Case Study - Migle [In progess]
Challenge:
The main challenge was to understand the difficulties people have as adults to make friends and come up with a possible solution for such. Answering the question:
How can we help adults that have a hard time meeting new people step out and make new friends?
We know that it takes time and effort to make friends as we grow older, and there are many factors that take place when it comes to defining the difficulty of meeting new people. To propose my solution, I used my knowledge on UI/UX Design practices and tools, did some desk research to understand the main factors that hold people back from making new friends and analyzed the data I obtained from tests with users.
Scenario:
Making friends as an adult can be more difficult than when we are kids. There are many factors as to why it is so and, according to a research made by Menelaos Apostolou and Despoina Keramari, there are at least 40 reasons for that.
According to their research, the main factors identified were low trust, lack of time and Introversion.
Main factors:
• low trust
• lack of time
• introversion
Another factor to take into consideration are the logistics. When we were kids, all it took to make new friends was to show up at a place and almost instantly start playing with another kid. As adults, it takes a bit more effort to do that.
A study published in the Journal of Personal and Social Relationships showed that the people who believe that friendships depend solely on luck ended up being the loneliest. Which just highlights the fact that indeed it takes us more effort during adulthood to make friends.
After having an overview of the current scenario and the factors presented, I could elaborate the goal of the project, one that could solve the following issues for the users when trying to make new friends:
• Limited time in a busy routine
• Shyness and introversion
• Low trust with strangers
• Location and logistics
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Elaborate a solution that helps people make new friends and bond with other people in a busy day-to-day life.
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Business Model Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas:
The idea was to create an app that would help people, from ages 18 or older, to meet other people outside of their social circle and make new friends. At first, I elaborated the Business Model Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas in order to build my project focusing on the value of what I want the users to receive.
Benchmarking:
After finishing that, I proceeded to elaborate the benchmarking using five of the main applications recommended on Play Store. They were Bumble, Yubo, Boo, Litmatch and Wink.
Complementary to the benchmarking, I proceeded to read the comment section of each app on Play Store in order to understand the positive, negative and neutral reviews of the users. Here are the insights:
• Profile verification makes people feel safer and prevents kids and other people lying their ages and identities on the app;
• Having most of the functions blocked by paywalls makes people feel unmotivated to stay on the app;
• Hiding the profile from some people or remaining anonymous makes some people feel more comfortable at starting conversations, however it can be used with malicious intent;
• Filters, personality tests, compatibility recommendations are well valued by users when trying to make new friends via app;
• Having users recommendations based on proximity location tend to be well evaluated by users, some users also like the possibility of meeting people from other cities/countries though;
• Having free/daily benefits makes users feel more inclined to use the app continuously, while also allowing them to access some benefits without having to pay;
CSD Matrix:
Then, I moved on to elaborate the CSD Matrix, in order to validate what I’ve come to know so far and to clarify the next steps:
Then I turned my Certainties, Suppositions and Doubts into my Hypothesis and Questions:
Which helped me elaborate a map that I would turn into a form (made with form.app) to apply a quantitative and qualitative questionnaire with the users:
The profile of the users were defined by the fundamental characteristics and the characteristics that would be interesting, here are the criteria:
In total, there were 11 respondents, in which 6 of them aligned with the profile.
Here are the highlights obtained from the answers:
• According to the answers, introversion, time and difficulty to attend social places were the main difficulties the respondents faced when trying to make friends;
• 55% of the respondents used apps to make friends before;
• The main difficulties reported when using apps to meet people were:
- Being active and keeping touch with people in the app;
- Some people were there for romantic intent;
- They didn’t really know what other people liked and found it hard
to have meaningful conversations.
Considerations | User Research:
The form and the answers I obtained helped me have insights of the users feelings and what moves them to resort to apps when trying to make friends. Understanding better what the users experience and desire from this type of application were crucial for the decisions I made and the direction I wanted to take the project moving forward.
Based on the answers (and with I had learned previously from the desk research and the benchmarking), I was able to elaborate the app considering the feelings and the experience of the users. It helped me think of the functions I considered more relevant and that would make the experience using the app a lot better.
Persona:
The product and the brand:
User Flow:
To help me elaborate the wireframes, I planned out the user flow. Then I could have a better understanding of the screens that were most important in this step.
Prototype:
