Problems, alternatives and solutions (PAS)

Note: The PAS were reused from MS4, since feedback stated that they were correct.

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	Problem	Alternatives	Solution
PAS-1	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.
PAS-2	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.
PAS-3	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.
PAS-4	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.
PAS-5	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.
PAS-6	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.
PAS-7	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.
PAS-8	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.
PAS-9	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.
PAS-10	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.
PAS-11	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.
PAS-12	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.

Contributors: Daniel Vergara, Camilo Castilla, Nicolas Salazar, Jose Manuel Fonseca, Daniel Vargas, Luciana Bacci.