Discover “Alfa”, an exciting app for lonely wolves
Have you ever wanted to go to concerts, but you couldn’t do it because you didn’t have anyone to go with? Don’t worry. Alfa has arrived to solve this problem for you.
THE PROBLEM
The season of concerts and music festivals arrives. There are dozens of plans you want to make. Because going to concerts is one of the activities that you enjoy the most, right? But it turns out that we don’t always succeed by convincing someone to accompany us to all the concerts we want to go to, right? Surely it has ever happened to you …
In fact, 85% of users have stopped making certain plans because they do not have anyone to do them with. In addition, going to concerts alone is the least accomplished plan by users who say they actually do make plans alone.
But the funny thing is that going to concerts is the best valued plan if it is accompanied (only surpassed by going on a trip) and at the same time are the plans that are least enjoyed if done alone.
So I needed to do something about it.
Let’s start with the investigation to corroborate my hypothesis:
People stop making plans (going to concerts) because they don’t have
anyone to go with. If they could meet other people who want to go to the same concerts they want to go, they would be encouraged to do so.
THE CHALLENGE OF THE WORK PROCESS
I bet you know the concept of MVP, minimum viable product.
Start with something that has a differential value with respect to the competition, being small enough to reduce development times, but still large enough to have different and interesting functionalities.
Well then. I made a monster.
After all the research I did (from the competition and the users), I came up with a series of hypotheses that (maybe) grew a bit too much.
- I wanted to make an app for single people, which will help them meet other people with hobbies and interests similar to theirs.
- I wanted to allow them also to upload pictures and videos to their profiles, like Instagram or Facebook do.
- Also, I wanted to give them the possibility to buy tickets for those plans.
And what kind of plans did I think at first? The best ranked by the users when they were accompanied, and the worst ranked when they made the plans alone. This is: Travels, Concerts and Art Exhibitions.
Anything else, please?
This, obviously, exploded. It was not a minimum viable product at all.
So, halfway through the UX research process, I had to restructure everything.
In these two schemes you can see and compare the structure of the sitemap. The first, three times more complex than the second.
So the first research techniques, in spite of giving us a lot of useful information about the needs of the users, the field of study turned out to be too big. In fact, things changed a lot the moment I decided to cut the scope.
A LITTLE THINGS ABOUT STORY TELLING
Like humans, wolves are animals with a strong social character. In spite of living in packs, there are solitary individuals among the wolves, who look with interest to other individuals with whom to form a new group.
Alpha individuals are those with the greatest social status within the pack. They are usually the breeding males and females. They are the ones who decide. They are the ones the rest follows. They are the first. Forever.
In addition, they are associated with “the night”, although they are diurnal animals. They are wrapped in a halo of mystery and magic. The werewolves are known worldwide for being supernatural men who are transformed by the mystical powers that the moon has in them.
And why do I tell you all this?
Because, the branding that brands have goes beyond choosing a name.
It is about choosing and showing values, concepts, having a message to communicate, associating with ideas that make your brand differentiate itself from the rest, being unique.
And this is why the naming of the app is what it is: Alfa, wich in spanish means “Alpha”. And how a metaphor is created between the users of this application and the lonely wolves.
In fact, other names were also shuffled: “Wolfast” (mixing wolf and fast, referring to the fact that users decide to make their plans a couple of days in advance), “Wolflat” (mixing wolf and flat, which is a symbol in musical language that subtracts half tone from notes), and many others as “Bad Wolf”, “Wildside”, “Darkwolf”…
Even, long before arriving at the concept of “the wolves”, other animals such as penguins, cheetahs or lynx were proposed, and later discarded for one reason or another.
With good naming, the next steps are to give the brand some attributes that solidify the values you have in mind, and help you shape it. As a wizard brand, whose purpose is to transform something ordinary into extraordinary, we want to give the user the possibility to make his wishes come true.
That is why, here lies a very important part of the philosophy behind the brand.
DEFINING FONTS, COLORS AND VISUALS
When choosing a typographic family, for an app, there are certain criteria that must be followed and not to make mistakes in the choice.
- Readability. Readability is the quality of a text that allows it to be read clearly. It is evident that the selected typography does not have to be extravagant, appear broken or distorted.
- Personality. A typeface that manages to transmit the values of our brand is undoubtedly a great ally for our app and the way we want our brand to communicate with users.
- Accessibility. We understand accessibility as the idea that our application can be used by everyone, especially by people with reduced perception capacities. It is very important to check the contrast and sizes of the letter bodies.
- Adaptability. The fonts have to adapt to the final resolution of the devices in which they are shown. We must know that there are a large number of low resolution screen devices, and we must ensure that our text will also be displayed optimally in these conditions.
The choice of colors is influenced by two aspects: the market (scope in which the application service is developed), and the user (remember that we are always doing user-centered design). With this mix, and applying a certain aesthetic taste, the color palette wanted to reflect well the attributes of the brand, and fill it with magic, dynamism and differentiation.
Each time one step closer to designing in the right way. Another point on the road where we have too many options. How to get out of the labyrinth? And why not reuse the UX research techniques again? Should we go back to iterate? A / B tests, surveys, ask the user: always! The answer is yes.
GIVING LIFE TO WIREFRAMES
The result that you will see in the videos, are two different flows in which two users interact with each other (the first one withe day mode activated, the second one, with night mode activated).
The application allows the user number one to see the smart recommendations on the input screen (concerts), find a concert by an artist who does not remember the name (that’s why he uses the labels, and looks for a style of music), make a purchase process, and greet the group of users who are also going to the concert, to interact with them and meet them before the concert.
Likewise, he also consults the favorite and performed activities of the users he follows and shows interest in a user. Then, he sees her profile in which he can see her evaluations and labels, and he decides to greet her (which in this case is to send her a howl).
Now he will have to wait for her to return the howl and thus be able to talk to each other, because in the first instance, the direct message chat is blocked among unknown users.
Now it’s her turn.
She receives the notification of the howl he sent her, and unlock the phone. She enter to the notifications and proceed to see his profile. The most important thing for her is to know if he is a user to trust. So she looks at the comments he have received from other users. Also she sees his level of confidence (stars), and his record of concerts marked as favorites or those he has gone to. She likes what she sees, so she decides to return the howl to him. This unlocks the private chat between them, and she sends him a greeting.
DESIGNING THE LANDING PAGE
How to summarize all the content above described in a simple lading page, that tells us a story, that of the Alfa brand?
How to talk about concerts, without showing the image of any of them?
How to promote the novel concept of Alpha, without being heavy to read?
How to capture potential and future users of the application through the web?
My bet is the following one.
I hope you have enjoyed reading the post, as much or more than what I have enjoyed creating the project.
Thanks for reading and sharing!
