Improving UW's HCDE Undergrad Student Lounge

To understand how the undergrad student lounge was being used, I performed three ethnographic studies across different times and days. Under the guise of getting work done on my laptop, I observed students and noted: postural changes and facial expressions, behaviors, tech use, food and beverage consumption, and passive/active engagement with the space.

Observational field research in the HCDE student lounge surfaced four key themes that guided subsequent interview design. First, students consistently made use of free resources available in the space (especially food preparation tools like the microwave) suggesting that practical amenities are a primary draw. Second, behavioral patterns hinted at unmet needs: students leaving the lounge mid-session or arriving with items from home implied that the space does not fully support their needs as-is. Third, observed interactions pointed to a nuanced social dynamic; students appeared receptive to low-stakes social contact, but rarely sought it out actively. Finally, body language across multiple sessions suggested elevated levels of stress and fatigue, raising the question of whether the lounge could better serve as a restorative space. These themes shaped the interview study's research question: what additional items could the HCDE lounge offer to increase student usage or comfort?

Three female HCDE juniors who regularly used the department lounge were interviewed to explore unmet needs and preferences within the space. Three themes emerged from thematic analysis of the transcripts. First, free sustenance was a universal draw: all three participants valued the snack basket, microwave access, and the water cooler, though each came with caveats around inconsistency or inconvenience. The snack basket ran out frequently, the coffee setup was uninviting or went unnoticed entirely, and the water cooler's placement outside the key-card entry struck participants as an odd oversight. Second, a sense of lack ran throughout the interviews: participants noticed missing or depleted napkins and utensils, felt the space was under-cleaned, and described the aesthetic as feeling more like a neglected classroom than a comfortable lounge. Third, media as relief surfaced as a coping mechanism for stress and fatigue, with participants relying on laptops, phones, and mindless games to decompress. The whiteboard was also noted as a meaningful, low-stakes way to communicate with others in the space, though one participant was struck to find the same content on it that had been there since their freshman year.

Building on interview findings, a survey was distributed to broaden the scope of the research beyond the three junior participants. The survey was deployed via Google Forms and shared both through the HCDE Study Recruitment Slack and in person within the lounge itself. Screening questions confirmed respondents were active lounge users and current HCDE students. From there, the survey asked participants to rate their agreement with proposed changes (more consistent snacks, a water cooler inside the lounge, better utensil replenishment, a drip coffee maker, more frequent cleaning, and repainting) and to rank those changes by personal priority. An open-ended question was included to surface any high-impact suggestions that the limited interview pool may have missed. The survey was designed with a downstream application in mind: if findings were brought to the department, knowing which changes would yield the strongest positive response for the most students would allow for the highest-impact use of limited resources.

Findings across all three research phases point to a clear set of actionable recommendations centered on one throughline: students want a space that feels maintained. The most impactful change would be stocking consumables reliably—snacks, napkins, and utensils should be replenished on a consistent schedule, with snack options skewing toward more substantive, protein-forward choices. The coffee setup should be replaced with something more visible and approachable, such as a drip machine or Keurig, and supplemented with hot chocolate or cider packets for non-coffee drinkers; better signage alone could meaningfully increase uptake given that multiple participants were unaware the option existed. A second water cooler placed inside the lounge would eliminate the minor but notable friction of having to step outside the key-card entry to fill a water bottle. On the environmental side, more frequent cleaning and a aesthetic refresh. A repaint in more neutral, calming tones would go a long way toward making the space feel like somewhere students want to linger rather than just pass through. Finally, the whiteboard should be wiped between quarters: participants valued it as a medium for low-stakes peer communication, but stale content undermined that warmth; if anything currently on it is worth preserving, it can be transferred to a permanent poster displayed nearby.