Location-Based Free Events: Proximity App
Timeline
20 weeks
(6 months)
My Role
UX Researcher
Interviewer
Designer
Team
4 designers
Process
Research
Ideation
Design
Prototyping
Usability Testing
Tools
Figma
FigJam
Miro
DaVinci Resolve
Overview
Students are often expected to balance their school work, social life, and their budgets, which can be increasingly difficult when non-academic activities require them to spend money. We made a new product to facilitate affordable activities and events for college students on a budget.
Problem Statement
“How might we help UW students on a budget in the Seattle area make decisions on how to attend free in-person activities and events?”
Research
Competitor Analysis
We analyzed four competitor products: Meetup, Nudge, Bumble BFF, and bulletin boards.Our analysis of these products helped frame our goals for our solution and the rest of our research.
Interviews
We conducted four total interviews and our interviews ranged from 15 to 31 minutes. We recruited participants by reaching out via text to friends and family members who are of the age range 20 to 26. Two of our participants were UW students and two were UW graduates. We followed a semi-structured interview protocol and asked follow up questions to gain insights and clarity from all participants. Our interviews aimed to answer three research questions:
Why do young adults struggle to find free activities?
What factors besides money restrict young adults from exploring hobbies?
How do young adults make decisions about attending free activities?
Personas
Our team summarized our research findings by creating two personas that described users with high energy and users with low energy.
User Journey Map
Our user journey highlights Sarah’s experience attending a free 5k running event. The main issues highlighted at the beginning are that it is difficult to find free things to do initially and having confusing logistical information about a free event.
Key Insights
The paywall present in all three apps was the most noticeable weakness in these competitors.
Most competitors lacked features for how to fit an activity into the user’s personal schedule.
Most of these products relied on user’s previously stated interests. This was helpful to provide the user with events that they would find interesting.
Key Insights
Desire to find activities that suit personal interests and hobbies, ideally, other attendees of events would also have similar interests.
Challenges in finding reliable and efficient information about an event; unclear logistics was a commonality.
Lack of motivation to find and participate in activities, despite wanting to do activities.
Evidence: Include carefully selected images, diagrams, or artifacts that illustrate your process and thinking (with brief explanations of why each was chosen)
Design
Design Goals
We created three design goals to ensure that our solutions meet the needs and goals of our users that we found during our research.
Easy and straightforward to receive information about events that fit into users’ schedules.
Low budget activities and events are prioritized to ensure that users on a budget are supported.
Increases users’ level of motivation regarding finding and participating in local activities and events.
Ideation
We created three initial design ideas:
1. AR Marker Jewelry (Ring, Necklace, or Bracelet) for Motivation
We wanted to incorporate a wearable design to stray away from a phone app with notifications as those are easy to ignore.
2. Campus Connect App
It is an application that would be free to download on a mobile device. This design highlights affordability by connecting with University of Washington calendars and registered student organizations.
3. Activity Card
This design sketch is about a card that university and school students can borrow from libraries or download online to access free events and activities in their local area.
Final Design Idea
We decided to combine our first two ideas and design an app that centers affordability and accessibility. This is an app called Proximity. For the sake of this project, we were hired by UW to build a product that encourages students to socialize. Our design is a new mobile application that facilitates affordable activities and events for students on a budget. It will notify users of events and activities that are nearby, and feature a map of nearby free events.
Design Review Feedback
After 10 weeks of research and design, we presented our initial ideas to two industry professionals. We received feedback to improve our Problem Space and Goal and Link our Solution to Research
Based on this, we decided to narrow our scope to focus on affordability, rather than focusing on energy levels. And we focused on gathering more research during usability testing.
Prototyping
Information Architecture
We created an information architecture diagram to determine how our low fidelity prototype will be organized.
We learned that this is important to consider how users will be interacting with the app. For example: If a user enters the app via clicking on a notification on their lock screen, then the app will open to a pop-up on the Home screen with more information on the event.
User Flows
This is still in progress and will be updated soon!
Low fidelity prototype:
Mid-fidelity interactive prototype:
This prototype is still in progress and will be updated soon!
High-fidelity interactive prototype:
Reflection & Lessons Learned
Throughout this project, I have realized how important it is to base your designs on solid research. Without ample research into your users’ pain points and needs, it is impossible to make a product that improves people’s lives.
The time constraints of this academic project made it difficult to conduct thorough research, and I hope that in the future I will be able to approach projects from a more informed perspective.