Pairing Process

This page contains information and planning about the entire pairing process of the BuddyMatcher Application. They key idea of pairing is to allow two student users to be matched as buddies-either through actively look for a match or enable the open to be paired option in own setting. After being matched, a message channel for communication between these two users will be created.

The pairing process is mainly divided into 3 phases:

1. Before pairing
2. Design of pairing algorithm
3. After pairing.

Before pairing

Assumption(s):

• Buddies can only be added through pairing process, not by searching a specific name in a course.

Path for users to actively find a buddy:

1. Users can tick at least one paper they take and match a buddy from one of the selected courses.

Path for users to enable to be paired

1. A global setting flag in account setting page for users to eanble being paired with any courses they take.

Design of pairing algorithm

Path of pairing

1. The pairing system will look at the selected courses and return a list of students that also takes those courses (as long as the students have enabled the option to allow for pairing).

• If the system sucessfully find matched buddy list

On the actively pairing side, the users can view some basic information about the buddy, and get to choose to add as buddy or skip and iterate through the entire list.

• If no matched buddy found:

1. A sentence indicating no match was found
2. Suggest users to also add other papers in and find again, and provide a button to return to find buddy page.

After pairing

Path of after pairing

Once the match was found and the user choose the add buddy option given in the matched list, the buddy will appear in the chat box for both members, with an opening message saying they have been matched.

Path to unbuddy with someone

1. Requires a button to remove the buddy in the chat box page and pop up for confirmation in order to remove it.
2. Chat channels on both sides will disappear-archived chat can be left as future feature.
3. Removed buddy will no longer be paired in the future.

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Link to original ideas https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Xy1WGBLeTLcn2faMHSrpB8RTz4PJtEASQoQ4Nv9XfGs/edit