This project will investigate how scheduling difficulties impact university students' social lives and whether an automated group availability tool could reduce these coordination barriers. Many students struggle to coordinate group social plans due to conflicting schedules, leading to frustration, wasted time, and missed opportunities for connection. What should be simple often turns into never-ending group chat messages and plans that fall through. Students want to spend time with friends, but coordinating everyone's availability becomes so difficult that they give up or miss out on social connections, which can sometimes lead to loneliness and mental health issues. The research will employ a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative surveys with qualitative interviews to explore key questions: How frequently do students experience difficulties when coordinating group social plans? To what extent do these challenges prevent students from socialising as often as they would like? What impact do scheduling difficulties have on students' ability to maintain friendships? Would students be willing to use an automated group availability tool to coordinate social plans? And what barriers might prevent students from adopting such a tool?

By understanding these challenges, the project aims to identify solutions that make it easier for students to maintain friendships and create more opportunities for meaningful connection. The surveys will gather quantitative data on the frequency and impact of scheduling challenges, while the interviews will provide qualitative insights into the personal experiences and frustrations students face. The results will help determine whether scheduling difficulties are a significant barrier to student social connection and whether technological solutions could effectively address this problem. The findings will inform the design of an automated group availability tool that reduces the time and effort required to coordinate social plans, with the goal of helping students maintain meaningful friendships, decrease social isolation, and support overall student mental health and wellbeing during their university experience.