COLLY

A Mobile Application to Enable Campus-Based Peer-to-Peer Delivery for College Students

Problem Statement

College students frequently need items from campus shops but are unable to leave their classes or commitments. The lack of a structured logistics system means students rely on informal help from peers, often leading to delays, frustration, or missed opportunities.

Vendors also lose potential revenue due to these inefficiencies. There was no streamlined platform to solve this logistical bottleneck within campuses.

1. Discover Stage

In the Discover stage, we conducted surveys with college students across India to understand their lifestyle habits, daily routines, and accessibility challenges. We also explored secondary research, reviewed similar hyper-local delivery platforms, and carried out a competitive analysis to uncover insights and opportunities.

2. Empathise Stage

In the empathise stage, we focused on understanding the needs, motivations, and frustrations of college students. Through conversations, and empathy mapping, we explored how students currently manage daily campus essentials, what challenges they face with accessibility, and what emotional and practical factors influence their choices. This helped us uncover deeper insights into their behaviors and build a clear picture of our target users through personas.

Empathy Map

User Persona

3. Define Stage

In the Define stage, we synthesized our research findings into clear problem statements and reframed them as How Might We (HMW) questions to guide ideation. This helped us shift from identifying pain points to exploring opportunities for solutions.

The objectives of Colly have therefore been defined as:

Design a hyper-local, student-centric delivery app that facilitates smooth peer-to-peer order fulfillment
Create a platform that benefits all parties, including students placing orders, students delivering, and campus vendors
Incorporate gamification elements to boost engagement, reliability, and trust
Drive social credibility and reduce stigma around delivery work through design

4. Ideate Stage

After generating a wide range of ideas, we grouped them into three broad categories to better structure our thinking and highlight different directions Colly could take:

Vendor-driven solutions involved giving more responsibility to campus shops. Ideas here included hiring dedicated delivery staff or setting up centralized pick-up points for students.

Student-driven solutions revolved around peer collaboration. These included a volunteer “help each other” system, delivery clubs organized by societies, and a structured peer-to-peer delivery network.

Tech-driven solutions explored futuristic possibilities such as smart lockers, automated vending kiosks, and drone-based delivery.

Exploring gamification:

Before

Student → Places Order → Waits → Order Arrives

After

Student → Places Order → Gains Points + Unlocks Badge → Progress Bar Updates → Order Arrives → Feels Rewarded

User flows:

5. Prototype Stage

We made wireframes on paper and low fidelity prototypes before working on the final interface.

Video Demonstration