About Me
UniHelp
A Student-Powered Mutual Aid Platform for Greater Vancouver
Connecting students through resource sharing and community support.
UX/UIDesign • Design Research
Project Overview
UniHelp is a student-powered mutual aid platform designed for post-secondary students across Greater Vancouver. This applied project involved academic ideas and research on Anarchism, challenging me to translate complex concepts into a practical, user-friendly digital solution that addresses real issues faced by students.
Duration
4 weeks
Role
  • Researcher
  • UX/UI Designer
  • Visual Designer
  • Prototyper
  • Writer
Tools
  • Figma
  • Figjam
  • Photoshop
Problem Statement & Rationale
Post-secondary students in Greater Vancouver are facing significant challenges that impact their academic success and overall well-being. These issues contribute to stress and hinder their ability to thrive.
High Living Costs
The cost of housing, transportation, and daily essentials places a heavy financial burden on students.
Food Insecurity
Many students struggle to afford nutritious meals, leading to poor health and academic focus.
Expensive Textbooks & Resources
The high price of course materials often forces students to choose between education and other necessities.
Social Isolation
A lack of supportive communities and connections can lead to feelings of loneliness and negatively affect mental health.
Current campus support services often fall short, being limited, disconnected, or difficult to access. This leaves a gap in crucial support systems.
Students require a simple, student-powered solution to easily share resources, knowledge, and opportunities, fostering a stronger community and improving their daily lives.
Problems with Current Solutions
Post-secondary students in Greater Vancouver need effective support, but existing solutions fall short in several key areas:
Scattered Resources
Existing clubs, buy/sell pages, and charity programs are fragmented across various platforms, making them hard to navigate and utilize effectively.
Safety & Trust Concerns
Many platforms are not student-exclusive, posing risks to safety and trust when interacting with unknown individuals within the community.
One-Time Charity Focus
Current solutions often provide one-off aid rather than fostering continuous, peer-to-peer mutual support and lasting community building.
UniHelp Solution
UniHelp connects students in a safe, trusted, and student-only environment, empowering them to:
Share Resources
Easily exchange textbooks, clothing, electronics, and other essential items within the student community.
Offer & Receive Essentials
Provide or get access to food, resources, and other daily necessities from fellow students.
Exchange Skills
Organize or join events, workshops, and skill-sharing sessions to learn and grow together.
Build Community
Forge meaningful connections and establish robust support systems among peers.
Project Objectives
Connect Students and Resources
Facilitate connections between students, enabling easy access to shared resources and knowledge.
Reduce Waste
Promote sustainability by encouraging the exchange and reuse of items among the student body, minimizing unnecessary waste.
Support Affordability
Help students save money by providing a platform for sharing essentials, textbooks, and other resources, easing financial burdens.
Foster Community Resilience
Strengthen the student community by building robust support systems and fostering mutual aid.
Promote Networking
Create opportunities for students to connect, collaborate, and build professional and personal relationships.
Deliverables
  1. A fully functional Figma prototype.
  1. Deep Research on the modern mutual aid
  1. Project Showcase (Presentation).
  1. Reflection and Writing (1500 words).
Research & Analysis
To better understand the need for UniHelp, it was important to research the current challenges faced by post-secondary students in British Columbia. Recent studies and reports reveal serious issues related to financial stress, basic needs insecurity, and lack of accessible support systems.

Work Cited
Research Takeaways
The research shows that students in British Columbia are facing deep financial and social challenges that directly impact their education and well-being. These struggles are not only individual but also systemic, with many students lacking reliable access to affordable housing, food, and resources.
This insight confirms that UniHelp is addressing a real and urgent need. By creating a student-powered platform, the project provides a direct, community-driven response to issues that existing campus services cannot fully solve. It also highlights the importance of empowering students to support one another, turning academic theories of mutual aid and solidarity into practical solutions for daily life.
This project ialso nvolved two academic readings, which shaped the foundation of UniHelp. The visual below shows how these theories connect directly to the app’s purpose and design:
Pyotr Kropotkin: Anarchism
Focuses on mutual aid as a natural and essential part of human life, emphasizing cooperation over competition. This theory underpins UniHelp's community-driven support model.
Errico Malatesta: An Anarchist Programme
Builds on Kropotkin's ideas by framing mutual aid as a strategy for creating long-term social change. This informs UniHelp's goal of fostering lasting networks of support and collaboration.
Prototype Showcase
Sgin up Page
The sign-up page allows user to simply sign up with their school email. or directly through the school websites.
Home Page
The homepage lets users browse posts shared by post-secondary students across BC. A simple, user friendly filter bar helps them quickly sort content based on what they’re interested in.
Event Page
The Event page is similar to the Home page, but focuses specifically on student-related events. It helps connect students from different schools and provides accessible information about upcoming activities.
Posting Page
The Posting page allows users to create posts for events, request assistance, or offer support to others.
Text Page
This page provides a simple, text-based space for students to communicate with one another.
Account Page
Lastly, this is the Account page, where users can adjust their settings. For international students in particular, there is also a language option to support those who have recently arrived in Canada and may face language barriers.
Click to interact with the prototype!
Writen Paper - UniHelp Reflection Essay:

UniHelp – Designing a Mutual Aid Platform for Post-Secondary Students in Greater Vancouver
Reflection
Designing the UniHelp website was a meaningful process that allowed me to bring the concept of mutual aid to life through a practical digital platform. The goal of the website was not only to introduce the project but also to make its purpose clear to potential users and stakeholders. By combining theory, research, and UX design principles, the site became more than just a showcase. It became part of the project’s mission to connect students.
Throughout the process, I drew inspiration from the readings of Pyotr Kropotkin and Errico Malatesta. Kropotkin’s idea of mutual aid shaped the core structure of UniHelp, emphasizing peer-to-peer connection without hierarchy. Malatesta’s focus on mutual aid as a strategy for social change influenced how I framed the website’s content. The site was designed to educate users about the philosophy behind UniHelp while showing how these ideas could be applied in a modern, student-centered context.​
From a UX/UI perspective, the website needed to reflect simplicity and trust. I used blue as the primary color to evoke calmness and reliability. Clear navigation was prioritized with straightforward sections like Home, About, Features, and Get Involved. Interactive mockups were embedded to give visitors a hands-on feel for the UniHelp app. Accessibility was also a focus, with readable fonts, high contrast, and minimal distractions to ensure usability for a wide range of students.
​One challenge was balancing academic theory with a practical, user-friendly presentation. While the project was rooted in anarchist theory and research on student needs, the site also needed to speak to everyday students who might not be familiar with those concepts. Simplifying complex ideas without losing their depth was a key learning moment for me as a designer.
​Reflecting on this process, I have realized that design is most powerful when it bridges theory and practice. The UniHelp website not only showcases my skills as a designer but also represents a vision for how technology can foster solidarity and resilience among students.