MS4 3 PAS hypotheses

3. PAS Hypotheses

The PAS hypotheses were built from the evidence collected in MS2 and MS3. In MS2, the team analyzed four initial problem areas: campus navigation, parking, food discovery, and student organizations. After reviewing the evidence, interviews, and journey maps, the team decided to focus on the visibility of student organizations and informal communities at Universidad de los Andes.

The selected opportunity is based on the fact that students currently discover, create, and sustain communities through fragmented channels such as Instagram, posters, word of mouth, WhatsApp groups, institutional emails, and official university channels. These alternatives work partially, but they create friction for students who want to find informal communities, start new groups, or manage existing organizations.

According to the PAS framework, each hypothesis connects a Problem, the current Alternatives used by users, and a possible Solution. The purpose is to identify product opportunities based on user needs, pain points, and frustrations.

PAS List

ID	Persona	Problem	Current Alternatives	App Solution	Hypothesis	Evidence
PAS-1	Group Seeker	Students who want to join a community do not have a centralized place to discover formal and informal groups at Uniandes.	They search on Instagram, look at campus posters, ask friends, or wait for someone to invite them.	The App provides a centralized directory of formal and informal groups with interests, tags, and search filters.	If students have a single place to discover communities, then they will find relevant groups with less effort.	Juan Camilo tried to rejoin tennis by searching Instagram, posters, and peers, but only found formal competitive academies instead of recreational student groups.
PAS-2	Group Seeker	Students do not always know if a group fits their level, interest, schedule, or expected commitment before joining.	They attend without enough information, ask someone directly, join a WhatsApp group, or avoid joining.	The App provides public group profiles with activity, frequency, expected level, and how to join.	If students can evaluate a group before showing up, then they will feel more confident joining communities.	The evidence shows that current channels tend to surface formal or competitive options, not necessarily casual groups that match the student’s real intention.
PAS-3	Group Seeker	Informal and recreational communities are less visible than official or career-oriented organizations.	Informal groups depend on WhatsApp, word of mouth, or small private networks.	The App treats official and informal groups as first-class entities and recommends them by interest match, not only institutional status or size.	If informal groups are visible in the same platform as official groups, then students will have a better chance of discovering communities that fit their interests.	The interview evidence identifies a gap between high-profile official groups and smaller informal groups such as tennis or music communities.
PAS-4	Group Seeker	Students often hear about events too late or after they already happened.	They depend on Instagram stories, posters, WhatsApp messages, or friends forwarding information.	The App provides an event feed connected to groups, interests, and student preferences.	If students receive event information in one centralized place, then they will be more likely to discover opportunities before they happen.	The problem evidence shows that students depend on scattered channels that are easy to miss.
PAS-5	Group Seeker	Students may want to participate in campus communities but do not always know which groups are active.	They ask friends, check old Instagram pages, or enter inactive WhatsApp groups.	The App shows updated group profiles, recent activity, events, and ways to join.	If students can see whether a group is currently active, then they will avoid wasting time on outdated or inactive communities.	Current alternatives such as social media pages and WhatsApp groups do not always show whether a community is still active.
PAS-6	Student looking to create a group	Students who want to start an informal group do not know if enough people are interested before investing time in creating it.	They ask friends, post on social media, manually gather contacts, or give up.	The App lets students publish an interest first and collect opt-ins before formalizing the group.	If students can validate interest before creating a group, then they will be more willing to start informal communities.	Juan Camilo tried to create an informal statistics/econometrics group by manually gathering course roster lists, but the effort became too difficult and he abandoned it.
PAS-7	Student looking to create a group	Reaching potential members can feel intrusive because students often need to send cold emails or messages to people who did not opt in.	They send institutional emails, ask friends to share messages, or post repeatedly in existing channels.	The App creates consent-based subscriber lists where students explicitly opt in to hear about an interest or group.	If communication is based on opt-in, then creators can reach interested students without feeling invasive or spammy.	Evidence states that institutional email lists are a high-friction communication channel for informal community-building because students feel uncomfortable intruding into classmates’ official inboxes.
PAS-8	Student looking to create a group	Students with new community ideas lack a clear path to turn an interest into an actual group.	They create a WhatsApp group, ask friends to invite others, or try to organize informally without structure.	The App guides the user from publishing an interest, to collecting interested students, to creating a group profile.	If the App gives students a clear creation path, then more informal interests can become organized communities.	The evidence shows that informal initiatives can fail when the creator does not have a structured way to gather and organize interested students.
PAS-9	Group Leader	Leaders struggle to predict attendance and detect when participation is decreasing.	They use Google Forms, WhatsApp confirmations, spreadsheets, and manual attendance tracking.	The App gives leaders attendance registration, membership tracking, and reach metrics.	If leaders can see attendance and engagement data in one place, then they can plan events and react to member drop-off more effectively.	The solution description identifies that leaders need better information about attendance, participation, and member engagement.
PAS-10	Group Leader	Leaders spend too much time duplicating communication across platforms.	They post on Instagram, send WhatsApp messages, use spreadsheets, forms, or email at the same time.	The App centralizes event publishing, membership, attendance, and communication.	If leaders manage their group from one app, then they will reduce administrative work and keep the group more organized.	Current alternatives are fragmented and force leaders to repeat the same information across several channels.
PAS-11	Group Leader	Leaders have difficulty reaching students outside their personal network or current followers.	They depend on Instagram reach, friends sharing posts, or word of mouth.	The App recommends groups and events to students based on interests, not only on existing social connections.	If the App helps groups reach students who are not already connected to them, then organizations can grow beyond their usual networks.	The evidence shows that discovery currently depends heavily on existing networks and social media visibility.
PAS-12	Analytics / Product Team	The team needs to understand which features create real value and which ones need improvement.	Without analytics, decisions depend mostly on assumptions, interviews, or informal feedback.	The App collects searches, profile views, opt-ins, event interactions, attendance, and feature usage.	If the App collects interaction data, then the team can improve recommendations, group discovery, and leader tools based on actual behavior.	The material requires a back-end analytics engine, and the solution already proposes metrics such as reach, engagement, opt-ins, and attendance.

Contributor: Jose Manuel Fonseca