Project Information
4 Interviews
13 Usability tests
My Role:
Interviews | Surveys | User Personas | Experience Map | User Stories | User Flow
| Information Architecture | Copywriting | Low, Medium, High-Fidelity Wireframes | Usability Testing | Prototypes | Mockups | Marketing Website
5 Iterations
9 Weeks
Tools:
Sketch | Invision | Principle | Photoshop
75 Espresso shots
Context:
Student Capstone Project
Problem Space
Moving to a new city is hard.
With the steady increase of urbanisation and globalisation there is also an increase of people whose lives and mental healths are deeply affected by the need to move.
The Challenge
My goal with this project was to find a way to make new residents feel like they belong in a new city. Initially I thought this meant helping new residents learn more about their city and surroundings so that they could feel more connected.
I was quite wrong.
The need to connect is inherently human. However connection comes, not from knowing the city, but from knowing the people in said city. From that point I derived a fairly open ended 'How Might We' question to investigate .
How might we
leverage mobile technology to help new residents easily find a sense of belonging?
The Solution
Tuus started out as an idea to help new residents build a stronger sense of place-attachment.
The solution was an app that would empower the users to explore the city by personalising their search results to the most relevant information for them. Tuus connects the users to the important aspects of what makes a place a home, their favourite hobbies, stores, restaurants as well as connect them to people based on their interests and preferences.
Research
Market Research
I conducted some market research in what is currently out there. There is a variety of products and services to get connected with people such as Hey Vina, Patook, Skout, Meetup, Nextdoor, We3 and Bumble Friends.
Many more platforms are available that help users get the information they want: Google, Google Maps, Yelp, Trip Advisor, Reddit are just a few of the competitors that offer similar services.
Learnings
There is nothing that combines both!
Secondary Research
The world’s population is becoming increasingly urban, and migration composes a significant portion of the increase in urbanization. It is important to focus on how they integrate into the new city’s culture, and communities.
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"More than half the world’s population now live in urban areas - increasingly in highly-dense cities" (Ritchie & Roser, 2019).
According to Hendirks, Ludwigs and Veenhoven’s paper on “Why are locals happier than internal migrants? The role of daily life,” they learned that migrants have had limited opportunities to build new social networks and therefore must choose from a considerably smaller pool of people. Their ties, typically, are not as strong which lead to feelings of low social support and lower levels of comfort.
The stressful lives of migrants lead them to have less mental and physical energy to engage in happiness promoting activities as they are typically effortful. This creates a snowball effect in which "less openness to, and energy for, happiness-promoting activities leads to less positive feelings, which subsequently leads again to less mental energy, and so on." (Hendirks, Ludwigs and Veenhoven’s 2016)
I conducted interviews to gather data straight from the source. All participants had to have moved to a new city within the last three years for non-educational purposes meaning they could not have moved for university where there is already a support system in place. I completed four individual moderated interviews. Interviewees were recruited using my charm and begging tactics, other than my deepest appreciation participants were not offered any incentive.
Every interview was transcribed and split into pain points, motivations and behaviours. From there I extracted key insights based on recurring themes.
Interviews
Key Insights
Exploration:
The ability to walk and physically explore the space allows for a more organic connection. Gain an increased feeling of participating in the city's daily life.
Opportunity App integrates their location and surroundings to help explore but still be in the now.
Communication:
It can be easy to miss information about something of interest because the information that may be most relevant to you is not directly given to you. You may not even know to search for it.
Opportunity Show people what is most relevant to them without them having to know about it first.
Friendships / Social Networks:
Majority of the apps currently available to meet people are shallow, only based on images or only for dating.There is a hesitance behind using technology to meet people
Opportunity Integrate getting to know the city and getting to know people so that it dilutes the feeling of using technology for the sole purpose of meeting people. Using the same interest matching methods for both.
Reviews:
The reviews that came with the most authority are the ones that friends recommend.
Opportunity Allow friends to directly recommend
Quantitative Survey
Fifteen people answered my survey regarding how new residents adapt to a new city.
In response to the hardest part about moving the top answer was moving away from family. But in second place were making new friends and finding a community they fit into. The top three answers clearly indicate the importance of social connections and support. These results validated the insights from the four moderated interviews.
What was the hardest part about moving?
These interviews caused me to pivot in my approach to solving the problem. Up till this point I believed that place-attachment could be solved by a better understanding of the cultural context, but I was clearly wrong! I learned that the people with the most meaningful connections tend to be happier. These insights took me onto the path that would truly help the user which is making meaningful social connections.
Creating
Based on my research and interview insights, I developed two user personas. These personas allowed me empathise with the user, to look at this project through their eyes and keep my own biases out.
Personas include the following sections: short biography, demographics, quotations, goals, motivations, frustrations, pain points, personality, and behaviours
These personas, primarily Francesca, acted as my guide that invariably impacted the design by keeping me connected to the target user.
Task Selection
The task selected for this project was for the user to create a plan based on one of the apps recommendations and invite friends to join.
This task was chosen over onboarding which would walk the user through inputting all of there interests and preferences. But the heart and soul of Tuus is the intent of facilitating the creation of new social connections which is vital for human happiness.
Visualization
I created wireframes, by starting out with pen and paper sketches to high-fidelity.
Once I translated my paper sketches to low-fidelity wireframes I started user testing!
Throughout the design progression. Iterations were made along the way based on the feedback received from user testing. For every round I created a prioritisation matrix where I laid out the 10 most prominent issues and selected which ones would be addressed for the next iteration.
Visual Identity
For the visual identity I started out creating a list of words and comparisons of what I believed the users would want to get out of the app, and the feelings that Tuus should create.
I chose the Typeface Montserrat for its versatility in weight and its clean, clear look.
Montserrat
I chose to use colours in the blue and green realm for it's relation to earth and nature and its calming affects.
Logo
The name tuus means yours in Latin. I wanted a name that would symbolise the wide scope of this application. Yours, seemed fitting because it means that it is what you make it. Make the city yours, find your home, find your friends, find the communities you can be yourself in. Tuus encompasses it all.
The creation of the visual identity started off with variations of different wordmarks. Selecting different typefaces, weights, and colours
Playing with the themes of connection, unity, happiness, and exploration
This logo plays with the theme of exploration and big cities
Final Ideation
High Fidelity Wireframes
Marketing Website
A responsive marketing website was created. I tried to capture the essence of Tuus, making the city your own, your home. Emphasising the features that deal with my personas pain points.
1) Personalising filters to their interests and preferences.
2) Assistance in exploring the city through recommendations.
3) Matching the user to other people with similar interests.
4) Getting suggestions not only tailored to your likes but also get suggestions directly from your network of friends.
5) The ability to create plans and invite friends and explore new experiences all in one place.
And I included another device, the apple watch to give you effective notifications and recommendations based on your current location and help you navigate through the city hands free!
Future Directions and Impact
I would love to take Tuus to the AR world to make the exploring experience more immersive and allow the user to search for new information in the world around them as well as through a simple search. I believe that integrating AR would also increase the user pool giving the users an even better experience by connecting them to locals who can give even more recommendations.
How might cultural habits change how your product is used, and how might your product change cultural habits?
Current cultural habits would have a clear affect on how the product is not only used but viewed. This is something I had to think a lot about from the interviews and problem space exploration. There is still a strong stigma behind using or requiring technology to make friends. I tried to get around that by including multiple function to the app along with creating social connections. I believe that the app itself would not change cultural habits but the concepts driving the main functions would. The idea of personalising everything is already becoming more prominent especially in the marketing and e-commerce world.