OVERVIEW

Addressing the human desire to maintain and deepen friendships

Background

Research shows that adult friendships positively correlate with overall wellbeing, leaving people more satisfied with their lives and reducing feelings of depression and loneliness. Friendships play a crucial role in our lives, fulfilling our desire for close connections.

The Problem

And yet, there is a common sentiment that making and maintaining friends become even more challenging in adulthood. The nature of friendship evolves with age and busyness, making it difficult to approach relationships in the same way as in childhood.

The Solution

For a student project, I designed a mobile app that allows busy individuals to connect with their friends at their convenience. By responding to prompts, friends gain insight into each other's lives, serving as a catalyst for discussions that foster and deepen friendships.

EMPATHIZE

Existing friendships are highly valued but difficult to maintain

User Research

I conducted user interviews with five individuals in their mid-twenties to early thirties, each in various life stages. My goal was to explore their experiences with building new friendships and sustaining existing ones across different seasons of life.

Affinity Mapping

Through affinity mapping, I discovered that people face struggles with friendship due to limited capacity and the desire for mutual commitment.

Competitive Analysis

Competitive analysis of other social media apps

With all these apps, ensuring mutuality and reciprocation is difficult. This can lead to potentially one-sided interactions.

Moreover, relying on apps as the primary means of connection may lead to shallow interactions, reducing meaningful friendships to mere likes on Instagram and casual ‘we should hang out’ texts.

With this analysis in mind, I thought: how could I ensure that managing friendships is simple, meaningful, and collaborative?

DEFINE

The desire for more frequent connections with friends clashes with the demands of the everyday life

User Persona

I focused on creating a user persona that is a reflection of typical busy young adults who have a lot on their plate.

Delilah's user persona

This is Delilah. She represents those who desire to sustain a few lifelong friendships, but struggle with staying consistently committed. Despite missing their friends, reaching out and connecting feels exhausting amidst the busyness of life.

THE SOLUTION

A mutual-connection app to stay updated with friends and keep them in the loop

The Final Idea

An observation I made through interviews was that friends face challenges with catching up due to scheduling conflicts. This results in a lack of dedicated time for meaningful interactions and ultimately affects the strength of the friendship.

To address this, I moved forward with a concept where individuals form a group with friends and everyone within the group answers prompts based on a chosen cadence.

This solution gives people the flexibility to catch up with their friends at their convenience, eliminating the barrier of scheduling conflicts. It also serves as encouragement when people see their friends engaging with the prompts, reflecting a shared investment in the relationship.

Feature Roadmap

Prioritization of features

I determined that the app's core functionalities should revolve around answering prompts and viewing responses to prompts. This decision is grounded in user research, as these features aim to make maintaining friendships easier. Prompt answers offer glimpses into people's lives and encourage further engagement in conversation.

User Flows

I took the core functionalities mentioned above and created their respective user flows.

Flow #1: User responds to prompt

Why this flow?
A person’s response to a prompt offers a glimpse into their life, enabling others to stay updated with them.

Flow #2: User views friends' responses

Why this flow?
Viewing a friend’s response to a prompt helps people stay informed about their friend's life and can serve as catalyst for additional conversation.

DESIGN & PROTOTYPE

Creating designs and prototypes with a warm touch

View prototypes

Branding

For the color scheme, I opted for shades of red, orange, and yellow to embody the brand values of 'warmth' and 'friendliness'. Yellow, in particular, resonates well as it symbolizes friendship.

For the logo, I utilized a caret to represent 'bump', conveying a sense of pointing or nudging. In the case of this application, the aim is to nudge existing friendships.

Low-Fidelity Wireframes

Account creation and setup

Responding to and viewing prompts

High-Fidelity Wireframes

Before moving onto high-fidelity wireframes and prototyping, I created a UI kit to streamline the design process.

Account creation and setup

Overview carousel

Step 1: inputting information

Step 2: setting profile photo

Step 3: group formation

When setting up an account, users can set their username and profile photo. Additionally, they have the option to either join an existing group or create a new one.

Respond to a prompt

Dashboard (previous week)

Dashboard (current week)

Drafting a response to the prompt

Response is posted

Users have access to prompts from both the current week and previous weeks. In this example, the prompt cadence is set to weekly.

View friend's response

Friends list page

User profile page

Response detail page

All notes on a response

Users can view all friends in the group, access individual profiles, and explore responses to prompts that their friends have answered. They can also leave a note on each response.

TEST & ITERATE

Providing user guidance through affordance and proximity, rather than assuming they know the next steps

"Setup" Iterations

Instructions carousel

All five participants did not swipe through the carousel. Consequently, I modified the design, enabling automatic swiping to the next instruction in the carousel when the user clicks 'Continue', rather than advancing to the next step.

Inviting a friend

All five participants expressed confusion regarding the screen that appears after pressing the search bar. They thought that the prototype was broken or a blank page. To address this, I updated the prototype to include a blinking cursor to indicate that the user can start typing a username.

"Respond to a Prompt" Iterations

Date range chevrons

Without being given any context, all five participants thought the chevron near the date was a back button instead of a button to change the week. To address this, I moved the chevrons closer to the date to clarify their association with the date range.

Respond CTA

Two participants were unsure that the 'Respond' CTA indicated responding to the prompt. To enhance clarity and indicate action related to the prompt, I made the entire card clickable and added a drop shadow to improve affordance.

"View Friend's Prompt" Iterations

Leaving a note

Previously, tapping 'View all notes' would bring up an overlay to leave a note. All five participants found this unclear and unintuitive.

To address this, I added a 'Leave a note' component. Tapping on this would bring up the overlay as well.

REFLECTIONS

Usability tests are crucial; otherwise, I would inevitably design solely for myself

What I Learned

1. I did not realize how much bias I had when it came to designing some of the screens. Because I had context and knew what my intentions were with the designs, I assumed that my users would have that same knowledge. This capstone helped me see just how important usability tests are.

2. Gestalt psychology plays a significant role in usability tests (for example: the design with the chevrons and the date) — and I got to see this in action with my participants!