How a mobile app rebuild real-world human connections
Role: Lead product designer
Device: iOS
Duration: 4 months
Tools: Figma
Three in five Americans classify as lonely
There is an increasing number of American feeling lonely and they crave human connections.
Project goal
Develop a possible solution to rebuilding real-world human connections.
Business goal
Usability
Research
Technology contributes to loneliness
Many Americans rely on social media platform to find and connect with each other. Social media has its own positive aspects, but social media can never be a replacement for real-world human connection. Ironically for a technology that’s designed to bring people closer together, spending too much time engaging with social media can actually make us feel more lonely and isolated. In multiple studies have found a strong link between heavy social media and an increased risk for depression, anxiety, loneliness, self-harm, and even suicidal thoughts.
Impact of loneliness
Being alone is different from feeling lonely
I learned from my primary research, feeling unconnected makes people sad and lonely.
I also learned some of their struggles.
Over time some old friends change, and no longer as compatible
It takes a long time to find someone with shared chemistry
Safety concerns when meeting new people through social media platform
Missing the deeper connections
Our competitors have created communities and opportunities for people to connect in real-world. However, they are not optimized to create deeper connections.
Persona & Storyboard
Let's learn about Jennifer
How Might We...
...help Jennifer find like-minded friends and have meaningful real-world social interactions.
Hypothesis
Matching users by personality types will have better results.
“Follow” or “Like” another users promotes popularity and creates competition that causes negative effects.
Same gender community may provide more sense of trust and security.
People might need facilitated guidance to succeed in nurturing their new friendships.
Minimal Viable Product
The MVP would consist of a native mobile app where users would have an onboarding process that gathers information and uses it to match users based on their test results. Users are unable to search for another users to connect, allow or like another users. Lastly, it would provide assistance in starting or nurturing their new friendships whether it’s through communication or ice-breaking techniques.
Learned...
...a simplified way to get personality test results
...simplified onboarding increase user activation
Onboarding user flow
...having too many options decrease retention
Red route user flow
...not all personality types appreciate icebreaker
Ice breaker user flow
Wireframes
Onboarding
Red route
Branding
Styling / Testing
Interaction design
Simplifying animation to improve usability.
Before
After
The swiping left/right was confusing, so I changed to swiping is only being used for navigating between matches.
Before
After
Slide-down and pull-up notifications
My users were overwhelmed with having too many notifications slide-down, so I decided to keep the cupcake sent and acceptance notifications slide-down and the personality test help user can pull-up manually.
slide down
Pull-up
Interactive prototype
Feel free to test it :)
Conclusion
Multiple rounds of user testing and design iteration have better readied Coral for the next stage. Complicated flows have been simplified, unintuitive interactions have been improved, and overall quality has improved.
Lessons learned
Keep onboarding as simple as possible
Interaction design is very critical in user centered design, like a soft voice communication to your users and guidance to them along the way
Next steps
If I were continue on this project, I'd recruit a group of users who are in different personality types, have them test Coral, find their match and follow their stories
Test and develop the icebreaker game to make it more engaging
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