SMC Station
Service Design, UX Research, & System Concept

Role:
User Research, Interaction Design, UX Strategy, Visual & Graphic Design
‍Year:
Academic Project, Fall 2025
‍Length:
16 weeks
‍Project Team:
Enzo Finegold
Marcus Gates
Romell McKenzie
Zitlali Mendes (Team Lead)

A centralized basic-needs hub that combines secure locker storage, food pickup, and a digital dashboard to help Santa Monica College students move through campus lighter, safer, and more supported.

This project was completed as part of IxD Studio 1 at Santa Monica College. I worked collaboratively within a team, contributing heavily to research synthesis, concept development, journey mapping, and the design of physical and digital based touchpoints

At the start of the semester, we were given the Mobility Challenge, which asked us to design a research-driven, site-specific interactive system that addressed a transportation or mobility issue within a Los Angeles city center.

While the brief initially emphasized traditional transit and navigation problems, our research at Santa Monica College revealed that student mobility extends beyond transportation and is closely tied to carrying belongings, accessing food, and navigating fragmented campus resources throughout long days.

This insight led us to reframe mobility as the ability to move through campus with less physical and mental burden, ultimately shaping SMC Station as an end-to-end system that combines physical infrastructure and digital tools to better support student movement and daily life.

Problem

Many SMC students, especially commuters, juggle long days on campus without access to consistent storage, food resources, or a clear way to navigate basic needs services. Existing resources were fragmented across locations and platforms, making support feel hard to find, stigmatized, or unreliable.

Insight

Through observation, interviews, and journey mapping, we found that students often carry their entire day with them. Skateboards, backpacks, groceries, and personal items became both a physical and mental burden. Students wanted support systems that felt integrated into campus life rather than hidden.

Solution

We designed SMC Station, a unified basic-needs hub that combines secure lockers, a centralized food pickup area, and a digital dashboard. The system reduces friction, increases visibility of resources, and supports students throughout their day without requiring them to navigate multiple disconnected services.

Observations, Interviews & Secondary Research:

We began by going on campus to observe student movement and interview students about how they navigate long days at SMC. These conversations were followed by interviews with the Head of Basic Needs and the Chief of SMC Police, which grounded our work in real operational, safety, and policy considerations. We also conducted secondary desktop research using on-campus documentation and independent online sources to better understand food insecurity, basic-needs access, and existing campus systems.

User Journeys, Personas & Target Audience:

Early on, we identified a key group of students who spend long stretches of time on campus, aka campus dwellers, as our inital target audience. Through journey mapping and persona creation, we traced how these students move between classes, meals, and shared spaces, surfacing friction around carrying belongings, storing food, and accessing support. After feedback, we refined our focus to at-risk students who struggle to reliably access basic needs, allowing us to design with a clearer and more impactful audience in mind.

Wireframes, Wireflows & Early Concept Testing:

Our initial design work focused on a locker system with cold storage for food. We created low-fidelity wireframes and wireflows to test a locker-focused UI, mapping how students would locate, reserve, and access storage throughout the day.

Concept Refinement & Storyboarding:

Following critique and feedback, we expanded beyond lockers to think more holistically about basic needs and mobility. This pivot led to SMC Station, a unified digital hub that integrates locker access, food ordering and delivery, and centralized basic-needs information. Storyboards helped us synthesize our research into a clear end-to-end system and visualize how students would be supported across multiple moments in their daily campus experience.

The final outcome was SMC Station:

A unified mobile platform that consolidates basic needs access, mobility tools, and campus services into a single system. Rather than relying on separate apps or physical locations, SMC Station centralizes everyday student needs into one cohesive experience.

Key features include:

Nourishment

A mobile food ordering experience that surfaces hot deals, grab-and-go meals, social proof, and time-aware listings. This helps students make fast, informed food decisions during busy campus days.

Convenience: SMC x Coco delivery

On-campus food delivery powered by a Coco delivery robot system. Geo-fenced drop-off locations and a digital handshake support secure, location-based handoff, allowing students to receive food wherever they are on campus.

Mobility & Access

Secure locker access using a digital key with QR codes or short access codes, including cold storage for perishable food. A shared digital identity also enables seamless access to lockers, transit tools, and other mobility-related services.

Mentorship

A built-in scheduling experience that allows students to book course-relevant counselors and mentors directly through the app. Appointments are surfaced by date, time, and academic context, making support easier to access without navigating separate systems.

Together, these features form a focused end-to-end system that supports student mobility by reducing friction around storage, food access, and movement across campus.

This project marked a lot of personal growth for me. I became more comfortable approaching and talking to people I didn’t know, interviewing students on campus, and navigating uncertainty without freezing up. Over time, I built resilience and confidence, especially when dealing with ambiguity, changing directions, and moments where there wasn’t a clear answer yet.

From a design perspective, SMC Station pushed me to be more decisive and systems-oriented. I learned how to move ideas forward without over-polishing, align a team around a clear direction, and say, “This is the choice we’re making,” with confidence. The project culminated in presenting our work to designers from BMW Group Designworks, which reinforced the importance of clear storytelling, strong rationale, and ownership over design decisions. Overall, this experience helped me grow not just as a designer, but as someone who can lead ideas from uncertainty to clarity.

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