mobile app
Sincerely: A mobile app enhancing personal connection + storing multidimensional memories in the digital age
roles
UX Designer
Researcher
tools
Figma
team
1 Business Analyst
2 Developers
1 UX Designer
overview
Designing a relationship-centered social app in 1 week, while discovering a core issue (+ its pivot!)
For XHacks, Pittsburgh’s largest designathon, my team designed a social app focused on maintaining relationships.
Over 1 week, we moved from
* Concept → research → wireframes → prototype
* Presented our work to industry judges from companies including Duolingo and UPMC.
After the event, I independently refined the product.
Design Process
* Research Problem Space adapted to designathon with desk research + surveying other contestants
* Define Insights
* Ideate
* Prototype
* User Testing + Insights adapted with surveying other contestants + judge feedback
* Iterate
Insights + Research
Insight 1: Most apps focus on engagement frequency to reduce churn, inevitably leading to user burnout.
Burnout due to overstimulation + engagement frequency can be resolved if the correct optimization between lowering needed interaction frequency and raising the value per unit of communication is balanced.
Traditional gifts
+
Deco My Tree
+
Bereal
+
Discord
+
+
Insight 2: Users seek authenticity through intentionality + the obvious human hand, and companies are responding.
In the age of AI, content can be mass-generated in seconds. As a result, users place greater value on visible human work. Taste = value; we need to create a product that encourages personality.
Research
-
Insight 3: Current social apps amplify the pressure to perform + compare rather than support interpersonal well-being.
Depression, Self-esteem, self-evaluations, personal well-being are the most commonly negative impacted. To maintain interpersonal connection, our product features should directly connect to relation-building over presentation or large groups.
Research
-
Ideation
Concept Definition and Information Architecture
We can't separate people from the digital world now. But we can use it to mediate and enhance connection, rather than cause negative comparison. With this in mind, we whiteboarded ideas + sketched initial prototypes.
User Testing + Pivot
The Pivot into Multidimensionality
User testing revealed we were designing for separate moments of connection rather than the overall experience of preserving and reflecting on relationships. The result: we expanded features + modified flows for clarity.
Testing
-
Initial user feedback on the flows of <scheduling envelopes of gifts + messages> revealed confusion around whether the system sent actual mail + if so, how our app was different from typical mailing.
Iteration
-
We reassessed our PRD and realized there was a need to pivot in our design language + core features.
* Our design language relied too heavily on envelopes, leading to user confusion of function
* The original mail-sending only addressed (1) facet of relationships: stabilizing future communications, but not cementing the present or recalling shared pasts.
Design System
Crafting a blank slate for you to add onto.
Organic, textured lines and icons give users space to imagine while balancing clarity.
the future
Packets Create Moments of Shared Joy
Users schedule-send digital packets containing movies, audiobooks, photos, messages, or music to others or themselves in the future.
the present
Build Events Together— they're not shared with the Public
Store events with candid pictures, music that reminds you of what happened, an auto-generated map of your journey, and more!
All events are automatically saved to you + your friend's Shared Journey. No need to go through the trouble of sending images, updating photo albums, sharing permissions, and more after a hangout.
the past
Your Home Screen: Journeys synthesize Packets + Events into Shared Narratives
Combines the previous two features into one scroll per friend, turning fragmented interactions into cohesive, multidimensional collections you can both review and recall :).
Reflection
Balancing Speed + Organization
I enjoy conducting in-depth planning prior to executing projects. But this wasn't as possible in the context of a designathon.
I found myself constantly asking questions to weigh the options, determining which tasks were truly high priority in order to finish on time.
This pattern of thinking impacts how I structure my workflow in current UX projects and designathons, balancing thorough planning with adaptive, constraint-based judgement.
