Experience Needfinding Research Project
Utah YSA Conference
Redesigning the Utah YSA Conference to help young adults build lasting friendships and meaningful connections, both during and beyond the event.
Brand Story
The Utah YSA Conference is a volunteer-led organization that creates meaningful spiritual and social experiences for young single adults across the state. This project focused on strengthening faith, fostering belonging, and helping attendees ages 18–26 form lasting friendships. By exploring participants’ experiences, needs, and frustrations, we identified ways to integrate authentic connection opportunities into the conference programming, ensuring that relationships can continue naturally beyond the weekend.
Role & Contributions
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Led user research for Utah YSA Conference, including surveys, interviews, and observations, to uncover how attendees form and maintain friendships.
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Synthesized quantitative and qualitative data into actionable insights on social interaction patterns and participant needs.
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Designed a prototype app extension to facilitate low-pressure, interest- and location-based groups, enabling attendees to continue connecting after the conference.
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Collaborated with stakeholders to align recommendations with existing conference infrastructure, ensuring practical implementation.
Key Findings
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50% of attendees said making friends was their primary reason for attending.
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Only 33% formed 1–2 friendships during the event, but 100% have not maintained contact with those friends afterward.
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Participants expressed a strong desire for repeated touch points and structured opportunities for casual interactions.
Recommendations & Deliverables
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Proposed a dedicated connection page in the conference app to create moderated, interest-based groups.
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Groups linked to facilitated GroupMe channels to encourage engagement while reducing social anxiety.
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Organized groups by shared interests and geographic proximity to support natural, lasting friendships.
Impact & What I Learned
Through leading user research, synthesizing insights, and designing a prototype solution, I helped the Utah YSA Conference team create tangible ways for attendees to form meaningful, lasting connections. My work demonstrated how thoughtful design can transform brief interactions into ongoing friendships, and participants validated that the app extension would be highly useful in maintaining those connections. This project strengthened my ability to translate user needs into practical, scalable experiences, collaborate with stakeholders, and deliver solutions that create real impact.
