Elevating the food delivery industry by streamlining the connection between restaurants and dark kitchens.
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Individual Case Study
Research, UX Design, UI Design
12 Weeks
02.13.2023 - 05.05.2023
Figma, FigJam
Adobe Creative Cloud
Social media's toxic culture of exposure and instant gratification has led users to seek more honest communication channels. The rise of "finsta" exemplifies this, prompting the creation of private features like Instagram's Close Friends and Twitter Circle.
Despite these attempts, companies keep prioritizing public-driven features in their apps, neglecting the increasing demand for intimacy, therefore preventing users from expressing freely and having meaningful connections.
A social platform specifically curated for group interactions, enabling users to alter their levels of openness depending on the audience they’re sharing to, and effortlessly switch between them.
Switch between your groups with ease with the fixed top bar or by simply swiping through them.
Limiting group sizes to avoid large audiences from holding back raw user behavior.
From text posts to poll surveys, audio recordings, photos, videos and more!
Balancing the digital and the physical worlds through a
gathering-scheduling feature.
By utilizing the human-centered design process, it was possible to discover how exactly are social media giants failing to meet the growing demand for intimacy in social media, identify pain points, and effectively translate them into a design solution.
For an in-depth visualization of each stage in the design process, please visit the website through a desktop computer.
Secondary research helped unveil the problem: users are leaning towards more intimate social media experiences, and service providers are not giving this demand the priority it deserves.
Social Media Market Value
Tired of the lack of truthfulness in social media, users create “finstas”, Instagram side accounts where they’d share more intimate content to a smaller, more exclusive audience: their best friends. Companies listened.
Instagram Launches
Close Friends
2018
First Intimacy App
BeReal
2020
Twitter Launches
Twitter Circle
2021
TikTok Launches
Friends Tab
2022
But they didn’t do it very well.
Surveys and interviews were conducted to daily social media users to gain deeper insights into how and why social media platforms are failing to foster intimacy. This process revealed specific pain points that led to design opportunities.
Thoughts on social media’s attempts at enabling intimacy.
An extensive interview process with social media users allowed for the following findings.
By identifying trends among the interviewees and survey responders I was able able to consolidate the research into three main pain points. The pain points were addressed by questioning how might their exact opposite experiences be achieved.
Platforms that incorporate intimacy-driven features remain focused on their public features.
Grouping all of your close friendships in one same space holds back complete intimacy.
Communication channels in these new private spaces are limiting, preventing self-expression.
How might intimacy be rightfully prioritized?
How might social grouping enable full disclosure?
How might self-expression be enhanced?
To address the design opportunities, it was crucial to conduct a more in-depth exploration of the users' pain points. To achieve this, two user personas were developed along with their corresponding journeys.
The last step before ideation was a competitive analysis, where I measured current social media’s attempts at enabling intimacy based on performance indicators gathered from the research process and construction of personas and journeys.
The defining process helped translate design opportunities into feasible solution proposals, setting the beginning of the ideation process.
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How might intimacy be rightfully prioritized?
How might social grouping enable full disclosure?
How might self-expression be enhanced?
Focusing an entire social media platform on themes of intimacy and closeness?
Branding?
Reminding users of the purpose through casual messages?
Smooth group switching for users to adjust their audience with ease?
Separate feeds for different groups?
Making group feeds design customizable?
Incentivizing group creation based on shared interests?
Multiple posting options?
Not necessarily focusing on one communication format?
Fomenting interactions through featured topics?
Option to comment on others’ posts privately?
Flowcharts were curated to get a bigger picture of the proposed solutions and see how they could blend with each other.
The flowcharts helped determine the overall UX, but UI design still required exploration before prototyping.
The interaction of the potential end-users with working prototypes led to a more profound evaluation of the designs. This allowed them to experience the UX more vividly, sparking a productive dialogue that came with constructive feedback.
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Constrained
Direction
Each group has an independent feed. These are viewed separately.
Content can only be posted to one group at a time.
Fixed group slider at the top.
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Flexible
Direction
Different groups’ posts can be viewed together in “All” section.
Content can be posted to multiple groups at the same time (color tags indicate).
Dynamic group bar at the top.
Users were given the opportunity to try out the Figma prototypes on their phones and share their feedback during Zoom sessions.
Users provided valuable feedback that contributed to the platform's improvement. We addressed their comments with the following updates:
Once the updates had been implemented to the design system, the final UIs were crafted.
An extended prototype was put together, showcasing the app's entire system and how its pages and features coexist in it.
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Following the final design, users expressed a desire for a real-time communication channel in addition to the existing posting features. Basic text chatting would have made the platform too similar to existing alternatives. Test users explored the possibility of a seamless live talk feature as a mean to strengthen the platform's distinction.
Given the platform's intimacy nature, selling user data for profit wouldn’t be a viable option. Advertising would have to represent the primary revenue stream. To ensure it doesn’t interfere with the UX, it could involve targeted advertising based on discussions within certain groups, which could enhance coherence and minimize scroll disruption.
User activity could be incentivized by prompting topic discussions through pop-ups in groups, based on commonly addressed topics within them. Additionally, posts with significant engagement levels could be featured as memories every certain time, encouraging users to revisit and interact.
This project has provided me with valuable insights into the social media industry, particularly into the crucial role that UX differentiation plays in achieving success. In today's highly saturated market, where numerous applications are vying for users' attention, a unique user experience that evokes an emotional response is the key differentiator. It is not simply about providing an alternative platform, but rather about creating a distinct emotional connection with the user that engenders loyalty and engagement.
