University of Washington | Product-Service Design Project
The Drizzle Project: Reimagining Rain Protection on UW's Campus
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Project Type
UW HCDE Design Course
Group Project
Tools
Figma
Miro
My Role
UX Designer
UX Researcher
Duration
Sept 2025 - Dec 2025
Skills
UX Research
User Journey Mapping
Design Thinking
Prototyping
Product Design
CHALLENGE
Seattle rains constantly, yet the University of Washington campus offers limited shelter and accessible rain protection.
This lack of infrastructure affects students with financial constraints, mobility needs, or accessibility concerns, forcing them to use personal rain gear that is expensive or unreliable.
SOLUTION
Institutionalizing rain protection resources through campus infrastructure.
The Drizzle Project introduces modular overhangs that are maintained and provided by the University of Washington. This design system would keep commuting students dry without the cost or inaccessibility of expensive rain gear. These overhangs would also support students with mobility challenges by offering accessible covered areas on campus.
RESEARCH
Secondary Research
01
Understanding Seattle’s Rain Culture
Identified cultural norms, social stigmas, and precedents established by those who have lived and experienced Seattle’s rainy season. This established a contextual understanding of our problem space.
Social stigmas against umbrellas
Purchasing expensive rain gear is expected
02
Identifying Common Pain Points
Researched challenges Seattleites faced when commuting across Seattle in the rain. Analyzed the influence of existing infrastructure on the safety and comfortability of those who commute often.
Lack of proper infrastructure and covered walkways
Limited floor lighting available for pedestrians
User Surveys + Interviews
A user survey was circulated across the UW community to obtain quantitative data on 21 UW students who have experienced the rainy season in Seattle.
Building on the insights from the user surveys, we also conducted 5 semi-structured user interviews with UW students who regularly use public transport and commute to campus.
User Personas
Two user personas were developed to represent UW students that walk around campus and those who commute via public transportation. These personas highlighted key pain points, such as financial constraints and accessibility barriers, which informed and guided our design priorities.
IDEATION
Sketching
After sketching design ideas individually, our team conducted an affinity-mapping exercise to organize our concepts into four categories: stand-alone overhangs, attached overhangs, drying/storage facilities, and rain gear rental systems.
Decide
Based on our user research, over 70% of our participants expressed frustrations with the lack of shelter and overhang infrastructures on campus. We decided to focus on a design solution that directly addressed this pain point and offered a more accessible and feasible way for students to stay dry on campus.
By integrating with existing campus structures, this solution would minimize installation barriers and fit cohesively with the current environment at UW.
DEVELOP
Prototypes
To get a better understanding of what the overhang would look like in context, we created a Wizard-of-Oz prototype, building the overhangs and prototyping core user flows for a companion app for UW Maintenance Staff. This prototype was primarily to demonstrate how the staff would manually activate the overhang upon request, mostly to counter instances of misuse that might occur.
Physical Overhang Model
The Drizzle App: Overhang System Maintenance App
Sketching Wireframes
Mid-Fidelity Prototypes
TESTING + VALIDATION
Usability Testing
We conducted usability testing with five participants to evaluate the 1:15 scale prototype and maintenance app interface. Each 15-20 minute session involved scenario-based tasks that revealed how users interacted with the QR code activation system, assessed the overhang's perceived effectiveness, and identified friction points in the staff workflow.
Key Findings
Overhang System
1
Preference for automation and physical buttons over QR Codes
2
Safety and strength concerns about the overhang in windy conditions
3
Visibility concerns of the overhang at night
The Drizzle App
1
Lack of organization or customization with maintenance requests
2
Scheduling concerns for fixing and maintaining all of the overhangs
3
Confusion on how to confirm completed maintenance requests
ITERATION + REFINING
The Final Product
The service blueprint summarizes the end-to-end experience of The Drizzle Project. It illustrates how students interact with the modular overhang system on campus and how the UW Maintenance Staff and backend systems support those interactions. By visualizing multiple user flows that integrate, the blueprint clarifies how the system works together.
The Drizzle Modular Overhang
The Drizzle Project introduces an integrated system of modular overhangs installed and maintained by the institution. Based on the user feedback from our usability studies, we refined our overhang designs to display specific automation and safety features.
Seamless Integration onto UW Campus
Version 1: Overhang attachment onto existing poles
Version 2: Overhang installment of telescopic poles
Key Features
UW ID Scanner
Manual backup for shelter deployment.
Lighting Fixtures
Built-in lights for visibility and safety
Telescopic Pole
Foldable poles for quick shelters
The Drizzle Companion App
The Drizzle App is a companion app for UW Maintenance Staff to monitor and maintain the overhang systems around campus. Core flows include manual open/close, immediate service dispatch, scheduling service, and notification filters.
Visual Design System
Core User Flows
Notifications to Applying Filters
Map View
Maintenance Alerts
Confirm Filter Settings
Filtered Notifications
Scheduling Dispatch Services
Push Notification
Overhang Station Controls
Staff Selection
Dispatch Confirmation
Scheduled Status Tag
Opening/Closing Individual Overhang Station
Map View
Closed Overhang
Opened Overhang
Individual Station View
REFLECTION
Key Takeaways
Understanding the Context and Problem Space
Before we even began ideation and brainstorming design solutions, our team took time to thoroughly understand our problem space. Doing so, we uncovered key user pain points which later helped us define the exact design problem we wanted to focus on. I learned the importance of starting off broad and refining the details as we gained more context and feedback.
Importance of Design Systems
Working within a team with multiple designers, it became harder to keep track of the small changes each person was making throughout our screens. Creating a design system and clear format of our colors, texts, and icons allowed us to portray consistency and seamless connections between all of our screens.
Accessible Design is Beneficial for All
When our team first brainstormed ideas to make rain gear more accessible, we focused on common pain points from users with mobility challenges. However, after speaking with more students, we realized that there were a lot of overlapping accessibility challenges, regardless of their background. The Drizzle Project is designed to make it easier for students stay dry on campus, and it taught me that a successful accessible design is a solution for all.