Capstone Project
Amigo
A product that streamlines social planning by syncing friends' availability and simplifying event creation.
Capstone Project
Amigo
A product that streamlines social planning by syncing friends' availability and simplifying event creation.
Role:
UX researcher, UX designer, Ui Designer and Project Manager
Tools:
Figma & Miro
Timeline:
10 Weeks
Role:
UX researcher, UX designer, Ui Designer and Project Manager
Tools:
Figma & Miro
Timeline:
10 Weeks
Overview
Problem
The decline in social connections, increased by factors such as COVID-19 and politics, has resulted in significant growth in loneliness among Canadians.
Outcome
A product that streamlines your social life by enabling you to effortlessly check your friends' availability and seamlessly share your own schedule with just a tap.
The Design Proccess
By embracing a human-centred design philosophy, I centred every decision around the user, ensuring that my solution effectively and meaningfully
tackled a real problem.
This approach fosters both convergent and divergent thinking, enabling the comprehensive exploration of ideas before honing in on focused actions. Comprising four distinct stages, it serves as a structured framework that initiates and steers the creative journey.
Discover
Understanding the Problem Space
Introduction - Problem Space
To understand more about this problem space, I employed three different research methodologies:
Preliminary Research
Collecting research from scientific organizations to gather quantitative data about real-world social connections and their influence on our cognitive abilities.
Secondary Research
Searching for news articles and online blogs to gain a deeper understanding of how the issue is directly impacting specific groups, its current state, contributing factors and potential improvements.
Interviews
Interviews as a primary research method to gather more qualitative data, uncover insights, capture diverse viewpoints and also to understand existing behaviours.
KEY FINDINGS
Around 40% of Canadians have experienced reduced contact with friends and family due to factors like COVID-19
and politics
The age group most affected by this issue is individuals aged between 18 and 39, who
report anxiety, loneliness,
and depression
Loneliness profoundly affects our cognitive abilities, altering our capacity to connect, think, plan, organize, and engage socially with others
Problem Statement
Rising loneliness among Canadians, magnified by COVID-19 and politics, particularly affects those aged 18 to 39, who report increased anxiety, depression, and isolation.
Immediate action is necessary to counter the potential cognitive and social repercussions.
OPPORTUNITY
How might we facilitate social connections among millennials, combating the effects of declining social connections and loneliness in Canada?
Interviews
I conducted primary research by speaking to close friends who have a fairly active social life to find out how they deal with their Social Connections.
Participant Criteria
Millennials
Narrowing down
the age group
Single people
Group most affected
by this issue
Living in GTA - Greater Toronto Area
Narrowing down
location
Criteria defined by Secondary Research
Synthetizing Data
Synthesizing interviews and information into pain points, motivations and behaviours to understand more about how the problem is currently experienced and what is considered important.
Connecting online
The preference lies in connecting with their friends online, primarily driven by the convenience it offers.
Expanding social connections
Interviewees express a strong desire to interact with individuals who share similar interests and values.
Hangout with friends
Interviewees find it hard to hang out with friends due to conflicting schedules.
Connecting online
The preference lies in connecting with their friends online, primarily driven by the convenience it offers.
Expanding social connections
Interviewees express a strong desire to interact with individuals who share similar interests and values.
Hangout with friends
Interviewees find it hard to hang out with friends due to conflicting schedules.
Define
Finding the right problem to solve
Key Themes
After categorizing the insights into pain-points, motivations and behaviours, I identifies the commonalities and grouped them into themes.
Persona
Based on the insights gained during the user interviews, I created a persona to enabled me to empathize with the user, comprehend their requirements and helped me to craft solutions that genuinely address those concerns.
A user persona serves as a detailed representation of an ideal target user, helping designers empathize with users' needs, goals, and pain points, enabling more focused and effective design solutions.
Experience Mapping
The experience mapping is an exploration of how the persona is currently experiencing the task without Amigo as a digital intervention. It helps visualize the key moments of the experience and identify areas of opportunity
Leslie's Goals & Pain Points
Then I created a task flow to have a bigger visual on what screens and actions I was designing for.
Expanding social connections
Let users effortlessly organize hangouts with different groups of friends and mix things up to create diverse social gatherings. This way, they can have more fun, meet new people, and expand their social circles organically.
Friends Suggestions
Adding features like suggesting new dates, location-based tips, conflict resolution, and quick polls can make planning hangouts smoother and more efficient. It helps friends find the best times and places, ensuring everyone gets a chance to join in the fun.
Scheduling a hangout with a friend
We want a user-friendly friend coordination and scheduling tool that smoothly syncs with different calendars, allows you to set your own privacy preferences, and sends you instant reminders. This feature could seriously boost your social game, making it easier to connect with friends, plan hangouts, and keep those friendships strong.
Expanding social connections
Let users effortlessly organize hangouts with different groups of friends and mix things up to create diverse social gatherings. This way, they can have more fun, meet new people, and expand their social circles organically.
Friends Suggestions
Adding features like suggesting new dates, location-based tips, conflict resolution, and quick polls can make planning hangouts smoother and more efficient. It helps friends find the best times and places, ensuring everyone gets a chance to join in the fun.
Scheduling a hangout with a friend
We want a user-friendly friend coordination and scheduling tool that smoothly syncs with different calendars, allows you to set your own privacy preferences, and sends you instant reminders. This feature could seriously boost your social game, making it easier to connect with friends, plan hangouts, and keep those friendships strong.
Task Flow
Then I created a task flow to have a bigger visual on what screens and actions I was designing for.
Develope
Exploring solutions to solve the problem
Solution Sketches
With the primary task flow in place, it was time to start sketching out the various screens. I made sure to keep Leslie's needs, motivations, and pain points at the forefront of my design process while creating multiple versions of each screen.
This approach enabled me to explore a wide range of potential app features and functionalities.
After Curated UI design inspiration, the next step is to explore possible features and design layouts that could be incorporated by sketching following the task flow.
Wireframes
The next step was making it digital! Using Figma, I converted the sketches into mid-fidelity wireframes.
I wanted to make sure that I created mid-fidelity wireframes so that during my usability testing, users would focus on the functionality of the application rather than the look of it.
The task selected was to Create an event and share it with my friends.
Testing Stage
As part of our design process, we plan to conduct 2 usability test rounds with about 5 users to obtain practical, real-time feedback that can be incorporated to improve the design, to provide a more optimal user experience.
Summary:
Used to use Apps and calendars to schedule or book activities
Familiar with technology;
Millennials - 25+ years;
The App will help users synchronize their calendars with friends
Goal:
To easily schedule hangouts with friends by optimizing their available time.
Due to the project size, a prioritization matrix was added to determine the order of changes, giving to high-impact and low-effort modifications first.
Testing Outcome
Deliver
Narrowing down on the solution to deliver
Moodboard
In our brand development journey, I started by pinpointing our core brand values. After that, I let my creativity flow and brainstormed a bunch of adjectives that really captured the vibe I wanted our app to give off.
Then, I went on a visual adventure, collecting images that showed exactly how I envisioned our app looking and feeling.
This not only helps me figure out Amigo's visual identity but also gets me in touch with our ideal audience and helps me nail down the overall look and feel.
Brand Colours
After a meticulous analysis of colours, coupled with the application of color theory, the Harmony Rule Double Split Complementary stands out as the optimal choice, seamlessly aligning with the desired brand mood.
Brand Keywords:
Connection - Friendship - Warming
Yellow embodies a sense of warmth, purple resonates with feelings of friendship, and light pink evokes softness and peaceful.
Next Steps
With all the feedback and tests I would like to improve a few points such as:
1 - Improve dashboard usability and clarity. During some casual tests, I felt that some users didn't understand the app's purpose, or it took them a while.
2 - Thinking about scalability, since the project is an MVP, you need to do it manually, but would be nice in the future to map out how would be if available slots on your calendar by default.
3 - As constraints, I should include privacy in the future. Does my app expose someone in a negative matter? Does my app follow The 5 C's in privacy? Consent, clarity, consistency, control (and transparency), and consequences (and harm)?
Capstone Project
Amigo
A product that streamlines social planning by syncing friends' availability and simplifying event creation.
Capstone Project
Amigo
A product that streamlines social planning by syncing friends' availability and simplifying event creation.
Capstone Project
Amigo
A product that streamlines social planning by syncing friends' availability and simplifying event creation.
Role:
UX researcher, UX designer, Ui Designer and Project Manager
UX researcher, UX designer, Ui Designer and Project Manager
Tools:
Figma & Miro
Timeline:
10 Weeks
Role:
UX researcher, UX designer, Ui Designer and Project Manager
UX researcher, UX designer, Ui Designer and Project Manager
Tools:
Figma & Miro
Timeline:
10 Weeks
Role:
UX researcher, UX designer, Ui Designer and Project Manager
UX researcher, UX designer, Ui Designer and Project Manager
Tools:
Figma & Miro
Timeline:
10 Weeks
Overview
Problem
The decline in social connections, increased by factors such as COVID-19 and politics, has resulted in significant growth in loneliness among Canadians.
Outcome
A product that streamlines your social life by enabling you to effortlessly check your friends' availability and seamlessly share your own schedule with just a tap.
The Design Proccess
By embracing a human-centred design philosophy, I centred every decision around the user, ensuring that my solution effectively and meaningfully
tackled a real problem.
This approach fosters both convergent and divergent thinking, enabling the comprehensive exploration of ideas before honing in on focused actions. Comprising four distinct stages, it serves as a structured framework that initiates and steers the creative journey.
By embracing a human-centred design philosophy, I centred every decision around the user, ensuring that our solution effectively and meaningfully tackled a real problem.
By embracing a human-centred design philosophy, I centred every decision around the user, ensuring that my solution effectively and meaningfully
tackled a real problem.
This approach fosters both convergent and divergent thinking, enabling the comprehensive exploration of ideas before honing in on focused actions. Comprising four distinct stages, it serves as a structured framework that initiates and steers the creative journey.
Discover
Understanding the Problem Space
Introduction - Problem Space
To understand more about this problem space, I employed three different research methodologies:
Preliminary Research
Collecting research from scientific organizations to gather quantitative data about real-world social connections and their influence on our cognitive abilities.
Secondary Research
Searching for news articles and online blogs to gain a deeper understanding of how the issue is directly impacting specific groups, its current state, contributing factors and potential improvements.
Interviews
Interviews as a primary research method to gather more qualitative data, uncover insights, capture diverse viewpoints and also to understand existing behaviours.
KEY FINDINGS
Around 40% of Canadians have experienced reduced contact with friends and family due to factors like COVID-19
and politics
The age group most affected by this issue is individuals aged between 18 and 39, who
report anxiety, loneliness,
and depression
Loneliness profoundly affects our cognitive abilities, altering our capacity to connect, think, plan, organize, and engage socially with others
Problem Statement
Rising loneliness among Canadians, magnified by COVID-19 and politics, particularly affects those aged 18 to 39, who report increased anxiety, depression, and isolation.
Immediate action is necessary to counter the potential cognitive and social repercussions.
Rising loneliness among Canadians, magnified by COVID-19 and politics, particularly affects those aged 18 to 39, who report increased anxiety, depression, and isolation.
Immediate action is necessary to counter the potential cognitive and social repercussions.
Rising loneliness among Canadians, magnified by COVID-19 and politics, particularly affects those aged 18 to 39, who report increased anxiety, depression, and isolation.
Immediate action is necessary to counter the potential cognitive and social repercussions.
OPPORTUNITY
How might we facilitate social connections among millennials, combating the effects of declining social connections and loneliness in Canada?
How might we facilitate social connections among millennials, combating the effects of declining social connections and loneliness in Canada?
How might we facilitate social connections among millennials, combating the effects of declining social connections and loneliness in Canada?
Interviews
I conducted primary research by speaking to close friends who have a fairly active social life to find out how they deal with their Social Connections.
Participant Criteria
Millennials
Millennials
Narrowing down
the age group
Narrowing down the
age group
Narrowing down
the age group
Single people
Single people
Group most affected
by this issue
Group most affected
by this issue
Living in GTA - Greater Toronto Area
Living in GTA - Greater Toronto Area
Narrowing down
location
Narrowing down
location
Criteria defined by Secondary Research
Criteria defined by Secondary Research
Synthetizing Data
Synthesizing interviews and information into pain points, motivations and behaviours to understand more about how the problem is currently experienced and what is considered important.
Define
Finding the right problem to solve
Key Themes
After categorizing the insights into pain points, motivations and behaviours, I discovered the commonalities and grouped them into themes.
Expanding social connections
Interviewees express a strong desire to interact with individuals who share similar interests and values.
Connecting online
The preference lies in connecting with their friends online, primarily driven by the convenience it offers.
Expanding social connections
Interviewees express a strong desire to interact with individuals who share similar interests and values.
Hangout with friends
Interviewees find it hard to hang out with friends due to conflicting schedules.
Expanding social connections
Interviewees express a strong desire to interact with individuals who share similar interests and values.
Connecting online
The preference lies in connecting with their friends online, primarily driven by the convenience it offers.
Expanding social connections
Interviewees express a strong desire to interact with individuals who share similar interests and values.
Hangout with friends
Interviewees find it hard to hang out with friends due to conflicting schedules.
Expanding social connections
Interviewees express a strong desire to interact with individuals who share similar interests and values.
Connecting online
The preference lies in connecting with their friends online, primarily driven by the convenience it offers.
Expanding social connections
Interviewees express a strong desire to interact with individuals who share similar interests and values.
Hangout with friends
Interviewees find it hard to hang out with friends due to conflicting schedules.
Persona
Based on the insights gained during the user interviews, I created a persona to enabled me to empathize with the user, comprehend their requirements and helped me to craft solutions that genuinely address those concerns.
A user persona serves as a detailed representation of an ideal target user, helping designers empathize with users' needs, goals, and pain points, enabling more focused and effective design solutions.
Based on the insights gained during the user interviews, I created a persona to enabled me to empathize with the user, comprehend their requirements and helped me to craft solutions that genuinely address those concerns.
A user persona serves as a detailed representation of an ideal target user, helping designers empathize with users' needs, goals, and pain points, enabling more focused and effective design solutions.
Based on the insights gained during the user interviews, I created a persona to enabled me to empathize with the user, comprehend their requirements and helped me to craft solutions that genuinely address those concerns.
A user persona serves as a detailed representation of an ideal target user, helping designers empathize with users' needs, goals, and pain points, enabling more focused and effective design solutions.
Experience Mapping
The experience mapping is an exploration of how the persona is currently
experiencing the task without Amigo as a digital intervention. It helps visualize the key moments of the experience and identify areas of opportunity
The experience mapping is an exploration of how the persona is currently experiencing the task without Amigo as a digital intervention. It helps visualize
the key moments of the experience and identify areas of opportunity
Leslie's Goals & Pain Points
Then I created a task flow to have a bigger visual on what screens and actions I was designing for.
Expanding social connections
Let users effortlessly organize hangouts with different groups of friends and mix things up to create diverse social gatherings. This way, they can have more fun, meet new people, and expand their social circles organically.
Friends Suggestions
Adding features like suggesting new dates, location-based tips, conflict resolution, and quick polls can make planning hangouts smoother and more efficient. It helps friends find the best times and places, ensuring everyone gets a chance to join in the fun.
Scheduling a hangout
with a friend
We want a user-friendly friend coordination and scheduling tool that smoothly syncs with different calendars, allows you to set your own privacy preferences, and sends you instant reminders. This feature could seriously boost your social game, making it easier to connect with friends, plan hangouts, and keep those friendships strong.
Expanding social connections
Let users effortlessly organize hangouts with different groups of friends and mix things up to create diverse social gatherings. This way, they can have more fun, meet new people, and expand their social circles organically.
Friends Suggestions
Adding features like suggesting new dates, location-based tips, conflict resolution, and quick polls can make planning hangouts smoother and more efficient. It helps friends find the best times and places, ensuring everyone gets a chance to join in the fun.
Scheduling a hangout
with a friend
We want a user-friendly friend coordination and scheduling tool that smoothly syncs with different calendars, allows you to set your own privacy preferences, and sends you instant reminders. This feature could seriously boost your social game, making it easier to connect with friends, plan hangouts, and keep those friendships strong.
Expanding social connections
Let users effortlessly organize hangouts with different groups of friends and mix things up to create diverse social gatherings. This way, they can have more fun, meet new people, and expand their social circles organically.
Friends Suggestions
Adding features like suggesting new dates, location-based tips, conflict resolution, and quick polls can make planning hangouts smoother and more efficient. It helps friends find the best times and places, ensuring everyone gets a chance to join in the fun.
Scheduling a hangout
with a friend
We want a user-friendly friend coordination and scheduling tool that smoothly syncs with different calendars, allows you to set your own privacy preferences, and sends you instant reminders. This feature could seriously boost your social game, making it easier to connect with friends, plan hangouts, and keep those friendships strong.
Task Flow
Then I created a task flow to have a bigger visual on what screens and actions I was designing for.
Develop
Exploring solutions to solve the problem
Solution Sketches
With the primary task flow in place, it was time to start sketching out the various screens. I made sure to keep Leslie's needs, motivations, and pain points at the forefront of my design process while creating multiple versions of each screen.
This approach enabled me to explore a wide range of potential app features and functionalities.
After Curated UI design inspiration, the next step is to explore possible features and design layouts that could be incorporated by sketching following the task flow.
With the primary task flow in place, it was time to start sketching out the various screens. I made sure to keep Leslie's needs, motivations, and pain points at the forefront of my design process while creating multiple versions of each screen.
This approach enabled me to explore a wide range of potential app features and functionalities.
After Curated UI design inspiration, the next step is to explore possible features and design layouts that could be incorporated by sketching following the task flow.
With the primary task flow in place, it was time to start sketching out the various screens. I made sure to keep Leslie's needs, motivations, and pain points at the forefront of my design process while creating multiple versions of each screen.
This approach enabled me to explore a wide range of potential app features and functionalities.
After Curated UI design inspiration, the next step is to explore possible features and design layouts that could be incorporated by sketching following the task flow.
Wireframes
The next step was making it digital! Using Figma, I converted the sketches into mid-fidelity wireframes.
I wanted to make sure that I created mid-fidelity wireframes so that during my usability testing, users would focus on the functionality of the application rather than the look of it.
The task selected was to Create an event and share it with my friends.
Testing Stage
As part of our design process, we plan to conduct 2 usability test rounds with about 5 users to obtain practical, real-time feedback that can be incorporated to improve the design, to provide a more optimal user experience.
Summary:
Used to use Apps and calendars to schedule or book activities
Familiar with technology;
Millennials - 25+ years;
The App will help users synchronize their calendars with friends
Goal:
To easily schedule hangouts with friends by optimizing their available time.
Due to the project size, a prioritization matrix was added to determine the order of changes, giving to high-impact and low-effort modifications first.
As part of our design process, we plan to conduct 2 usability test rounds with about 5 users to obtain practical, real-time feedback that can be incorporated to improve the design, to provide a more optimal user experience.
Summary:
Used to use Apps and calendars to schedule or book activities
Familiar with technology;
Millennials - 25+ years;
The App will help users synchronize their calendars with friends
Goal:
To easily schedule hangouts with friends by optimizing their available time.
Due to the project size, a prioritization matrix was added to determine the order of changes, giving to high-impact and low-effort modifications first.
As part of our design process, we plan to conduct 2 usability test rounds with about 5 users to obtain practical, real-time feedback that can be incorporated to improve the design, to provide a more optimal user experience.
Summary:
Used to use Apps and calendars to schedule or book activities
Familiar with technology;
Millennials - 25+ years;
The App will help users synchronize their calendars with friends
Goal:
To easily schedule hangouts with friends by optimizing their available time.
Due to the project size, a prioritization matrix was added to determine the order of changes, giving to high-impact and low-effort modifications first.
Testing Outcome
Deliver
Narrowing down on the solution to deliver
Narrowing down on the solution
to deliver
Moodboard
In our brand development journey, I started by pinpointing our core brand values. After that, I let my creativity flow and brainstormed a bunch of adjectives that really captured the vibe I wanted our app to give off.
Then, I went on a visual adventure, collecting images that showed exactly how I envisioned our app looking and feeling.
This not only helps me figure out Amigo's visual identity but also gets me in touch with our ideal audience and helps me nail down the overall look and feel.
In our brand development journey, I started by pinpointing our core brand values. After that, I let my creativity flow and brainstormed a bunch of adjectives that really captured the vibe I wanted our app to give off.
Then, I went on a visual adventure, collecting images that showed exactly how I envisioned our app looking and feeling.
This not only helps me figure out Amigo's visual identity but also gets me in touch with our ideal audience and helps me nail down the overall look and feel.
In our brand development journey, I started by pinpointing our core brand values. After that, I let my creativity flow and brainstormed a bunch of adjectives that really captured the vibe I wanted our app to give off.
Then, I went on a visual adventure, collecting images that showed exactly how I envisioned our app looking and feeling.
This not only helps me figure out Amigo's visual identity but also gets me in touch with our ideal audience and helps me nail down the overall look and feel.
Brand Colours
After a meticulous analysis of colours, coupled with the application of color theory, the Harmony Rule Double Split Complementary stands out as the optimal choice, seamlessly aligning with the desired brand mood.
Brand Keywords:
Connection - Friendship - Warming
Yellow embodies a sense of warmth, purple resonates with feelings of friendship, and light pink evokes softness and peaceful.
After a meticulous analysis of colours, coupled with the application of color theory, the Harmony Rule Double Split Complementary stands out as the optimal choice, seamlessly aligning with the desired brand mood.
Brand Keywords:
Connection - Friendship - Warming
Yellow embodies a sense of warmth, purple resonates with feelings of friendship, and light pink evokes softness and peaceful.
Next Steps
With all the feedback and tests I would like to improve a few points such as:
1 - Improve dashboard usability and clarity. During some casual tests, I felt that some users didn't understand the app's purpose, or it took them a while.
2 - Thinking about scalability, since the project is an MVP, you need to do it manually, but would be nice in the future to map out how would be if available slots on your calendar by default.
3 - As constraints, I should include privacy in the future. Does my app expose someone in a negative matter? Does my app follow The 5 C's in privacy? Consent, clarity, consistency, control (and transparency), and consequences (and harm)?