team to continue meeting after the event.

To make the concept more adaptable, we also designed an AI-supported service system. Participants would first fill in a Google Form with basic information such as language, interests, comfort level, and activity preferences. This data would then be used by an AI prompt/game generator to create mixed teams, customized game rounds, and a host run sheet.

In this way, the prototype combines a fixed event structure with flexible content. The goal, format, and design logic remain stable, while the questions, rounds, team formation, and activity suggestions can change depending on the participants.