Weak 3: End users interviews

Last week, we took a deeper step into the Discover phase by interviewing experts — a school psychologist, a principal, and several experienced educators. Our goal was to understand the real problems behind social cohesion, not just what we assume is happening.

These conversations gave us a lot of insight. One strong pattern kept appearing:

During middle school, students go through a crucial stage of identity formation, and much of it happens through belonging to peer groups.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing — in fact, it’s expected. Adolescents naturally gravitate toward their “group of equals” as part of healthy social development.

But there’s another side to it.

While groups can provide comfort and a sense of belonging,they can also create:

• Rigid social boundaries

• Reinforced cliques

• Exclusion of students who don’t fit into a specific group

  
  

This duality — belonging vs. exclusion — became the heart of our initial problem framing.

Validating the Need: Interviewing Teachers

After defining our preliminary problem, we moved into the next step: validating the need.

We had to create a questionnaire that minimized bias. We learned how to guide an interview without leading it. And we discovered that people often take the conversation into unexpected directions — which required flexibility, listening, and real-time adjustment.

We interviewed homeroom teachers and educators across middle and high schools to understand whether our assumption was accurate.

And here’s where it got interesting: Our need was wrong.

We initially thought:

“Teachers struggle to identify social dynamics and the formation of closed groups.”

But teachers told us very clearly: They do see what’s happening in their classrooms. They are aware of the cliques, the tensions, and the social structures.

So the need we defined… was not actually their need.

Several teachers independently mentioned the same thing:

The annual school trip is a major social pressure point.

Why? Because the room assignments highlight the existing group divisions. Students who feel less socially secure become anxious. Old conflicts resurface. And the emotional impact lasts months.

This insight helped us refine the need:

Significant social events throughout the school year (like the annual trip) intensify social tensions and clique divisions. Teachers are required to bridge these gaps — often without enough tools or support.