FuzzyConnect Mobile Design Case Study
Even though there seem to be thousands of social media apps, making meaningful connections with people is harder than ever, especially in these turbulent times. On top of that, with remote work becoming popular, people have either moved to less populated areas, or simply do not have opportunities to meet people in their fields. My team and I embarked on creating FuzzyConnect to respond to this problem!
TIMEFRAME
Two Weeks
MY ROLE
UX Researcher
UI Designer
Presenter
MY TOOLS
Miro
Figma
User Research
User Interviews
Those who we interviewed were very interested in connecting with others in their field but faced obstacles such as impersonal technology, physical distance, and lack of confidence.
“The climate of the pandemic makes finding people difficult and the technology can be impersonal.”
“Some grad students have to drive 2+ hours one way to find people to interview because they live in a small town.”
“It takes a lot of confidence to go out there and ask someone, ‘Hey you, will you mentor me?’ ”
“I think it would be exciting to help someone who wants that guidance.”
Affinity Diagram
We organized the responses to the interviews to create an affinity diagram and inform our personas.
Persona 1
Meet Alanna…
Alanna is determined to find a mentor and research study participants to help find solutions to community issues. However, sometimes she feels limited by living in a small town where she hasn’t been able to meet people in her field. Also, asking for people to be a mentor or to be interviewed for her research feels awkward. She doesn’t want to feel like she is a burden to them. She is also a busy, single parent and doesn’t want to waste time interviewing the wrong candidates.
Persona 2
Meet James…
He has a wealth of experience and connections and wants to give back to the community. He has fond memories of having a mentor when he was starting out. He wants to find a mentee, but wants to find a quality connection with someone serious, someone who wants to solve problems in their community or someone who wants to make a difference, not someone who will waste his time. Finding a mentor also helps James feel connected to new ideas in the world.
Problem Statement
The Problem:
How might we support individuals interested in meeting people in their fields for mentorship and/or research, find quality connections with others?
Now that we have a clearer idea of who our users are, and what their obstacles are, we have a vision of what we can provide for them.
Competitor Analysis
We analyzed the competitive advantages of some of FuzzyConnect’s competitors:
Tribute Mentorship
- The app aims to develop/foster a culture of mentorship in a company
- Focuses on companies as clients.
Mentessa
- Mobile-based first and foremost, and not restricted to a department
- Everything is in the app, such as messaging, scheduling, motivation
Findamentor
- More categories ranging from leadership, carreer, success and communication coaching
- Easy to navigate. One-one-mentorships and users can create a super group to brainstorm and learn from peers
- Only available on Web.
User Experience Design
Storyboard
Using our insights from User Research, we created a storyboard to give us an idea about how a user might benefit from this app.
User Flow
Translating the storyboard into a user flow helps us decide on what order to link the pages and where the interactions will form in the prototype.
User Interface Design
Lo-Fi Wireframes
Guerrilla User testing
During user testing on our low fidelity clickable wireframes, users gave us some great feedback:
- Simplify the sign up process
- Make the design friendlier
- Make it more clear what the app is for
- To be more personal and offer more options for a personalized experience
Feature Prioritization Matrix
We created a feature prioritization matrix based on user testing feedback.
Iterated Prototype
Hi-Fi Wireframes
With the feedback we went back to the wireframes and designed to better suit our users.
The result is FuzzyConnect! Where you can make meaningful connections with others in your field!
Takeaways / Future Ideas
Some of our next steps are:
- creating a way for people to rate their experience with the people they connect with through FuzzyConnect
- adding an advice section on how to be a better mentor, interviewee, etc.
- and possibly a paid option to unlock more groups!