Shipped
500K+ Users
Breaking Solitude: Designing Connection on Campus
How I created a digital safe space for 500,000+ college students across the United States so that they could discover more events, expand their circles, and feel less alone.
DURATION
Feb 2024-Present
ROLE
Lead UI/ UX Designer
TOOLS
Figma, Miro, Qualtrics
TEAM
Growth, Engineers, Interns, CEO
Solving for Belonging: Vulnerability, Loneliness, and the Cost of Exclusivity
Students arrive on campus at one of the most vulnerable points in their lives, and while college is often framed as “the best years,” for many it becomes a time of isolation.
65%
of college students report feeling lonely (Active Minds, 2024)
44%
of students report symptoms of depression (Healthy Minds Study, 2022).
“Loneliness is a clear factor in the well‑being of college students… our data reveals not just statistics but narratives of isolation and distress.”
— Alison Malmon, Founder & Executive Director, (Active Minds)
Studies revealed events are the main way to meet people and build community on campus.
77%
42%
Students with event involvement are nearly twice as satisfied with college life. (Inside Higher Ed & College Pulse, 2023)
“Events are where I actually meet people. Without them, I’d feel completely disconnected.”
-Student from Survey A
But most of college events are exclusionary…
Greek life dominates the social landscape at many schools, yet it often amplifies privilege and exclusion.
And yet, openness without limits puts students at risk
Research revealed the risks of unknown guests. Because hosts and admins carry the responsibility of safety, they want risk-free events, clear guest control, and confidence that things won’t spiral out of hand.
The Tension: guests want openness and access, while hosts need control and safety.
I created personas from focus groups with 10 students and interviews to capture both attendee and host perspectives.
Designing for belonging, connection and safety
To bridge this tension, I defined three focus areas that guided the design.
Smarter Event Discovery
Students could now surface relevant events through visibility into their friends’ activity and personalized suggestions.
Build Social Connection
Adding a friends system let students preview who was invited, see which friends were going, and RSVP with more confidence.
Secure Guestlist Management
Tight record-keeping and permission controls gave admins confidence their events were safe.
Inspired by how Instagram fuels belonging
Instagram showed that curiosity and choice drive engagement. I translated those same principles — autonomy, reciprocity, and trust — into Doorlist, giving college students a way to see what friends were up to and feel part of the group.
Wireframing the shift from utility to social connection
I designed a discovery page to surface more events, added friends directly into event pages, and encouraged RSVPs to unlock friend visibility. These wireframes transformed Doorlist from a simple utility into a social app — where curiosity about friends kept users coming back.
“If We Open Discovery, Admins Will Drop Off.”
The CEO worried that showing public events would push our hosts away. I assured him we could start small — testing only public events to prove connection could be safe.
Event Discovery is blocked
Only Public Events
The First Discovery Page Failed — But Proved the Desire Was Real.
When we opened Discovery, it failed there was no public events, no traction, no way to push hosts to share. Yet it became our most-tapped tab, proof that students wanted to look even when there was nothing to see.
12x more taps than any other tab
Pivot: People Don’t Want Public Visibility — They Want Social Proximity.
Because I was able to prove demand, the CEO felt safe opening the next iteration — this time, making events centered around friends instead of the public.
Aug 2024
Nov 2024
Public Events Only
Your Friends' Events
Added a friends row for immediate access to your circle’s events.
Seeing your friends’ events made the feed feel personal, not public.
Refining Discovery Until Friendship Became the Core Experience
Every redesign centered more around friends — until connection wasn’t just a feature, it was the foundation of DoorList.
↑
1.2x
Retention
↑
45%
Time Spent
↑
60%
Event Clicks
Making the feed the heartbeat of social connection
By making the home feed central, Doorlist became the place to check events, not just manage them. Users with 5+ friends were 4× more likely to return, proving that curiosity and connection made the app sticky.
The Final Iteration
Live
Providing value in the feed, even when you’re not invited
Before, uninvited users couldn’t see private events, or later, could only see them with no way to act. By opening events to requests, users gained a path to signal interest, preview friends attending, and stay engaged — while hosts retained total control.
Guests earned agency by requesting +1s, fueling organic app growth
Before:
❌ No way to request +1s: Guests depended entirely on admins.
❌ Exclusive barrier: Only close to the host or group = access.
❌ Friction: No organic way for friends to join together.
Now:
Moved the +1 button into a primary CTA — which led to a 3× increase in guest requests.
Turning safety into trust with clear +1 and attendance controls
Admins could now approve or revoke +1s, see exactly who joined the list, and track entries with time-stamped attendance — clear proof their needs were at the center of every design decision.
Turning Doorlist into the college connection hub
By shifting the app from utility to social loops, I created stickiness that drove growth and retention. When I started, Doorlist had 45,000 users and poor retention. Today, it has over 500,000 users, with projections to reach a million next year.
4x
Higher retention for users with 3+ friends, proving social connection drove stickiness.
40%
More successful invites; smart suggestions removed the need to search or type.
3.4x
Lift in 7-day retention by adding friend visibility and a personalized feed users actually cared about.
6x
User growth by turning invite flows into a peer-to-peer growth machine
REFLECTIONS
This project taught me that safety and connection don’t have to conflict. By designing with empathy, I learned how structure and openness can coexist — how giving admins control can actually make students feel more free to connect. Doorlist showed me that design can protect people while still helping them find each other. It reminded me that thoughtful boundaries don’t limit connection; they make it possible.
REACH OUT!
If you're building for education, care, or real-life complexity, reach out: naoboru@sas.upenn.edu — I’d love to collaborate.