Gathr
Making friends should be easy
For recent transplants who are settling into new cities, states, or countries and seeking to find real life community connections and start new interpersonal relationships.
My Role
UX/UI Designer
Timeline
2 Weeks
Tools
Figma
Figjam
Maze
Optimize
Final Screens
About the Project
Relocating is something that people do in many age groups for various reasons. Work, relationships, escape, and exploration. This project explores the needs of users once they arrive in a new location and how to best serve them. Gathr is an app that solves the problem of finding community and new friendships by matching you with events and people you might like. The experience is a gamified icebreaker and friend matchmaker. In this case study I explore how to answer the problem of how to rebuild your network when you’ve started a life somewhere new.
Focus & Solution
I initially assumed I would focus this concept around the idea of a ‘community expert’ who would help familiarize the user with their new home or a product that worked in tandem with community government and calendars to help them in feeling welcomed and settled in a new area. However, my assumptions were proven wrong after user interviews when I saw that the user’s common pain points were in developing interpersonal relationships when moving somewhere new. I sought to explore solutions to make creating new friendships and exploring the local community less overwhelming. I created a gamified experience that matches you to friends you have to find during a shared common interest.
Research & Interviews
1:1 interviews were conducted with 5 users with the intent to move within the next 2 years or who have just made large moves (out of state or internationally) within the last 2 years.
After surveilling the market there are no products that aim to appeal to new residents in a given area or community. Products like ‘meetup.com’ do exist but nothing with a specific focus on new residents who need help forging new relationship bonds while navigating a new city or living experience. This opened the door to ideate a lot on what that would look like and what the needs of the user are in the strange but exhilarating first few months in a new place.
Users unanimously expressed feelings of being overwhelmed by the prospect of building new relationships where they did not have a core group of friends or family already established. With the user problem set ahead of us led by user interviews. It’s time to let the users be the face and heart of the product by building personas to keep the project focused on user needs.
Ideation & Finding User Voice
Breaking down the data into an affinity map really helps me to feel like I’m locating the voice of my user. I break down important information that leaps out to me and organizes them by common themes in order to see what is common. Synthesizing this data down shows me that at their core users are most worried about creating new friendships and meeting new people. This directs me to the solving for relationships in this relocation-based MVP.
With this data and some common themes between my users defined. I explore some phases of ideation on how to solve their common worries and needs. In this stage I wonder, what will help users feel involved in their new community? Some of the interview subjects express that one-to-one meetups are too high-pressure. Solutions like existing spaces of Bumble Friends and a Tinder-like solution for getting involved don’t fit this user type. Our user is also looking for spaces to get involved in group and community spaces but don’t know where to begin.
At the onset of this project, I assumed users would want a ‘community expert’, someone that they could contact for resources on how to do things like seek-out expat communities, connect with local churches, find service professionals like doctors, help in finding job placement and cultural factors like local markets and hair care spaces. I storyboard some of these concepts (rather poorly, but nothing wrong with stick figures) and implement them into potential solutions.
Based on the interviews and market research I create personas. Serena and Rebecca are examples of our users - enthusiastic about moving but full of nerves and anxiety around the potential of being lonely in a new location. Both users are starting from different places and times in their lives but face the same pain point. Finding care and community when they don’t have a starting point.
Understanding the users’ common stressors and pain points directed me to the problem and toward brainstorming and finding solutions.
How might we... provide a place for new residents to build community and relationships?
Structure and Building for the User
Working in blocks helped keep the site structure and the tasks ahead in digestible chunks. The sitemap gave me greater scope of the site task and user flows helped me organize the best path forward for the user. Initially, I attempted to create user flows for the entirety of the site, which got complex and didn’t allow for much flexibility in building out the user flow processes.
To help our personas Serena and Rebecca make new friends in their new cities based user and business research, it’s finally time to design an app that they’ll both love, use and recommend to others. Foundation work for the site is laid by developing a sitemap, user and task flows.
Always keeping the user in mind I remember that Rebecca and Serena are looking for simplicity, they do not want to be fumbling around as they look for assistance or new friend connections since they already expressed being overwhelmed by the process of moving and there’s a lot of vulnerability in meeting new people. I conduct a card sort to organize information based on an understanding of how the user thinks and rework the site map and site language to be more intuitive as well as see where users match our assumptions. “Recommendations” already feels like “Ask-an-Expert” which is what I presumed. Using this I learn that users conflate the categorization of ‘local’ and ‘entertainment’ as the same category and this needs to be clarified or consolidated.
Design Goals
Gathr aims to be a welcoming respite for those who are recently moved, or who are looking for new friends and relationships. Our brand values center around community, friendship, fun, and ease which are represented across the design from the colors to the typeface. We aim to constantly attract new users and retain users by making friend-finding and adventure.
Laying an uncomplicated groundwork that tells a story and allows for further iteration and problem-solving based on key screens of the initial user flow for the MVP gave me a basis of understanding the user would initially encounter and what information was going to be most necessary to make the process simple. I greyscale some mid-fidelity screens while finalizing the brand values with colors, type and tone meant to be conveyed beforehen move to high-fidelity screens and testing.
The colors chosen are used to welcome and ease the user as well as inspire them to feel playful and adventurous. Typefaces selections are clear to read while scanning with little flourish in order to maxamize readability.
The visual design is inviting.
Since users expressed being stressed out and overwhelmed the green I chose is calming, while blue represents “togetherness” and the warm CTA buttons are exciting and vibrant.
The goal is to create an MVP that helps reduce user stress in meeting new people by allowing them safe spaces to make new friends that feels organic while ‘gamifying’ the experience by offering rewards that connect them back to their local community. Who doesn’t want 15% off at the local coffee roasters when all it cost was making a new friend along the way?
Test & Rapid Iteration
At this stage of the project, while prototyping my MVP I struggled with overthinking the realistic functionality of the app. I kept trying to solve for the technical building and in doing so was outside of my role and scope as designer. “How do I make this prototype functional? How do I deliver quiz results to my test audience that feels authentic to them?” At this point, I had to remember I am the designer and my goal is not functionality but usability. I approached testing by carefully explaining to my user the app’s intentions instead of solving for a prototype that would deliver testers true results.
-
Users want a dedicated search function
Users seek clarity for categories they’re currently viewing
New users will skip ‘how it works’ section if given the opportunity
-
gauge if the user understood the purpose of the app
did not encounter feeling stuck as they moved through the process
felt the quiz element was both delightful and going to lead them to successful event matching
understand if event cards were informative enough
did the user disengage with events that did not include images
Get started CTA invites the user to interact with the helpful content below to increase user understanding
Search page was added to give users the option to use specific search and filter search. Search icons that rollout on each screen were added for ease of use and to reduce clicks.
Additional clarity indicating how results are being displayed
What I Learned…
This product taught me to let the user define your problem before beginning to create solutions. Everything is user-centric.
Keeping the personas at the forefront through each phase of the process makes each step a little more focused. In the end, we have a product much bigger than the MVP, all aimed to help the user settle in and feel “at home” in a new place more quickly than typical if they don’t interact with the product.
Something welcoming, simple, fun, and safe are common user needs. Our user quiz adds delight and tailored recommendations make the process easier. Rapid rounds of interaction created a viable MVP within a short window. While more time and more participants can result in more updates. With a great algorithm and developer, this product is market ready for further testing, iteration, and joy.
Next Steps
Test and iterate on the connection development between new friends who meet at events. Prioritize user safety features here.
Involve community vendors to acquire discounts and incentives for user engagement and community exposure.
Build out messaging system
Streamline search functionality
View GATHR prototype