Connecting people through calendar events.
Design Lead and Product Strategist
About
This social calendar was designed to facilitate peer-to-peer event planning. Users can join events, create their own, and coordinate logistics through details, chat, and groups.
The Problem
The amount of time people spend on their phones and the internet is rising.
The Solution
Our goal was to design a system that’ll encourage people to discover and plan events in real-life.
Current behavior
Developing connections
The system was designed in 3 different layers, these layers supported behavior throughout both mobile and web apps.
System characteristics
System Celebrator
The role of the celebrator is of connector, supporter, and cheerleader. The celebrator quietly disarms the inner critic, providing a doorway out of loneliness.
Gestures and Follow up
This feature connects users with a heightened sense of friendship. Its playfulness reinforces key behaviors and gets the conversation started.
Password: AnimatedGestures
Chat System
Shared media such as photos, gifs, videos, music, and emoji reactions opens up a deeper level of self-expression.
Password: ChatSystem
Early animations for header info and transition into event information.
Likes, Shares, and Follows.
Encouraging and celebrating friendship, through engaging information such as friends, the total number of people interested, shares, subscriptions, and joins, while exploring events.
System Initiator
Find someone to do something with. The role of the initiator is of ice breaker and galvanizer. It harnesses nodes of community intersections with nodes of interest. Using graphs of each to the surface and suggest invites with relevant friends intersecting with activities and ideas.
Building Relations
With a presumed group that enjoys a quality of friendship that begets an intention to spend more time together. We introduce actions like ‘Interested’ and ‘Close friend’ that allow us to connect with those people.
Password: Interested&CloseFriend
Automated Search and Ranking
Categorized search results allow users to select specific groups or individuals to share personal experiences.
Invite System
Tools like date, time pickers, location, description, and various levels of exposure give users the flexibility to set the tone.
Password: CreateInvite
System Coordinator
Facilitating how to do it. The role of the coordinator is of inspirer and organizer. It plays the role of an increasingly intelligent assistant as it moves the product from a manual system of user inputs, into an API system to facilitate transactions and behaviors, and ultimately into an AI-driven recommendation engine.
Polling
Shifting decision-making from a single organizer to a group begins to nurture community while pre-disarming the fear of rejection, and enveloping users in pre-arranged belonging.
Password: PollSystem
AI Recommendation Engine
Manual inputs, interests, subscriptions, and follows allow us to gain an intimate understanding of event patterns. We can leverage these patterns by surfacing more specific ideas when creating events.
Takeaways
Organize behavior model.
Researching users’ pain points, and creating and constantly updating user personas help keep track of UX goals. Users’ needs and behavior change the more time they spend in your system.
Start with a basic interface framework.
Distilling your value proposition into a single sentence is hard; the user interface should have a supporting role. Starting with a basic framework and utilizing tools like Figma Components, Sketch Symbols, Layer styles, etc. allows the design to iterate faster.
Early-stage start-ups are always in survival mode.
Start-ups will test your endurance, patience, and ingenuity, especially when you’re running out of money; you’re understaffed and deadlines are coming fast. You need to be able to adapt quickly and be ready to spend long nights adjusting while pivoting.
Planning and transparency are key.
There needs to be a clear path when starting any company or project. Roadmaps, communication, defined metrics, and expectations are key when measuring success.
Everyone is moving towards the same goal.
One of the most important things to remember is that everyone plays a crucial role and is moving in the same direction. Team members need to support each other and hold each other accountable.