Togather
A Friend Making App
"Togather" is a friend-making mobile app that helps people to find local interest groups and events. It is my capstone project at Springboard. With a self-defined problem, I led myself through the process from research to design, and all the way to testing.
MY ROLE
Problem defining, discovery, researches, ideation, design, wireframing, prototype, testing
MENTOR
Noemi Selisker
DURATION
5 Months
PROBLEM
It is quite lonely and difficult for people who move to a new city without knowing anyone. I wanted to explore how I can help them acclimate by making new friends.
I came up with this problem based on my own experience. After moving to a new city for a job opportunity, I had to be away from my close friends. On top of that, the pandemic locked me down for a considerable amount of time. I felt lonely and want to fix the problem.
RESEARCH INSIGHTS
Research helps me to understand the needs of potential users. From the secondary research, screener survey, and interviews, I gathered many useful feedback. Then I analyzed the information by using affinity mapping and empathy mapping. Here are my insights:
People want real-life connections.
They like to meet people in a natural way, especially when they share the same interests.
Many people are ambivert. They need the balance between being social and alone.
It is very common for people to feel stressed when meeting someone new
TARGET USERS
I determined my primary and secondary user groups. Here are two personas representing a typical person from each group. Let's meet Cecilia and Anna.
Primary user group
New to the area,
Socially introverted
" I want to make new friends but there aren't many opportunities. People around me don't share the same interested with me."
Secondary user group
Locoal,
Wants to meet new people
" I feel fine with my current friendship circle. But I always want to explore new things. I don't trust people that I meet online."
HMW + IDEATION
With the understanding from my interviewees and persona research, I started to ask myself questions and tried to figure out what features/functions my app would have to solve the problems.
How might we?
-
How might we help people reduce feelings of loneliness?
-
How might we help people build connections to others that share similar interests?
-
How might we help people find platforms to work on their hobbies?
-
How might we help people feel less stressed when reaching out to others?
-
How might we make people feel secure enough so they can be truthful?
Ideation
-
Real-life connections
-
Meet people in a natural way, especially when they share same interests
This app is designed to help people to find their local interest groups, then to meet people with similarities
USER STORY
This session started with a brainstorm that brought me around 100 scenarios. Then I narrow them down to 6 EPIC user stories and finally landed on 2 red routes.
RED ROUTES
1
Onboarding
2
Find and Join A Group
SITE MAP + USER FLOW
Contents of my sites
User Flows of 2 red routes:
SKETCH
Sketches helped me to visualize the vision in my head. I enjoyed this fun process a lot. Being quick and loose, it allowed me to test multiple ideas in a short time.
Red route 1 - onboarding
Red route 2 - finding and joining a group
WIREFRAME
When I run my guerilla usability testing of my sketches, one major issue that several testers mentioned is that the sketches are too rough to understand. Digitalizing them into a low-fidelity wireframe helped to organize information and the flow testing.
Red route 1 - onboarding
Red route 2 - finding and joining a group
MOODBOARD & STYLE GUIDE
Feeling of
alive,
fresh,
motivation
HIGH FIDELITY DESIGN & PROTOTYPING
Combining the color, style guides, and wireframe together with the visual design of interfaces created my hi-fi screens
1
Onboarding
Sign in & Sign Up
Users can easily use their email to create an account or sign back in.
Get On board
Users will answer questions to help the system generate better recommendations.
Welcome & Guide
Users can select interested groups from the recommended list to get started. This screen helps users to understand the key component - the group. Once they select to follow some groups, they won’t have an empty home page after the first login.
Complete the user profile
Users will receive a notification to complete user profiles. This streamlined the onboarding process by saving several steps.
2
Find and Join a Group
Home
Users can switch between "my gather" and "explore" panels to see their followed group events and group members' posts or explore the suggested group events by the system.
SEARCH & GROUP
Users can use search page and group page to find their desired groups.
BEFORE JOINING A GROUP
Users will see limited information about a group before joining in. There might be groups that need users to submit requests.
AFTER JOINING A GROUP
Users will be able to access all of the groups' information and get involved with active group members. They can share posts, chat with other members, and even host events by themselves.
PHILOSOPHY
PHILOSOPHY
Know users' interests
(onboarding + user profile)
Suggest groups for users to follow
Users attend group events and meet people who share similarities
Make New Friends and not be alone any more
PROTOTYPE
* Click the top right button on below window to enter full-screen mode.
Thank you so much for reading!
Hope you find it interesting.