MY ROLES
Research
Interview
Prototyping
TITLE
UI/UX design intern
DATE
2020.05 - 06
OUTCOME
At Minimap, a NYC-based social media startup, I designed an auto-event creation feature that offered users an engaging way to organize social events within a chat through polls. By automatically transferring poll data (e.g., location, time, food) directly into event creation, this feature streamlined the process and eliminated the need for users to switch between different platforms.
DESIGN PROBLEM
Planning a social event can be exhausting.
People use different apps to plan a social event, which is a core user problem. This involves unnecessary steps of moving across various platforms and having to manually transfer the data from one to another.
Touchpoint analysis
Understanding users
To gather insights on how young adults in New York City are utilizing competitors' services to plan and share social events online, I interviewed four target users (age: 20-34) who had been residing in the city for over two years.
Based on the data collected, two user archetypes were identified, and I classified the key findings into categories of pain points, opportunities, and positive experiences.
Three design considerations
Final design
Polls within a group chat
Based on the findings from my earlier user experience analysis, I discovered that many users would have to jump from one service to another to find out people's availability, decide on the details for an event, and create and share the event online.
This painful process of going back-and-forth leads to a disconnected user experience. To resolve this issue, our product integrated all these different types of tasks and connected them, resulting in a continuous UX.
Smooth, connected user experience for creating an event
They can plan an event with friends through chatting, and if they want to find an agreement on some details for the event, they can start a poll within the chat. Then, the group members will take the poll, and after the displayed time has expired, the results from this poll can be used to create an event that will be shared to other users.
Results
My design of the feature auto-event creation would offer users an engaging way of creating a social event on a chat through polls. As each data from polls (e.g., location, time, food) will transfer to the creation of an event, this feature removes unnecessary steps of moving across various platforms to achieve different tasks.
Reflections
Assuming I had additional time and resources to evaluate the effectiveness of this feature, I would consider the time required to create a specific event task and the users' subjective satisfaction as potential success metrics. Though I didn’t prioritize edge case scenarios in this design stage, I would also address those (e.g., how to handle a tie from a poll).
As this was my first design internship at a tech company, there were many learning opportunities as a novice designer. I learned how to take on new projects and self-direct my timeline. Though it was challenging at first to adapt to a fast-paced work environment that requires constant iterations of design, I liked witnessing the visible impact of my work and adding values to this project.