END-TO-END MOBILE APPLICATION
Helping people cultivate and discover new hobbies and connections
I had been thinking a lot about the epidemic of loneliness when a friend of mine, Jen, shared with me that she was researching how people find and maintain hobbies (it isn’t always easy). I wondered what solutions might lie at the intersection of both social connections AND hobbies. This MVP (Minimal Viable Product) seeks to answer that question through a mobile app related to both themes.
Roles
UX Researcher
UX Designer
UX Writer
UI Designer
Project Type & Team
Academic for Designlab
(Hypothetical business Thirdspace)
Software
Figma
Miro
Optimum Workshop
Ballpark
Hours
80
Case Study Overview
Problem(s) Statement(s) and Solutions
Problems:
Many people are lonely
Societal structures that used to create organic social connections are in decline for a number of reasons, including a lack of investment in public spaces, changes in family structure and location, and social isolation from COVID-19 social distancing.
People face challenges starting and keeping hobbies
They either don’t know how to find them or they feel pressure to create the hobby into a side hustle, which often takes away the hobby’s enjoyment.
App-Based Solution:
An online community that encourages users to connect with other people through the discovery and cultivation of hobbies.
Stages and Deliverables
Click on any of the deliverables below to be taken straight there.
1. Defining the Project
2. Understanding the Problem
3. Ideation
4. High Fidelity Prototyping
5. Usability Testing
Defining the Project
Confirming my hypotheses and assumptions with secondary research
Since I happened to have been reading a lot about loneliness and hobbies prior to this project, I had a lot of preconceived notions related to both topics floating around in my mind. I started the project with a “quick and dirty” narrative literature review of approximately 12 academic articles to confirm whether my beliefs were backed by secondary research and to start developing ideas for the design of an app.
Questions I used to guide my secondary research:
Is loneliness on the rise?
Do hobbies help alleviate loneliness?
Do a significant number of people have a hard time finding or keeping hobbies?
News headlines and Reddit posts I had been reflecting on before this project
Secondary Research Findings
A significant amount of people experience loneliness (at least in the U.S., Canada, and U.K.)
36% of all Americans—including 61% of young adults and 51% of mothers with young children feel ‘serious loneliness’
- The Harvard University Report Loneliness in America
Experts say increasing positive connections with people is one intervention to loneliness
“Most of us do not set out to forge social ties with strangers or build a community, but when people engage in sustained, recurrent interaction, particularly while doing things they enjoy, relationships—even across ethnic or political lines—inevitably grow.”
- NYU Sociologist Eric Kleinberg in The Atlantic
Many people have a hard time finding hobbies
41% haven’t found the right activity for them
36% wouldn’t know where to start in pursuing a creative hobby
32% believe that starting a new creative activity is intimidating
An Ipsos study of over 2,012 adult Americans
Research Weaknesses
Some researchers debate the size of the loneliness problem, saying headlines may exaggerate it (Buecker at al. 2021)
Even though I hypothesize that social capital influences hobbies (and vice versa), I found minimal evidence of a direct correlation. There were lots of studies related to specific demographics and hobbies (such as birding). A researcher named Troy Glover (2018) expressed the promise of “leisure activities” helping loneliness, but says there needs to be much more research.
Some research indicates that social media may actually cause loneliness. Nowland et al. (2017) says the relationship between social media use and loneliness is bidirectional.
Understanding the Problem
Diving deeper into research
The secondary research left me energized and ready to talk with real people. Because my secondary research provided ample data on the topic of loneliness, I decided to frame my user research in a way that would help me better understand why and how people start hobbies. I also wanted to get their initial reactions to an app that might help them meet other people through hobbies, including their experiences (if any) with any other competitor apps.
My goal: Determine a task flow to feature in MVP prototype that solves participants’ pain points
Objectives to get there:
Confirm secondary research findings
Determine specific pain points in keeping hobbies
Develop a list of hobbies that users do
Determine the level of user interest in hypothetical features of the app
If any hypothetical features are of interest, determine the most popular one
User Interviews and Surveys
User Interviews: 5 participants
User Surveys: 17 participants
Data Analysis: Mapping on a Miro Board
I used a spreadsheet to assign tags to relevant comments in the interviews and surveys, then converted the data into a Miro board that allowed me to easily map the tags into different categories.
An example of one section of the research map demonstrating how I found common themes related to user motivations.
User Experiences of Hobbies
Motivations
Increase/maintain mental health
Positive emotions
Encouragement from others
Opportunities to make new friends / nurture friendships
Frustrations and Pain Points
Not having a structure
Low self motivation
Not enough time
Finding people to do hobbies with that have the same talent, availability, interest levels
Feeling shy and/or intimidated to go to social gatherings related to hobbies
User Needs
Knowing others to do hobbies with
Learning opportunities (official classes or informal mentorships)
Feeling high self-efficacy
Low-barrier opportunities for deepening social connections related to hobbies
Smaller events with fewer people
Conversation starters
“A Tinder for Hobbies?!”: User ambivalence about the “vibe” of dating apps
Users seemed to naturally draw ties to making social connections and dating apps, as comments about this came up in several user interviews without a direct prompt. Users seemed to have strong reactions (both positive and negative) about whether an app based on hobbies and social connections that resembles a dating app design would appeal to them. (You’ll see later on that these responses influenced my decisions on the task flow of the app’s prototype.)
A graphic from the dating app Bumble’s website explaining the “swiping” feature. Bumble has a spin-off app for friends called BumbleBFF that uses the same swiping feature.
Competitive Analysis
I selected the three apps below because they were mentioned frequently in user interviews. I included a few questions about these apps in user surveys. Most users conveyed negative or ambivalent experiences; that they liked the missions of competitors, but not the user experiences.
I didn’t find any friends through the app. The people who attended meetups were strange.
- Comment on user survey
I don’t like how you don’t actually meet up on BumbleBFF most of the time.
- Comment on user survey
In theory this would be a great app, but it actually feels really impersonal and the users don’t seem like my type of people.
- User interview participant
User Personas
User personas make the most sense to me when I design at least more than one to compare the different experiences multiple app users might have. I based my personas on different findings in my research.
Ideation
Site Map and Task Flow
To begin sketching out the prototype, I first created a site map and task flow in Miro to outline the various screens and components I’d need in the design.
I decided to focus my task flow on how users might connect one-on-one as friends in the app because I wanted to see how well this played out in user testing, considering the ambivalence that users shared in interviews about the app potentially having the same vibe as dating.
Site Map
Task flow: Connect With Another User
Wireframes
I discovered Miro’s wireframe template during this project, which was a breeze to use and was even easier for me than sketching on paper.
High Fidelity Prototyping
FEATURE #1
A home screen where users can toggle between friends, gatherings, groups, and hobbies they’ve connected with on the app.
I chose a combination of both versions from the wireframes for this initial screen. Users would have had to mutually agree to a connection in order to appear on the “friends” list of the home screen. I realized that since users would have likely already become acquainted with their friends’ profiles when they initially established the connection with that friend, it might be better to show status updates on the home screen instead of detailed profile cards. I envision users being able to click on their friends’ profile photos if they wanted to see a more detailed card.
FEATURE #2
A “discover” screen where users can explore new hobbies, RSVP to local events, and search for individual and/or group connections
Because user research showed both ambivalence about connecting with individuals on an app and also that many users feel shy and intimidated in large groups, I wanted to provide multiple uses for it rather than prioritizing one of the four choices (make new friends, try something new, join a community, meet up). After initially coming to the app for one reason, users might also be inspired to try a different feature that might feel intimidating at first. For example, a user that joined the app primarily to find events related to hobbies might get curious one day and scroll through lists of individuals they might connect with.
FEATURE #3
User profiles that offer more detail and personality than Nextdoor or Meetup, and are easy to read and create.
I relied heavily on my competitive analysis as I designed user profiles because I wanted to create something that was familiar but also stood out from the crowd.
I created two separate conversational prompts (“Why I’m Here” and “Something That Brings Me Joy”) in addition to prompts about hobbies so that users had low-stakes options to share about their personalities, and offered easy conversation starters.
I debated whether or not to include other demographics on the profile, such as gender identity, political beliefs, sexual orientation, marital status, etc. User research showed ambivalence about whether users wanted to see these details on a profile. In the end, I chose to limit demographics to pronouns, hometown, and neighborhood for the first version of the app because I wanted to try and mimic what it might be like to meet someone for the first time in person. In user tests of the prototype, no one mentioned missing any demographic information.
FEATURE #4
A simple way to send a personalized message
Because user research showed ambivalence about this app resembling a dating app, I purposefully did not use any type of left or right swiping features on individual profiles.
I decided to add comment buttons on each of the prompts to offer users an easy conversation starter, rather than needing to write a message from scratch. (This choice in particular was made for users who told me they feel shy meeting new people.)
(Special credit to Hinge (which brands itself as “The Relationship App”) for inspiring this choice. The conversation starters themselves were my own, but the ability to to comment on specifics of a profile I credit to Hinge
User Testing
Getting feedback from users
It was finally time to test how real people would perceive my design decisions. I wanted to get as many responses as possible and decided to use a budget-friendly product research site called Ballpark to set up the test.
Number of participants: 12
(Six participated in user research and six were new.)
User Testing Objectives:
Get general feedback on the app, including whether people would use it in the real world
Test whether users could successfully complete the task of sending a message to a potential new friend
Get user opinions on the feature of connecting with an individual, and which of the sections (out of individual friends, groups, gatherings, or hobby research) they might use the most
Test whether users could discern the meaning of certain UI components, such as a color coding system on individual profiles signifying the users’ skill level in any listed hobbies
Get user feedback on the profile prompts and the number of photos included on the individual profiles (my initial design only had one and I wondered whether that was enough)
A screenshot of one of the questions on the usability test I made on Ballpark
The Successes
When asked if they would use Thirdspace in real life, 58% said likely or definitely, and 41% said maybe
“I would DEFINITELY use this app and know many other people who need something like this. Especially single women who are tired of dating but need more community in their lives.”
- User tester
100% of users said that they felt like the individual profile gave them enough information to know whether they would like to get to know the person or not
All users were able to successfully complete all tasks asked of them (send a message, search for a new friend), and many described the overall navigation as “simple” and “intuitive”
Users rated the prompts “Why I’m here” as 4.4 out of 5 stars and “Something that brings me joy” as 4.1 out of 5 stars
Opportunities / Some Potential Failures
75% of users said they definitely wouldn’t use the “connect with individual” section in real life.*
50% of users either didn’t know or were uncertain about what the color and star UI related to hobbies meant.*
Users offered helpful feedback of ways to improve some of the components, including status of friends, icons showing details about hobbies, and community groups (see below for visual examples)
* I list deeper reflections and caveats to these findings in the “key learnings” section below
Refining
Light Revisions
I chose a few light revisions to make on the project based on user feedback, weighing this with the limited time and scope of the project.
Conclusion and Notes
Key Learnings
Consider the details in the user task flow
Now that I know that users didn’t easily recognize what the colors and stars were on the hobby labels, If I could go back or had extra time, I would add another task to the flow of the user test to have users create their own profiles. In doing this they likely would have learned what those symbols meant because they would have had to choose the options when they added hobbies to their profile.
I also realized after user testing that in the prototype I did not include an example of an intermediate-skill level hobby, which would have been signified with two stars and an orange border. This may have influenced user perceptions of the stars and colors.
Users didn’t easily recognize the meaning of the colors and stars on the hobby labels.
The order of questions in usability tests matters, and so does multiple choice
I realized through this project how valuable in-person user tests are rather than the remote questionnaire-based test I used in this project. Looking back at the way I wrote the questions on the user text, I see how some orders of questions and option choices may have influenced the results. For example, I asked users the pictured question about which features they definitely would not use (of the make new friends, try something new, join a community, or meetup). I did not think strategically about how I ordered that question and I asked it after users had tested the “discover” screen and before searching for an individual profile. I wonder if users had had a chance to test the messaging feature whether they might have been more inclined to use it.
I also realized that I should have included a selection “none" in the wording of this question. Essentially, users were forced to pick one of these options (unless they skipped it.)
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Ballard, Jamie. (2019). Millennials are the loneliest generation. Retrieved from: https://today.yougov.com/topics/society/articles-reports/2019/07/30/loneliness-friendship-new-friends-poll-survey
Manno, Bruno. (2022). It’s Time for Americans to Return to Third Places. Retrieved from https://www.discoursemagazine.com/ideas/2022/08/11/its-time-for-americans-to-return-to-third-places/
Buecker, Mund, Chwastek, Sostmann, and Luhmann. (2021). Is loneliness in emerging adults increasing over time? Psychological Bulletin, 147 (8), 787-805.
Columbia University. Researchers call for National Public Health Effort to Prevent Loneliness. Healthcare Policy, Mental Health. Retrieved from https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/researchers-call-national-public-health-effort-prevent-loneliness
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Glover, Troy. (2018). All the Lonely People: Social Isolation and the Promise and Pitfalls of Leisure. Leisure Sciences 2018, Vol 40, Nos. 1-2, 25-35
Ipsos. (2019). Successfully Completing a Creative Project Brings Joy to Nine in Ten Adults Who Participate in Creative Activities. Two-thirds wish they got to use their creativity more in life. Retrieved from https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2019-04/bluprint-civic-joy-study-pr-04-30-2019.pdf
Klinenberg, Eric (2018). Worry Less About Crumbling Roads, More About Crumbling Libraries. America’s Social Infrastructure is Falling Apart, and It’s Hurting Democracy. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/worry-less-about-crumbling-roads-more-about-crumbling-libraries/570721/
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Weissbourd, Batanova, Lovison, and Torres. (2021). The global pandemic has deepened an epidemic of loneliness in America. Retrieved from https://mcc.gse.harvard.edu/reports/loneliness-in-america