Role
UX & UI Design / Branding
Team
End-to-End Solo project
Duration
80 hours
Tools
Figma / Figjam
Overview
Project Background
COVID has isolated people, but also encouraged people to be more introspective
After the period of isolation due to COVID-19, many have expressed a sense of awkwardness in social interactions. This time has also made people more introspective; many have expressed a desire to have meaningful conversations in their daily lives.
Problem Statement
There is a lack in products that motivate and encourage deeper conversations
Despite increasing interest in deep conversations, there’s still hesitancy to open up to others due to fear and misconception that others may not care about what one might have to say.
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How might we create a product that provides a safe space to consistently motivate and prompt people to have deeper conversations?
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Solution
iOS app design: A mobile app with daily prompts and social interactions
Ruminate is a social lifestyle app that encourages one to share in order to connect with others
Explore & View Feeds
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Access your dashboard to view the Question of the Day or choose from other categories to answer a daily question
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Explore the Friends feed or Global feed to see who has answered a daily question
Answer Daily Questions & Interact with Others
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Answer the Question of the Day or a daily question
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Post your answer to your friends, globally, or both in order to reveal others' answers
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Interact with others' posts by liking, commenting, or directly messaging them about their answers
Research
Secondary Research
COVID has created motivations for introspection, but there are still misconceptions of deeper conversations leading to lack of interest from others
I started with research on the motivations, pain points, and benefits of having deeper conversations. According to surveys conducted by the Washington Post, many strive to have more meaningful conversations in their daily lives since the onset of COVID-19. However, common pain points such as feelings of hesitancy or being uncomfortable prevent people from gaining the benefits of stronger and happier social bonds.
Competitive Analysis
Competitors lacked either proper encouragement of deep conversations, availability of social interactions, or consistency in conversation prompts
I analyzed two direct and two indirect competitor apps. The direct competitor apps did not provide constant encouragement or availability for people to freely express their thoughts to either questions or to others. Whereas the indirect competitors both lacked social interactions within the app itself.
User Interviews
Users are more likely to be vulnerable and share if it is reciprocated
I conducted qualitative user interviews with 4 users who are interested in making stronger connections with others. I asked them questions to find common themes and feelings related to relationships and bonds such as:
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What makes you feel like your bond with someone has improved?
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What makes you feel like your bond with someone has worsened?
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Tell me about a time when you had a conversation with someone that deepened your connection with them
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Tell me about a time when you were hesitant to have a deep conversation with someone
Insights
I then organized the findings into an affinity map (partially seen on the left) and discovered the following trends:
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All participants value communication and deeper conversations
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All participants require understanding, reliability, mutual sharing, and willingness to share to be vulnerable
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All participants feel uneasy or contained when they are hesitant to have deeper conversations
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Some participants are not willing to share with strangers but will be more open to doing so with a sense of anonymity
Define
User Persona
Jessica Johnson is one of two personas that I created after conducting my research to encompass the common goals, frustrations, and motivations of my prospective users.
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Persona 1: Open to connect/share with others or have deep conversations, but is not completely comfortable starting them
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Persona 2: If someone shares/talks about deeper topics, would be open to sharing to show support but would not share first
App Map and Flows
Features for social interactions and engaging conversations are necessary
Based on the research, I decided to create a lifestyle social mobile app with the goal of creating a safe space that facilitates meaningful conversations, whether it is between friends or strangers. Nowadays, people spend more time on their mobile devices which makes a mobile app fitting for a product with social and lifestyle purposes. I outlined the site map and created flows (task and user) to get a better idea of how the information architecture and direction of the application features will work before any design work.
Design
Low and Mid Fidelity Wireframes
I started with low-fidelity wireframes by using traditional pencil and paper sketches to brainstorm different layouts for key screens that I had in mind based on the app map and flows. I drew inspiration from existing social apps to see the common practice design patterns for certain components. I then moved on to mid-fidelity wireframes on Figma before diving into the branding of Ruminate. I created a flow that would allow users to explore most of the features available, the most important being to view others’ posts after answering a question.
Branding and UI Design
The ideal branding Ruminate is to emanate feelings of warmth, comfort, and trust with soft and calm vibes. To do so, I created a color palette containing shades of blue and orange that were inspired by sunsets. I decided on using gradients as a common theme to create a soft image, which is further contributed to by the use of rounded elements throughout the design.
Usability Testing and Iterations
Having to answer a question in order to reveal others' answers is encouraging
Usability testing was conducted with 4 participants (ages 18-31) via synchronous moderated remote testing with a high-fidelity prototype of Ruminate. The main tasks were to sign in, explore the home section, add a friend, and answer the question of the day to reveal a friend’s answer.
There was a 100% test completion rate but there were some common errors involving the information architecture, UI components and design.
Opportunities for iterations were determined to be high, moderate, and low priority based on how many participants experienced the pain point, as well as how pertinent the changes were to the design. Based on the results, iterations were made for the following screens:
Final Screens
Ruminate Screens
Reflection
Final Thoughts
This project was really fun to work on, especially because it’s one that I can see myself using with my friends. It was inspired by the card game “We’re Not Really Strangers,” which does not have an app. Ruminate embodies traits and features that I would like to implement more into my life. It was amazing to build an end-to-end project that I am passionate about.
The biggest lesson going through this process on my own is the importance of having insight from others. Working on a project alone can make you get tunnel vision and hinders some of your ability to see things objectively. Therefore, the most valuable part of the process for this project was the usability testing. It made me realize flaws in my design that I had not noticed prior to testing and helped me improve its usability for users.
Next Steps
If I had more time, I would love to add or improve on the following features:
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Gamification: it was in my initial plans to include more gamification aspects in the app, such as achievements or badges, to encourage users to come back daily to answer questions. However, due to time constraints, it was not on top of my priorities for the MVP.
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Images: more than just words, I believe images can also contribute to expressing oneself. I would like to add the option of including an image with one’s post when answering a question.
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Design: I would like to experiment more with the design and branding of the product. I believe the current designs have modern, comforting aspects that represent Ruminate well. However, there is always room for improvement to create a more coherent branding.