Helping you find a new hobby buddy!
Project Summary
Role
UX/UI Designer and Researcher
Duration
4 weeks (2021)
Introduction
I present you with the project FaciMate (Fascinate/Fascination + Mate like friend or buddy) which I worked on during the decline of the pandemic as a means to keep people motivated and boost their self-esteem by staying in touch with their hobbies.
Concept
FaciMate is an app that enables students, ex-pats and locals to meet and connect based on mutual hobbies & professional interests.
People in today's world may find it difficult to find a hobby buddy or to connect with others without previous knowing them in some capacity.
FaciMate would bridge this gap as a platform that encourages like-minded people to connect over their similar interests.
Problem
As an international student, I began looking for ways that would enable us to meet and engage with new people with mutual hobbies & professional interests.
I realized that an app like FaciMate would facilitate people in new places to stay motivated & find people to share experiences with.
Solution
A platform that helps/facilitates connecting people who share the same hobbies and professional interests.
Research & Analysis
FaciMate's need to exist
Reason 1
During the pandemic and several lockdowns, people have missed out on opportunities to socially interact, even if only online. FaciMate could remedy this.
Reason 2
Hoping the pandemic comes to an end, helping people connect and continue their passions that weren't possible during the lockdowns, would be our focus.
Survey Summary
59% find it difficult to make new acquaintances or friends.
91% would most likely use the app for both hobby and professional interests
Many people are insecure and are afraid to approach strangers. Similar to well-known friend-making, social and dating apps, a "swipe and match" mechanism is therefore meant to assist in getting over this barrier of making the initial contact. A user only gets to know people they are interested in interacting with and vice versa. (This way, they are able to control who they have contact with, enhancing their sense of security and dependability).
Target Audience
Primary Target Audience
The primary target audience is local and international students looking to expand their current social and professional networks.
Secondary Target Audience
The secondary target audience is ex-pats and locals looking to expand their current social and professional networks.
Persona 1
This is Sarah. She is 20 years old.
She is a university student and loves nature & photography.
She is always looking for a reason to pull out her camera when she goes hiking. She is of the opinion that these activities can be done together and are fun to experience with another person(s).
Goals
Find her hobby mate(s).
Spend more time in nature.
She would like to improve her photography & post-editing skills.
Frustrations
Would like to make like-minded acquaintances.
This is difficult and she would like to optimize her free time by pursuing her hobby.
She would like to engage with "real" photographers. Not casual photo snappers (i.e Amateur Instagramers)
Persona 2
This is Stuart. He is 28 years old.
He is a Web Designer. He spends most of his days doing freelance work with various clients and sometimes works with collaborators on his projects.
He doesn't always find collaborators to work on his projects with, he would like a platform that makes this process easier and quicker.
Goals
To find people to collaborate on projects with.
Through other people, he would like to find more interesting projects
Frustrations
He struggles to find a platform that facilitates finding people of similar professional interests in an accessible manner.
At times, he has to complete entire projects alone.
For some periods, he sees himself doing similar jobs and would like something different to work on.
Customer Journey
User Scenario
Direct
Competitors
Indirect
Competitors
Competitive Advantages
Advantage 1
Most people want something tailored to them, "not just another FB profile". FaciMate plans to offer a more tailored UX.
Advantage 3
Many of our competitors, have rather limited options for hobbies and do not give a user too many options to "show their interests". We would like to change that.
Advantage 2
This is a sought-after product but few have broken into the niche market and those that have, have failed to tap into its full potential.
Advantage 4
Until now, nobody has made professional linking for collaboration slightly more casual. These days even in the corporate world, we tend to be slightly more casual. We want to coin the term casual professionalism.
Visualization & Design
Sketches
Right from the beginning, I wanted to emphasise the hobby aspects; hence, I gave less importance to the profile picture in our sketches. The rough sketches formed the barebones of the app, upon which I then iterated on making wireframes, low & high-fidelity prototypes.
1st - Home Screen
2nd - Card details 1st idea
3rd - Card details 2nd idea
4th - When 2nd idea card is opened
Wireframes
After brainstorming sketches for Facimate, I started designing the low-fidelity prototypes in Figma.
I developed the low-fidelity prototypes as block prototypes. These block prototypes allowed me to form a baseline for the high-fidelity prototypes. In designing the user interface, I incorporated the core features of the application.
The profile card displays the arrangement of basic user details, the user bio & the user's interests along with the 'Like', 'Reject' & 'Direct Message' buttons.
Hobbies Selection
Homescreen
Profile
Messages & new matches
Early Iteration
This is the earliest prototype I created, as you can see the core idea was in place but there was still the possibility for improvement as the concept matured with the research.
Prototypes
Hobbies Selection
Homescreen
Profile
Messages & Matches
Homescreen & Card Details
Hobby Selection and Matches & Messages
Reflection of the project
During this project, I learned the importance of keeping an app or concept simple from the beginning and not trying to involve too many complexities in terms of the design, concept and features. The importance of documentation also became apparent whilst working on this project as it can help the multiple iteration processes.
With more time I would have loved to see or realise this design into a working application, I really love the concept and opportunities it could open up and provide for people.