Sociable 

The process for Sociable is based on the Double Diamond Theory. I aimed to incorporate the key phases of Discovery, Definition, Ideation and Implementation in all phases of the project.

Discover

UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM

The number of people who say they are going to an event is significantly higher than the actual number of people who attend. The start-up’s given location data shows that, on average, only 20% of people who say they’re going to an event end up attending it. It’s much easier to RSVP to an event versus actually showing up. The problem isn’t that users forget about the event but when it comes to getting up and going out they’d much rather stay at home. Users feel no incentive between signing up for an event and going to it. What’s lacking here is the build-up, how can users be excited and stay excited for an event they’ve said they’re going to?

I compared three industry leaders in order to learn how they solve similar business problems.

INDUSTRY COMPARISON

Sociable is an app that functions more as a service for users to combat social anxiety versus being a platform only to find events. For this reason it was important to create a space that was:

• Social

• Welcoming

• Friendly

• Persuasive

• Encouraging

The use of green and pink as the primary colors was intentional because these colors are meant to represent a sense of welcome and kindness. The illustrations add a flare of excitement and fun hopefully curating the perfect app for people wanting to attend events but don’t commit to them.

GATHERING INSIGHTS

I sent out screener surveys online to users who fit the given characteristics of my target audience. After a few days I received 15 responses which helped understand social habits of my users.

AFFINITY MAPPING

User interviews and secondary research helped me understand the user’s pain points, frustrations, and what users were lacking. I synthesized the data with the help of affinity mapping and then categorized in order to to understand the target audience to a deeper degree.

Users seemed to prefer a sense of safety and predictability as a result, I concluded this might help increase the conversion rate and boost social morale. If the user feels comfortable being in a new environment and knows the details of an event before-hand then they might be willing to commit to their decisions.

PERSONAS

Define

USER PERSONAS

USER STORIES

After compelling user interviews I used user stories narrowed the users priority frustrations in order to help identify what stories best aligned with the users goals and needs.  

USER INTERVIEWS

DISCOVER KEY POINTS:

• Users do not enjoy attending events alone

• User will commit to a social activity if they know the people going

• Users are very conscious of social image

GOALS

It became clear to me that users needed more than just constant reminders for an upcoming event. The frequent email and text notification often get ignored because the user wants and needs a sense of reassurance and excitement before stepping out of their comfort zone. The key highlights of Sociable are:

• Gamification, creating a fun experience where users earn points the more they socialize on the app and outside of it

• Making friends, users can find people of similar interests on the app and invite them to attend events with them

• Volunteer for events, this way users feel like they are contributing to the event and meet others versus feeling anxious for showing up alone

I conducted five moderated tests that each lasted about 15 minutes. This was for me to see if the flow was intuitive to the users or not. A few major takeaways from this prototype test were:

• Imagery is important to understand the meaning of tasks

• Icons that may seem obvious to one user doesn’t necessarily mean its obvious to another

• Understanding a concept is dependent on the way things are labeled

MEDIA KIT

I ran two rounds of four remote usability tests over zoom and two in person tests that each lasted about 20 minutes. Each user that I tested had taken my screener survey and fit the user characteristics given in this project.

Based on my research, I recognized that there was 1 key user type for my project. They experienced the difficulty of committing to events and that was the user that wanted to make friends and experience but wasn’t sure how or was too scared to.

INDUSTRY COMPARISON

Develop

THE SOLUTION

LOW FIDELITY PROTOTYPE TEST

Deliver

USABILITY TEST

01 User found that the home icon is not places in an intuitive location and the profile icon looks like a contact card

02 User felt that the ticket icon seems to correspond to music related events only

03 Labeling of item that result in the same action are inconsistnely names

After implementing the changes the users had expressed I went through three different iterations before producing the final deliverables below.

I made these changes keeping the user’s wants in mind and blended that with the brand’s attributes, hoping to:

• Increase conversion rates of RSVP to attendees

• Combat social anxiety

• And build community

HIGH FIDELITY SCREENS

Main Features

NEXT STEPS

FIND FRIENDS

You can find and make friends on the app itself so that you can then invite them to events that Sociable offers. This way the user can build a community and and attend events all on one platform.

I enjoyed this project because it felt something me and my friends would use in our everyday lives. However, if I had more time on this project I would make a the following changes:

• Run one more usability test after running round two in order to confirm all screen flows are now intuitive

• Held a focus group to brainstorm more ways to encourage people to socialize

• Add a feature where you can create your own event and invite friends you’ve made on the app to your event

• Add more horizontal scrolling so that the users could make more use of the filters on the dashboard