Assignment 7A – Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

• Opportunity:
• Every day, students struggle to find unoccupied study spaces which infringes on their study time.
• The who: Students
• The what: They cannot easily find unoccupied study spaces.
• The why: There is currently no service that allows students to know if a location is full before going there.
• Testing the who: Not just students have this need; anyone who looks for space to do work (i.e. a business man working on a proposal or teachers grading papers) could use. The who is not limited to a certain age group as high schoolers, college students, and adults often spend time studying or doing work outside of their homes. However, I think that the majority of the “who” are students.
• Testing the what: This is a problem across the United States and possibly even other countries. This is most likely a larger issue in college towns where coffee shops and other common study spaces are populated by people studying and working. Additionally, this problem is probably heightened in the Fall and Spring and mitigated in the summer.
• Testing the why: The range of the “why” includes not wasting time looking for a location to study/work, getting the most out of your time alloted for studying/working, and being able to study/work in large groups.
• Interview #1
• This interview was conducted with a nursing student who will remain anonymous. She is a student at Santa Fe and feels that this problem is not only a problem for UF students, but also for Santa Fe students. When asked about having a service that updates students on available study spaces, she says that it is a good idea. However, she says that it puts the responsibility on the students studying, which could be a nuisance. She does acknowledge that it can be annoying to drive somewhere to study only for there to be no spaces. That proves that there is a definite need for this service.
• Interview #2
• In this interview, I found that students like the one I interviewed, feel that it is ridiculous that they pay such high tuition and the school cannot even provide adequate study space for students. This student says that she almost always struggles to find study space and the problem is even worse around midterms and final exams. She feels this is problem should be fixed by the university. This interviewee also knows many other students who have the same problem.
• Interview #3
• I made sure to interview this person, because I she is not a student and could bring another perspective. She is a teacher in Georgia so I interviewed her over the phone. She stated that she often grades papers outside of her home for a change in scenery. She mentioned that she does not live in a college town and finding open space is not a normal issue for her. However, she also noted that if she tries to work in a coffee shop in downtown Atlanta (not too far from her) she has more difficulty as there is a college in that area. She said she thinks that idea would be effective for college towns.
• Interview #4
• This interviewee is a freshman male in college. While he has just started his college career, he noted that he has already noticed that finding study space is a problem. Recently, he tried to study with a group from his class and the library was so full they had to resort to an empty classroom. He states that the problem is heightened in college towns where so many people study.
• Interview #5 
• This interview was with a student who is currently studying for the GRE here at UF. She spends most of her time studying for this exam which she will be taking in November. She lives with 24 other girls and gets easily distracted at home, so she mostly studies at libraries and coffee shops. She noted that she often finds that there is no open space at many coffee shops. She thinks that this service would be extremely beneficial and save her a lot of time.
• Given your interviews, what do you know about the opportunity that you didn't know before? 
• The interviewees helped me gain new perspective during these interviews. Number three, the teacher living in Georgia, Helped me to understand that this problem does not really persist outside of college towns. Knowing this, I can have market to a more targeted audience. This interviewee also was able to compare how populated study spaces are in a college town versus a non college town, and the difference was drastic. 
• From interviewee number two I learned that she (and likely many others) believe that the university should be responsible for meeting the demand of study spaces in town, especially in libraries on campus. It was evident that she was very frustrated with UF about this issue.
• Something that surprised me about these interviews was how so many students are dealing with this problem (some are even frustrated), but none of them have presented the issue to UF administration. It seems as though the students believe that they are stuck with the issue and it is something that cannot be resolved. I hope to fix this issue with my tool.