Pawsitive: Aid for Campus Mental Health

As part of the Innovation by Design course, I collaborated with a team to address the growing mental health and anxiety crisis on campus. Using user-centered design principles, we sought to address the following problem statement: Given the shift in learning environments from the traditional classroom to the online environment, how might we aid in eliminating stress, depression, and anxiety in students that became widespread during the pandemic?

Together, we developed Pawsitive—a research-backed, weekly initiative that brought emotional support dogs to campus to foster well-being.

I led the research phase of the project, developing a Google Forms study that sought to understand FSU student well-being. I also took a leading role in shaping the user experience by developing empathy maps, user-journey frameworks, and personas.