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MiTRA

Duration: 10 weeks

Role: User Researcher, Designer

Tools: Figma, Photoshop

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Project Description: I created an app to connect people who are new to a city with others who share similar interests, while also providing personalized recommendations for activities and events in their community.

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Project Context: This project was completed during Spring 2024 as a part of my undergraduate coursework in user-centered design. 

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Problem Statement

People who recently moved to Seattle and are new to the city often experience the “Seattle Freeze,” where they feel disconnected and isolated from the rest of their community. These newcomers may not know of ways to get involved in their community and ways to meet people with similar interests and activities they can engage in. To overcome this challenge, a solution is needed that facilitates these connections by putting these newcomers in contact with people of similar passions and interests and offering personalized recommendations for ways to engage with the city. 

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Competitive Analysis: Bumble for Friends

I conducted a competitive analysis to better understand existing solutions in the market and their strengths and weaknesses. Bumble for Friends is a new app that works similar to Bumble, but is dedicated to giving people who are new to a city, or just want a bigger community, a space where they can make meaningful connections with others. It mirrors the format of the dating app Bumble, allowing users to swipe left or right on profiles to initiate meaningful friendships. This analysis helped me pinpoint gaps that my app could address, such as fostering deeper connections and reducing the pressure of quick interactions.

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Pros of Bumble for Friends

  • Users can make group chats with their matches

  • Users can tailor their results pool

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Cons of Bumble for Friends

  • Users must start a conversation within 24 hours of matching or the match disappears

  • Users can only match with someone of the same identified gender

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Bumble for Friends UI

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User Research Process

To ground my design in user needs, I conducted user research to better understand the experiences of newcomers transitioning into a new city and to evaluate the efficacy of existing socializing apps.

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Methods

  • Conducted 10 semi-structured interviews with recent newcomers to Seattle. Interviewees were selected based on their recency of moving to the city (2-3 years) and their interest in finding community connections

  • Designed an interview guide with questions about their experiences settling into a new city, tools they used to meet others, and pain points they encountered

  • Used affinity mapping to synthesize qualitative data, uncovering recurring themes and behaviors

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User Research Insights

From the user interviews we synthesized the data through affinity mapping and consolidated our findings into 3 research insights.

  1. "Swipe-based" apps like Bumble for Friends are not ideal for making friends because they force superficial connections by emphasizing profile judgments and fast decision-making.

  2. Community oriented groups, like Facebook groups, help foster meaningful relationships because the basis of those groups are shared interests and passions (i.e. hiking groups)

  3. In terms of socializing, people prefer events that make them leave their neighborhood. Events in the city that are centered around exploring the food scene in the city are ideal

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User Persona

Based on our research findings, I developed a user persona to represent our primary user group: newcomers to Seattle who are eager to meet people but feel unsure about where to start.

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User Journey

To better understand the process a user might go through, I developed a user journey that follows the process our user persona took as he moved to Seattle and tried to meet people. This journey mapped emotional highs and lows at different touch-points, such as initial excitement about moving and the frustration with traditional apps. This informed how features like "swipe-based" matches were not effective and how a deeper level connection is needed.

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Design Question

​How might we design a technological platform that connects newcomers who share similar passions and interests, while also providing personalized recommendations for activities and ways to engage with the city?

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Design Requirements

Based on research and competitive analysis, I established the following design requirements to address user needs:

  1. Develop a matching algorithm that analyzes users profiles, including their listed interests, hobbies, and preferences, and employs machine learning techniques to identify and prioritize compatible matches based on similarity scores

    1. ​Use this algorithm to create a group for the user to go to events with

  2. Curate content and recommendations that are tailored to specific neighborhoods or districts within Seattle

  3. Enable users to rate activities, provide written reviews, and share photos or videos, enriching the platform's content and providing valuable insights for other users

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Design Goals

  1. Foster a sense of community, belonging, and inclusion amongst newcomers in Seattle

  2. Provide personalized recommendations tailored to the diverse interests and preferences of newcomers

  3. Introduce users to a potential friend group based on a shared interest or identity

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Storyboard

My storyboard illustrates a typical journey for a new user, starting with feelings of isolation upon arriving in Seattle and culminating in discovering a group of like-minded individuals who share a passion for jazz, attending an event together. This visual narrative shaped the app’s core features, such as event discovery and group formation.

Storyboard.png

Low Fidelity Prototype

Based on the narrative generated from the storyboard, I translated those ideas into my app and started designing my low-fidelity prototype. Below are three of my main pathways on the app: (1) signing up and the onboarding process, (2) generating activities for a group, (3) and discovering events and having the app create a group for you. 

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Sign up & Onboarding

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Groups & Generating Activities

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Events & Creating a MiTRA

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Task Evaluation

The low-fidelity prototype was used to conduct a simple usability test on a participant. The participant is part of the target user group for the app, so they would provide the most helpful feedback for areas of improvement within the interface. The participant is between the age of 18-25, and uses technology regularly. The three tasks being evaluated are as follows:

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Task 1: Sign up and build your profile

  • User should sign up for a Spheres account

  • User should build a profile with selected interests

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Task 2: Navigate groups page and get a recommended activity from the app

  • Look through current groups

  • Select one of their groups

  • Chat with their group

  • Be given personalized recommendations for activities to do with group

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Task 3: Find an event and be given a group to go to the event with​

  • Look through events and be able to filter events by interest and date

  • Select an event

  • Find out more information about the event

  • RVSP to the event

  • App creates a group based on shared interests

  • Chat with given group and go to event together

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Evaluation Findings

Task 1

  • Guides user through entire process

  • Linear and intuitive

  • Missing some onboarding questions that would be helpful for a friend app

    • Needs a section for users to upload pictures

    • Needs a section for users to write a bio

    • Needs a section for users to connect their social media and music

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Task 2

  • Main focus of groups page seems to be focused on the app providing recommendations of activities

  • Main feature should be chatting with group

  • Confusion with navigating to chatting option within a group

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Task 3

  • Events were muddled together

  • Not clear that these events were personalized to user

  • No visuals to prompt user to click on an event

  • Unclear that the user will be put into a group after clicking “I’m Interested” on an event. No confirmation button/secondary step

High Fidelity Prototype

Based on the feedback from the task evaluation I iterated on my designs and transformed my prototype to a higher-fidelity. Below are the same three pathways as above but improved upon. 

Sign up & Onboarding

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Groups & Generating Activities

hifi groups slide.png

Events & Creating a MiTRA

hifi events slide.png

Reflection

Overall, this project was a fun experience for me and gave me the opportunity to test the skills I have been learning this past year in my undergraduate coursework. With only around 10 weeks, this project was condensed down tremendously to fit the short timeframe we had. By the end of it, I had learned how to go through the entire design process from research to ideation to designing and prototyping. 

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This project was a tricky one since so many have already tried to find a solution for finding friends. With apps like Bumble for Friends, Nudge, Facebook groups, and others, it was difficult to find a solution that stood out and wasn't already out there. It was also pretty difficult to tackle the problem of making the app not feel like a dating app with "matching" with friends, while still giving users the autonomy of making their own friends. If I had more time, I would have spend it researching a wider pool of people to get a better understanding of the pain points people experience when making friends in a new city. With such a short time period and limited access to people who are new to a city, my research was quite limited. With more in-depth research and the ability to interview a big pool of users, I would have a better basis for what problem my app should tackle. 

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The part that I was most surprised about was design aspect of the app. Translating all my research and storyboards into design choices was something that I had not had much experience with. Figuring out which colors, fonts and shapes I wanted in my high-fidelity prototype was my favorite part of the process because the visuals of the app convey so much about the overall feeling and essence of it. With little experience with the actual design aspect of the design process, this project pushed me to think about how colors and symbols convey meaning. I realized that every small detailed mattered. 

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