MOBILE APP
A mobile app personalizing and encouraging slower connection, storing memories + kindness in the digital age.
A mobile app personalizing and encouraging slower connection, storing memories + kindness in the digital age.
sector
Community
role
UX Researcher, Product Designer
team
1 Software Engineer, 1 Business
Analyst, 2 Designers
tools
Figma, Figjam
sector
role
team
tools
Community
UX Researcher
Product Designer
Illustrator
1 Software Engineer
1 Business
2 Designers
Figma
OVERVIEW
What Happened
What Happened
For XHacks, a three-day designathon, I took part in each step of the design process, conducting desk and market research, ideating, sketching, prototyping, and designing the wireframes from 0 → 1 at a rapid pace and presenting to industry experts.
As university students, my team and I knew how it felt to lose valuable friendships due to distance.
For XHacks, a three-day designathon, I took part in each step of the design process, conducting desk and market research, ideating, sketching, prototyping, and designing the wireframes from 0 → 1 at a rapid pace and presenting to industry experts.
As university students, my team and I knew how it felt to lose valuable friendships due to distance.
CHALLENGE
In an era shaped by digital interactions, remote work, and evolving social norms, how can design bring people closer together?
SOLUTioN
A mobile app that redefines how people maintain connection: Sincerely encourages intentional communication that strengthens relationships through anticipation, shared memories, and thoughtful interaction.
INTRODUCING
A mobile app + time capsule
A platform that redefines how people maintain deep, meaningful connections across distances in a distracted digital world. Rather than prioritizing constant messaging or superficial swiping, Sincerely encourages slow, intentional communication that strengthens relationships through anticipation, shared memories, and thoughtful interactions.
INTRODUCING
A mobile app + time capsule
A platform that redefines how people maintain deep, meaningful connections across distances in a digital world. Sincerely encourages slow, intentional communication that strengthens relationships through anticipation + shared memories.
FOR NEW MEMORIES
Memory Capsules Send What No Physical or Digital App Can—Through Content and Time
Memory Capsules Send What No Physical or Digital App Can Through Content + Time
Collect and curate audiovisual keepsakes (photos, songs, voice clips, small gifts, even movies) to create emotional artifacts that can be sent in specific dates into the future: as little as 1 day and as far as ∞.
These audiovisual keepsakes also act as collectible tokens for users to share with friends.
Collect and curate audiovisual keepsakes (photos, songs, voice clips, small gifts, even movies) to create emotional artifacts that can be sent in specific dates into the future: as little as 1 day and as far as ∞.
These audiovisual keepsakes also act as collectible tokens for users to share with friends.
Anticipatory Notifications Build Excitement
Anticipatory Notifications Build Excitement
Schedule capsules to be sent in the future. The timing creates value,
encouraging a gradual buildup of anticipation, without a need for high volume to be exchanged over quality.
Schedule capsules to be sent in the future. The timing creates value,
encouraging a gradual buildup of anticipation, without a need for high volume to be exchanged over quality.
FOR OLD MEMORIES
Experience memories as you made them: Shared Journeys allow pairs to turn faint thoughts into multi-dimensional artifacts
Experience memories as you made them: Shared Journeys turn faint thoughts into multi-dimensional artifacts
By selecting a past date, users can create an event. Events can be customized to carry different media, including photos, videos, songs, stickers, curated color palettes, and so on.
Friends craft unique experiences together to look back upon in every dimension. The process of crafting a Journey gifts the memory with a sense of personality and the reminder of a bond, more than just documentation.
By selecting a date, users can create an event. Events can carry be personalized to carry a compilation of photos, videos, songs, stickers, curated color palettes, and so on.
Friends can cement unique experiences together to look back upon.
RESEARCH APPROACH
Dissect goal and constraints
Simplify question to core goals
Analyze current digital stressors
Identify solution gaps through desk and market research
Investigate human intimacy
Gather human insight on what people find valuable in different relationships
Ideate potential product formats
Condense research insights, reframe, and ideate product formats (app, website forum, plugin, etc)
RESEARCH
User stress (found primarily in women), is exacerbated by social media’s constant demand for attention and a focus on one’s social image.
I conducted desk research on Google Scholar and various articles on the root causes of social media induced-stress, investigating the why beyond the issues.
User stress (found primarily in women), is exacerbated by a constant demand for attention + a focus on one’s social image.
I conducted desk research on Google Scholar on the root causes of social media induced-stress
ISSUE
Social media is exhausting due to FOMO + constant comparison
REFRAMED
Shift the focus of the product away from rewarding perfect performance and towards cherishing 1:1 relationships without a pressure to succeed, and include features that maximize the potential for friends to share 1) authenticity and 2) intimacy.
Shift the focus of the product away from rewarding perfect performance and towards 1:1 relationships without a pressure to succeed
RESEARCH
Authenticity is a dealbreaker; users shy away from the overt and commodified.
Authenticity elevates, but it's rare. Brands like Hermes have taken note, taking to the arts and reverting back to the obvious human hand as users indicate feeling disrupted by AI and other forms of the masses. A shift towards a focus on the self and all its parts is rising across younger users on social media.
Authenticity is a dealbreaker; users shy from the overt and commodified.
Authenticity elevates, but it's rare. Brands have taken note, taking to the arts and reverting back to the obvious human hand as users indicate feeling disrupted by AI and other forms of the masses.
ISSUE
Authenticity in digital spaces is rare, and users want it back.
REFRAMED
Strategic decision to step away from AI features in this context, serving users' interests in crafting creative means to communicate authenticity.
Strategic decision to step away from AI features in this context, serving users' interests in crafting rawness in personality
Consumers tire of shallow, quantity-focused communication in the current market.
I found that as consumers tired of quantity-focused apps, they used ones that were slower paced, and many returned, even for ones that only opened once per year (e.g. Deco My Tree, where users send messages to be opened on Christmas). Apps that required less frequent communication (e.g. BeReal), with the right gamification aspect, were wildly successful, but struggled with the less frequent time use resulting in less ad monetization.
Consumers tire of quantity-focused communication in the current market.
Apps that required less frequent communication (e.g. BeReal or DecoMyTree), with the right gamification aspect, were wildly successful, but users still found fatigue as the apps restructured to become less personal over time.
ISSUE
Shallow connection exasperated fatigue
REFRAMED
Make “messages” more meaningful by increasing the value each can carry, perhaps by decreasing their frequency. But we would need to strategically retain interest as the time frequency between messages decreases.
Make “messages” more meaningful. But need to strategically retain interest as the time frequency between messages decreases.
PROTOTYPING + VISUAL STYLE
Gen Z. Users Prefer Digital Records and Real Intimacy
The current generation goes without sending mail, Our most immediate resource for user feedback within the three-day hackathon was the other people in the competition: thus, we conducted an investigation on what they found to be rewarding in relationships, and ideated with that in mind.
PROTOTYPING + VISUAL STYLE
User Involvement in What Invokes A Sense of Intimacy
Our most immediate resource for user feedback within the three-day hackathon was the other people in the competition.
USER TESTING + INSIGHTS
User Feedback
We spoke with 3 users to iterate on our initial prototype and thought process for the product.
We found that we relied too heavily on the mail motif, resulting in confusion over whether this system sent physical mail. There were also questions about how it differed from typical messaging.
We spoke with 3 users to iterate on our initial prototype and thought process for the product.
We found that we relied too heavily on the mail motif, resulting in confusion over whether this system sent physical mail. There were also questions about how it differed from typical messaging.
INSIGHTS
Pushing Beyond Mail
After diversifying design-wise from mail, we took this as an opportunity to adjust and add more distinct, innovative features.
This is when I ideated the feature for Shared Journeys: users can build a world together around their previous memories through designs of their own + add different media.
After diversifying design-wise from mail, we took this as an opportunity to adjust and add more distinct, innovative features.
This is when I ideated the feature for Shared Journeys: users can build a world together around their previous memories through designs of their own + add different media.
DESIGN SYSTEM
Emphasizing Creativity in Personality and a Blank Slate
DESIGN SYSTEM
Emphasizing A Sense of Personality + a Blank Slate
REFLECTION
Speed in Teamwork, Balancing Creativity with Time Constraints
I learned the importance of communicating structure rapidly-- in the hackathon setting, time was of the essence, and I learned to focus on core components and quickly original ideas to develop a good overall structure, rather than focus on all the details of a too-safe option.
I learned to pair ambition with rapid execution.
REFLECTION
Speed in Teamwork, Balancing Creativity with Time and Logic
I learned the importance of communicating structure rapidly-- in the hackathon setting, time was of the essence, and I learned to focus on core components and quickly original ideas to develop a good overall structure, rather than focus on all the details of a too-safe option.
