Problem
Moving to a new city alone, and settling in a strange environment especially when you don’t have any friends or family to support you can be very challenging and represents a life-changing event.
Finding people, getting accustomed to the city, forming a healthy lifestyle, and getting accustomed to a new role are some of the challenges faced by users. Social isolation can lead to loneliness and impact mental health.
Research
When it comes to finding guidance or support during a life-changing event people are seeking meaningful connections, reliability, shared experiences, less superficiality, and genuine support. People believe that shared experiences are instrumental when embracing change.
Research
1:1 Interviews
Survey
Affinity Maps
User Archetype
Design
User Flow
Wireframing
Prototyping
Style Guide
User Testing
Strategy
UX Strategy
Brand Positioning
Competitor Analysis
Business Model
Solution
Bud’n is a social platform that helps you form meaningful connections in the face of change. Our matching system facilitates connections based on shared experiences between people who wish to buddy up while facing a new chapter (our ‘Newbies’) and those willing to share their experiences! (our ‘Buddies’).
Buddying up in the face of change!
Three Pillars!
Bud'n three-step process stands for Credibility & Trust, Meaningful connection, and Growing Together.
Compatibility!
Bud'n lets the newbies enter their concerns, lifestyle choices, interests, and hobbies. We ask similar questions to buddies specifically to understand their strengths and mastery.
Choices!
Based on this data our system creates a compatibility index and suggests matches to both parties. However, they get to choose from our list of suggestions and decide their match based on profiles.
Go beyond screens!
Bud'n encourages users to take the connection beyond the screens, with the unique chat feature. The chat expires in 20 days if you don't meet your connection physically. The system will send a reminder when you are a week away from losing your chat.
To ensure "Trust and Credibility" the app recommends its vetted partnered venues for the first meet-up.
Let's incentize the journey!
To promote life beyond the virtual Bud'N also curates a pool of exciting events happening around the city, that our users can explore and book easily from the app. The premium members get access to exclusive Bud'N events.
Every time our newbies and buddies meet, they earn reward points, which help them purchase coupons and redeem them at their next hangout.
Process Overview
We planned our research and design activities around the double diamond design process model; originally proposed by Bela H. Banathy.
Analyze: Market Analysis
Identify: Opportunity Statement
Empathize: User Research
Align User Archetype,
Process Overview
I designed this process map suited for our project as an adaptation of the double diamond design process model; originally proposed by Bela H. Banathy.
Market
Research
Opportunity
Statement
User
Archetypes
Key
Insights
User
Research
Eraf
Map
Target
Audience
Value
Prop
Business Model
Key
Drivers
3 Value
Pillars
Design Criteria
Competitor
Analysis
User
Flow
Wireframe
Design
User
Testing
Brand
Styleguide
Hi fidelity
Prototype
Logo
Design
ShowReel
Video
Marketing
Poster
Let's dig into the scrappy process!
Goal ~
The goal of the project was to identify a unique opportunity space and to develop a niche social media platform that solves a specific problem of the target users by facilitating a connection.
PHASE 1
Market Research ~
This was in the form of secondary research which included: brand studies, SWOT analysis, social media trend Reports, Global Trends reports, and Tech Trends. These revealed a few key themes for the current and future social media landscape.
These trends reflect user behavior and motivation and The hero insight that connected all of these themes was the rise of "Genuinfluencers". These are people who want to genuinely be a positive influence on others' life without any personal interest in earning money.
PHASE 2
Opportunity Statement ~
Based on our research, we identified an opportunity space and defined a broad but crisp opportunity statement, before we dive into field research and identify a specific problem that needs to be addressed!
"How might we enable people to make genuine connections that encourage empathy, promote authenticity and facilitate growth?"
PHASE 3
User Research
Our primary research was carried out through two main activities: an initial survey to understand the context and reach potential users, and a series of interviews to gain a deeper understanding of how our social network could be designed to assess our user’s needs and wants.
The survey was used to generate challenges from a bigger sample size. Based on the high-frequency responses, we built our discussion guide for our interview participants, to dig deeper into the "Whys".
We further conducted affinity mapping for the responses to generate our key Insights!
A Majority of the participants showed interest in a platform that enables the development of meaningful relationships based on one-on-one guidance in various aspects of life.
User quotes:
What are they looking for?
EMOTIONAL SUPPORT
TANGIBLE SUPPORT
TRUST
ENCOURAGEMENT
INFORMATION
GUIDANCE
"I feel helping each other move through similar experiences is a great way to give back to the society"
"Moving to a new city alone was hard, I don't want anyone to go through what I went through"
"I would love to guide someone to overcome challenges"
"We are in a generation the idea of connection is through social media, and it's so superficial"