TRACKING THE PULSE
Stories, Sparks, Snapshots — From Our World to Yours.
Editor: Xixi Wang
In April, CUE launched our new tool, ‘What fruit are you today?’ It’s part of the Transition Into College Dating Life series and builds on our earlier ‘Intimacy IQ Test.‘ This new tool has been a long time coming…frankly, I’ve been thinking about it for the past four years and just never got it onto our priority list. Haha, talk to me about priority lists in a startup. It’s from here to Mars.
After taking the ‘Intimacy IQ Test,’ learners receive a 2,500-word report designed for real educational and self-reflective purposes. It worked perfectly for in-depth workshops, personal discovery, and a more serious take on learning about consent. But trust me, we’ve already tweaked it at least 30 times to make sure it’s not too serious or scary (because yes, the word ‘consent’ alone scares people off and shuts them down). That’s why we chose the ‘self-discovery test’ format in the first place, while trying very hard to keep the language engaging—even intriguing—but still educational and serious enough, yet not too dry, technical, or hard to read.
Creating content and services on this topic has been a far more challenging journey than any of us likes to admit. There’s the constant battle of balancing precision of messaging, moral guidelines as researchers, scholars, and knowledge curators, and the (potential & real) emotional responses and reactions from collaborators, young learners, and general followers.
After three years of piloting and running the ‘Intimacy IQ Test’ and workshops (read, for example, 2023 at Leiden University, 2024 at Utrecht University), I really wanted to try something different. I believe people learn best right in the moment. Or even better, right before. There’s compelling evidence that micro-interventions delivered in authentic social contexts significantly increase knowledge retention and behaviour change compared to detached learning in a classroom (see: “teachable moments” in health behaviour research). So yeah… “What Fruit Are You Today?” isn’t meant to sit on a student well-being website, nor to sit students down in a classroom. It’s meant to be used where the party is. Because that’s where things actually happen. And that’s where learning either dies or comes alive.
IMAGE 1: 17 Fruit Characters; IMAGE 2: Students with their fruit result cards at Club Maggy
For this new tool, we created 16 fruit characters, thanks to a few brainstorming sessions with our student interns (Lena, Camilla, and Federica) and our very experienced partner, Gabriella, at OBOV (Our Bodies Our Voice). For the first trial run, CUE was kindly invited by a Utrecht University sorority, Viatores, to join their annual party at Club Maggy in Utrecht on April 7th. It was an exciting and encouraging success! You can read more about the first trial run and our design thinking behind this tool here.
We wanted a more in-depth student review of the tool, so our interns brought it with them to Amsterdam. It happened to be the Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM), and our partner OBOV, along with a student board at UvA, was hosting a workshop on consent. We asked them if we could join and contribute to the conversation. Together, the students chatted about sexual consent as an evolving concept, then experienced our new tool as a group. I heard the tool sparks genuine interest and a lot of fun conversations. And honestly? That’s exactly what we wanted.
IMAGE: A photo of UvA campus on the day
While I wasn’t there in person, I heard stories and recaps from our interns and Gabriel. Since it was a small group, conversations went into more detail, and students were quite open about their thoughts on the tool. Everyone was excited to see which fruit they’d get; the cute designs made them genuinely look forward to receiving their results. Most students agreed with the fruit they received and could see themselves in the descriptions. They quickly became interested in what their peers were getting and which characteristics matched which fruit. One particularly intuitive student guessed her friend’s fruit before she took the test. When the result came back? Exactly what she’d guessed. The Considerate Coconut. This was surprising from a designer’s perspective; I never imagined anyone could guess the fruit ahead of time.
This trial run also set aside some of our basic worries. For instance, all fruits are recognizable and known. No negative sexual connotations were brought up around the fruit characters. Nobody got offended by the fruit they received (although one student didn’t agree with their description right away). It didn’t create peer-to-peer hierarchy, competition, or negative comparison, just pure curiosity. No one felt embarrassed or singled out. No one refused to share their result. There was no awkward silence after revealing a fruit, no teasing, no sense of “better” or “worse” fruits, just laughter, nodding, and a lot of “oh, that actually makes sense.” Even the student who disagreed stayed engaged and argued their case playfully, which sparked even more conversation.
While all of this sounds basic (and amazing), these were direct results of our design thinking. During the process, we explored various visual directions: animals, aliens, plants, cocktails (and other beverages), and fruit. In the end, we chose fruit precisely because people from all walks of life, cultures, and countries have a close, positive relationship with it. Plus, fruit is often associated with sensuality and sexuality. Plants and aliens felt too abstract. Animals seemed more likely to provoke negative connotations and hierarchy—especially in relation to sensuality and sexuality. And cocktails just aren’t as culturally universal as fruit.
IMAGE 1: An OBOV PowerPoint slide about consent;
IMAGE 2: A CUE PowerPoint slide of “What Fruit Are You Today?” and a QR code
Beyond easing our worries, this trial run gave us real validation. These students weren’t just being polite; they were genuinely into it. And here’s what really gets me: these are exactly the kind of students we design our solutions for. Same age, same mindset, same party culture. So seeing this tool speak to them, spark their curiosity, and actually hold their attention? That means everything. They said they want to use it at their own parties. Not as a workshop. Not as a lecture. But something fun that lives right where they are. That’s the dream, isn’t it? When the students become the ones carrying the tool forward.
So yeah, that’s where we are. Four years of thinking about it, a million little worries, a lot of design debates (animals? cocktails? aliens? truly), and finally—two trial runs that actually worked. The conversations happened naturally. The students wanted more. For a small team like ours, that’s not nothing. That’s everything. We’ve always been committed to meeting young people who they are, and where they actually are…at a party, with their friends, curious about each other and themselves. And if a coconut or a strawberry can help get that conversation started? I’ll take it.
