Sarah Beth Doncals

Timeline
‍20 Weeks
01.06.20 - 05.29.20

Course
‍UXDG Senior Studio I & II
Prof. Byeong Cheol Hwang

Team Members
‍Dane Galbraith
Connelly Morris
Gaige Dickerson

My Role
‍Content & Strategy
Interaction Design

Overview
Pocket is an interactive social media and search engine for matching real people with real places to enrich routines and promote community engagement. It’s your personalized map, a space for reflection and exploration. Your interests help Pocket provide tailored recommendations for what to do next in your new city, and users can even plan events with friend’s preferences in mind.

Pocket is designed to remind user’s of where they’ve been, and motivate them to go outside to grow and expand their map. Users can share places and experiences with friends, and spark conversations to get recommendations from people they know and trust.

Problem
Currently, there isn’t a product on the market that can capture the nuance interests of a person and layer it over what a location has to offer.

Hill Statement
‍We intend to create an interactive search engine for matching real people with real places to enrich routines and promote community engagement.

Target Users
‍18-25 year olds in the process of planned location change

Research on Change
Successful change comes in stages. We looked into Harvard Medical School's Behavioral Change Chart. We decided to focus on preparation, action and maintenance.

After doing some research of our own, we decided to revise Harvard's model. We found that adapting to change is rarely a straightforward path. It is rather more of a cycle. To better stand alone, we renamed preparation to prepare, action to initiate, and maintenance to reflect.

Competitive Analysis
‍We looked at products, services and methods people use to adapt to a new place. After performing a SWOT Analysis, we laid them out on matrices. Both matrices measure high and low impact. At the time of creation, we were not certain on if we wanted our product to have short or long term use. We knew that our goal was to create a high impact, "social-utility."

Primary Research
‍To get started and gain quantitive research, we sent out a survey that received 140+ responses. Taking the trends from the survey, we created a list of qualitative questions to ask in an interview setting. We then conducted 15 interviews and 5 exercises where users sketched out their process of location change.

Key Questions
‍How do you fill your after work hours in a new location?
How do you encourage people to explore their new space?
How can you make friends with limited amounts of time?
What helps you get adjusted to your new way of living?

Key User Insights
‍“My phone is always cluttered with disorganized, inaccessible recommendations.”
“I just feel so overwhelmed [in a new city] … I immediately feel like I can’t fit in just because I don’t know where things are”
“I don’t want to waste my time going somewhere I won’t like. I’ve only got the day off and tend to play it safe...”
“Even when my friends want to go somewhere, it can take us so long to pick that we end up not even going.”

How Might We
‍‍‍We created how might we statements after synthesizing out datapoint. Our top five how might we statements are listed below.

Feature Audit
‍‍‍There was a long list of features we had to help our users discover new places. With a limited timeline, we had to decide on what features would make it to the MVP of Pocket.

User Testing
We conducted Wizard of Oz and AB user testing throughout the design process.

‍Strengths:
Personality test in the beginning.
Customization to user needs.
Would use this more as a social media

Insights:
Base the curation on my personality not my interests.
Hesitation to share my location all of the time.
Wants a landing that is more social-oriented
Ability to manually add friends
Connection to Facebook friends
Ability to upload photos when checking in
Dark mode might be hard to see out and about

Changes made:

Social landing screen & Light mode

Updated personalized questionnaire

Transparency on data usage

Accessibility tags

Integration for smaller events

Icon revisit

V1 - V4 of Home Screen UI
‍User testing was conducted at multiple stages of the design process. Throughout the sprint, the place playlists took a higher priority on the homepage.

Opportunities for Users' Growth
The project started off with a conversation on how our users can grow as an individual and as a part of their new community. We found ways to tackle both.
‍
‍Personal
See where you can go and what’s around you.
See what places you’ve been to in your city.
View your metrics, such as places visited, what’s on your wishlist, etc.

Social
Show other friends where you’ve been and where you want to go - it’s a conversation starter!
Show your loyalty to a place or business.

Features
‍‍‍These are the main features we decided on as a team for the MVP of Pocket

Grow on your own.
Adapt to your lifestyle.
Your map offers personality based recommendations for finding your next spot, while keeping track of your past adventures.

Explore your own space.
On your own terms.
Pocket will match you with the perfect places to spend your time, aligning with your mood, interests, and free time.

Step outside your comfort zone.
Meet others along the way.
‍By merging your interests with your friends, Pocket is the best solution for planning activities that everyone feels involved in.

Find your style.
Choose your theme.
Show off your flair with customized map designs. Everyone’s different, and your map can be too.

Explore all day...
And all night.
‍The dynamic light-dark themes ensure that your next adventure will always be easy on the eyes.

Access pocket anywhere.
On any device.
Pocket is accessible through mobile and desktop devices; Discover from anywhere at any time.

Onbaording
‍‍‍In onboarding , uses can create an account or sign in with Facebook, Google, or Apple. Pocket gives an overview on how location data will be used. From there, the user can add friends through Facebook. After the account setup, a short, optional, personality quiz is given to help with the first set of recommendations.

Home
‍The home page is constantly being generated with tailored content for the user based on their likes and needs.

Map & Wishlist
‍My map is used to capture a user’s favorite spot that can be shared with friends or saved just for you. Maps can be displayed on a map or in a list view depending on the user's preference. Users can easily save places they wish to go to their wishlist.

Mixed Map
‍‍‍‍‍With mixed map, the user can view their friends map and overlay their own to find places both would enjoy. Mixed maps are not confined to just 2 people. Users can add friends to mixed maps. The days of "I don't know, what do you want to do?" are over.

Sharing With Friends
‍Sharing places with friends is easy with Pocket. Users can drag locations to a friend's icon to share. Locations can be shared outside of pocket through airdrop and text message.

Desktop
‍Pocket is a mobile and cloud based product. Users can permanently access their map through the mobile application, and can additionally access it from any desktop, tablet, or mobile device.

Reflection
‍This was one of the largest projects I have worked on. We started off with a large problem space of going through change and narrowed it down to relocation. Kicking off with such a large problem space slowed us down in the beginning. I would start scoping earlier. Scoping and starting an in-depth competitive analysis at an earlier stage would have helped us define our MVP.

We started this project in person and finished senior studio online. Daily stand ups over video call were a lifesaver. Thanks to Figma, Google Drive, Zoom and WhatsApp, the transition was not too bad. It was still a test of communication to finish your senior capstone project in quarantine.

💻 Pocket Website 📕 Process Book 📣 Final Pitch Deck 📼 Vision Video