Jibe social networking platform — a UX case study
Project Overview
Jibe is an online social platform where people can easily find companions that share similar interests and be able to meet with them to take part in activities of their liking.
This project was mentored by Rachel Inman (Design Lead, Google Maps AR) and Munish Dabas (UX Lead, Google Maps).
My Team:
Stavan Pandya
Maha Badawy
Based on a product soon to be launched by Shreya Jha.
My role:
Research, Storyboarding,
UX/UI design, Illustrations
Project Duration:
3 weeks (design sprint)
Design sprint conducted during my Masters in Interaction Design at Harbour.Space University.
Research and Discovery
Jibe targets the Indian market and aims to cater to people looking to make social connections in the digital world. To further understand the audience using these social platforms, we took a look at some numbers and statistics. Here’s what we found:
In spite of the overwhelming number of users who depend on social platforms like Tinder or Woo, there is still a huge need for a platform that helps people find like minded companions. We found that 90% of the users that use these social platforms are between the ages 18 to 34. That raises the obvious question — How are the people above the age of 35 making social connections in the digital world?
In today’s busy, fast-paced world, it has become increasingly difficult to take part in social activities. Somewhere in between the increasing importance of work-life balance and saturated social circles with friends who are ‘busy’ or have different interests, there emerges a need for companionship for people to take part in activities of their interest.
User Persona
Storyboarding
Imagine a weekend in Riya’s life. She’s freed from the mundane weekday work routine and has two days to finally do something that interests her outside her job. She tries to make plans to go to the museum with friends from her social circle. However, they’re either busy or don’t share the same passion that Riya does for history and art. As much as she loves exploring new places, she hates doing things alone, without a companion. Disappointed, she ends up spending the weekend alone at home watching shows in bed.
This got us thinking. After a certain age, it becomes harder to meet new people and make social connections with others who share similar interests. This isn’t a common problem just among the huge population of working professionals, but also stay at home moms and dads who are so occupied with their responsibilities that they fail to fulfil their other interests/hobbies. This left us with a huge area of opportunity
How might we help people like Riya find like minded companions to spend her free time doing things that interest her?
We aim for jibe to be the solution to challenges like this. Let’s go back to Riya’s weekend and imagine how it could have gone:
So, what is jibe?
Jibe is a mobile app. It is a platform where people can easily find companions that share similar interests and be able to meet with them to take part in activities of their liking.
Competitor Analysis
Value Proposition
Personal 1 to 1 connection which helps two people to build close friendship, trust and empathy among each other
Differentiation
Targets adults over the age of 35 and connects them with people outside of their regular social circle who share the same interests.
What does jibe do?
The three key features of jibe are:
1. Connects the user to other people who are interested in similar activities.
2. Allows the user to create their own plan to allow other people to find them.
3. Makes communication easier by allowing connections to chat with each other on a safe platform, without having to share personal contact information.
For the sake of this design sprint, we developed the primary feature of the app — connecting users to other people who are interested in taking part in similar activities.
Wireframes
We started paper prototyping and sketching out the different screens that would help the user make these social connections in the easiest way possible. We developed the following wireframes for its user flow:
User Testing
Once the basic prototype was developed, the next step was to user test. We asked people of different age groups (above 35 years) and backgrounds to use the app to carry out the main task — to find a companion to take part in an activity of their liking. Designing for an age group older than ours was challenging due to differences in approach to digital platforms. Below are some of the iterations we made after a round of user testing:
Final Prototype (for primary feature)
What’s next?
- User Testing 2.0
- Developing other features such as creating a profile and creating a new plan.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed reading this case study as much as I did working on it. Feel free to reach out to me on Linkedin. I would love to hear your thoughts, views and critique.
