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University students often get stuck in repetitive routines because trying something new requires planning, effort, and sometimes social interaction. Even when want they new experiences, the difficulty of deciding what to do and how to start can keep them in their comfort zone.
We propose a mobile side-quest discovery platform that recommends small, personalized activities based on the user's interests, available time, and comfort level. By providing simple, playful, and low-commitment quests, the app makes it easier for students to break their routine and the new experiences.
The following Analytics Persona represents the product decision-maker who uses the insights produced by the Sidequests analytics engine to improve recommendation relevance, quest engagement, and product decisions.
| Scenario | Persona / Focus | Problem | Alternatives | Solution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. The Routine-Locked Student | Camilo (Student with repetitive free-time habits) | Wants to try new activities but usually defaults to the same familiar options because planning something different requires extra effort and initiative. | Repeats activities like watching movies, playing basketball, or waits until friends organize a different plan. | Personalized Side-Quest Recommender that suggests small, low-effort challenges based on interests, available time, and preferred difficulty. |
| 2. The Socially Cautious Explorer | Camilo (Student uncomfortable with unfamiliar social environments) | Is interested in new experiences but may reject them when they involve strangers or situations that feel too far outside his comfort zone. | Avoids the activity, only joins plans with close friends, or waits until something matches his interests strongly enough to overcome the discomfort. | Adaptive Social Side-Quests that let users choose between solo, close-friends, or social challenges and gradually increase social exposure according to their comfort level. |
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3. The unsatisfied explorer Has a couple of unexpected free hours between classes or on a weekend, and wants to do something outside her routine so she doesn't get bored. |
Valentina (21) Focus: Cognitive load reduction (Decision) |
She feels overwhelmed by the immense amount of options and plans available on social media. The frustration of having to evaluate, choose, and decide makes her abandon the search and end up scrolling at home. | 1. Endless scrolling on TikTok/IG. 2. Going to the same familiar cafe out of convenience. 3. Asking friends and delegating the decision to them. |
An app (or bot) that sends her a single, simple idea/challenge per day. By completely eliminating options and giving her just one highly curated, easy-to-execute plan, the friction of choosing is removed. |
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4. The procastinator Saved a TikTok video about an interesting place in the city, has a free afternoon today, and remembers she wanted to go. |
Valentina (21) Focus: Zero logistics planning (Execution) |
She wants to have memorable and spontaneous experiences, but feels "lazy" when she realizes the activity requires too much logistical preparation, long travel time, or a financial/time commitment she isn't willing to make. | 1. Letting saved videos pile up without ever visiting the places. 2. Waiting for a friend to take on the organizer role. 3. Staying home consuming passive content. |
An "Instant Plans" platform that takes her saved spots and automatically generates the logistics based on her location (routes, low costs, no reservations). Everything is ready to just say "let's go," without requiring her to plan anything. |
| 5. The unmotivated Explorer A student decides to try a new activity but loses motivation before actually doing it. | A university student who wants to try new experiences but struggles to follow through without external motivation. | University students may want to try new activities but often lose motivation because there is on one or nothing encouraging them to actually follow through with the activity | Ask frends to join, wait for someone else to orgnize the activity, or rely on personal motivation to complete it | A mobile platform where students can join students con join or create small group challenges and receive reminders, progress updates, and rewards for completing them. |
| 6. The Time-Conscious explorer A busy student has some free time and considers trying a new activity but is unsure if it will be worth the time investment. | A university student who wants new experiences but carefully manages their limited free time | Students may avoid trying new activities because they are unsure whether the experience will be worth the time they have available, especially when they have a busy academic schendule. | Ask frends for recommendations, search for reviews online, or choose a familiar activity that they already know will fit their schendule. | A mobile app that recommends experiences bases on the user's available time, showing the estimated duration, difficulty, location, and expected experience before they commit |
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7. The Planning-Friction Explorer A student has free time and wants to do something different but gives up when finding and organizing an activity requires too much effort. |
University student interested in trying different activities. Focus: Planning effort reduction |
The user wants to do something different during free time, but searching for, selecting, and organizing an activity requires more effort than repeating a familiar routine. | 1. Repeat a familiar activity. 2. Wait for a friend to organize a plan. 3. Manually search social media, Google, or event platforms. |
Context-Aware Sidequest Recommendations that present a small set of activities filtered according to available time, interests, desired difficulty, and relevant context, reducing the effort required to start something different. |
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8. The Socially Cautious Explorer A user finds an unfamiliar activity interesting but hesitates because it requires more social interaction than they are comfortable with. |
User interested in new experiences but uncomfortable with unfamiliar social environments. Focus: Social comfort adaptation |
An activity may be personally interesting but still be rejected when it requires a level of social exposure that exceeds the user's comfort level. | 1. Participate only with close friends. 2. Choose solo activities. 3. Wait for someone familiar to organize the plan. 4. Avoid the activity completely. |
Adaptive Social Sidequests that allow users to define their preferred level of social interaction and receive solo, friend-based, or progressively more social quests according to their preferences and previous behavior. |
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9. The Low-Energy Explorer A student has free time after class or work but feels too drained to start anything that requires preparation. |
Daniel Focus: Energy-based effort adaptation |
He has available time but not the energy to use it. Most activity suggestions assume a rested user willing to prepare, travel, or commit, so he rejects them even when the activity itself appeals to him. | 1. Stays home watching streaming content. 2. Takes a nap and lets the free time pass. 3. Cancels plans he had already accepted. |
Effort-Aware Quest Filtering that ranks quests by required energy and preparation, offering low-effort activities close to the user's current location with no advance planning. |
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10. The Budget-Constrained Explorer A student wants to try something new but stops when he cannot estimate what the activity will cost him. |
Daniel Focus: Cost transparency |
Unfamiliar activities carry hidden costs such as entrance fees, transport, and food. Without knowing them in advance, he discards plans that genuinely interest him. | 1. Only goes to free places he already knows. 2. Asks friends about prices before deciding. 3. Skips the activity entirely. |
Cost-Transparent Sidequests that display an estimated total cost before the user accepts, together with a free / low-cost filter. |
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11. The Novelty-Seeking Returning User After a few weeks, the app keeps suggesting activities that feel like ones the user has already done. |
Valentina (21) Focus: Recommendation diversity |
The value of the app is novelty. When suggestions repeat previous quests or minor variations of them, the app becomes one more source of noise and she stops opening it. | 1. Ignores the notifications. 2. Stops opening the app. 3. Returns to scrolling social media. |
History-Aware Diversity Ranking that excludes previously completed quests and enforces variety across categories within each set of suggestions. |
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12. The Safety-Conscious Explorer A recommended quest takes the user to an unfamiliar area, alone, after dark. |
Camilo Focus: Perceived safety and context |
Even when the activity is interesting, he rejects it when the location, the time of day, or the idea of going alone feels risky. | 1. Only goes out during daylight hours. 2. Restricts himself to familiar neighbourhoods. 3. Asks a friend to come along, and drops the plan if nobody is available. |
Context-Filtered Safe Quests that rank suggestions using time of day, area, and daylight, defaulting to safer options and offering a group version of the same quest. |
Q1: Given that the current user has skipped the last three suggestions, which available Side-Quests match their historically most-completed combination of duration, difficulty, and category for this specific time of day?
Q2: What percentage of users complete Side-Quests suggested by the personalized recommendation system compared with users who manually browse and select quests, and does personalization significantly improve completion rates?
Q3: At what specific line of code or module does the app most frequently crash when a user brings the app back to the foreground after tracking a location-based quest in the background for more than 10 minutes?
Q4: What are the specific commercial blocks in Bogotá where users spend more than 20 minutes completing physical sidequests on weekends, providing high-value foot-traffic data to pitch to local businesses for sponsored "checkpoint" quests?
Q5: Given the user's available time, preferred social interaction, and previous quest interactions, which three compatible Sidequests have the highest relevance score for the current session?
Q6: Which Sidequest categories have a completion rate below 20% among quests accepted during the last 30 days?
Q7: Given the current user's context (time of day, day of the week, and location), which combination of effort level and estimated cost range yields the highest acceptance rate for this user's previously accepted quests?
Q8: How many days must pass before a previously completed quest category can be suggested again to a specific user without reducing their acceptance rate?
Q9: Which of the available quest filters (available time, difficulty, social level, cost, distance) are used least frequently during quest selection, and which of them are candidates for removal or redesign?
Q10: In which quest categories and background tracking durations does location tracking exceed 10% battery consumption per hour, and how does that consumption correlate with users abandoning quests before completion?
