Linking fresh faces to the uncommon experience
Client/Company/Project Type:
Mobile App
A conceptual project
My Role:
For this project I was responsible for everything from the user research to the interface creation. My responsibilities included user research, user flows, sketching, wireframing, visual design, prototyping, and user testing.
Project Date:
July 2020 - August 2021
Software Utilized:
Adobe Illustrator, Adobe XD, Invision
About this project...
Every so often I found myself wanting to do something totally spontaneous and exciting with my friends. I’d send the same texts to my friends in hopes that someone would come back with a word of some new activity none of us had ever experienced and it would never come. Most of the time I found us entertaining repetitive conversations of what new restaurant to try, what house to hang at during some point of the weekend, or what trail to go hike on. We would always want to try new things to do but most times it proved too much to find something new. Due to this, we’d end up doing the same trusted and tried things we always did for enjoyment.
How do I personally address this now?
I set out to solve this problem for myself by conducting a variety of searches. I started with a Google search with phrases like “cool things to do in Dallas”, “unusual things to do in Dallas”, and “weird things to do in Dallas”. Most of these searches ended with me being shown tourist-like attractions and activities centered around food and music. Next, I looked into Facebook Events to search for unique activities to try but I found myself running into the same kinds of events. Yelp was my final stop which did bring me some luck when searching for “unusual” or “weird” attractions but the selections were few.
Beginning the adventure...
In order to solve this myself, I first wanted to see if I were the only one who struggled to find new experiences to try out. How do other people go about learning new things to try and would they try them? Does anyone else feel as strongly about experiencing new things as I do? I created a survey to begin to understand how others were feeling and found some interesting themes amongst the age ranges.
The survey included a total of 40 participants that ranged in ages from 20 - 40 years old. I then took the date I collected from the survey and teased it to see if any patterns or common interests became apparent in the different age groups. My data revealed interesting themes amongst the age groups and I captured this in the form of empathy maps for each age group. I have posted some of the results from that survey below and the empathy maps below.
Survey results
Empathy maps created from survey data
The Making of Venture
Next I used the data I collected to create personas of the users who would use Venture. I also created an ideal user flow detailing how I imagined the app would work. This simultaneously turned into an experience map that detailed the ideal journey of the user versus their real results when utilizing the app.
Personas created for the Venture app
Data from my experience map
Sketches of a draft site map and early mock ups
Wireframing & User Testing
After the persona creation I progressed my site map diagram into a more organized flow diagram. From there I was able to refine the design into high fidelity wireframes that I then utilized for user testing. I also created a survey to follow up the user testing in order to ensure I was on track to create an interface that was easy to follow and intuitive. The questionnaire that accompanied the user test can be found here. The flow diagram can be seen below.
Low fidelity wireframing flow diagram
Deriving the Design
The design esthetic for Venture was based off designs that were trendy for 2021. The design showcases a combination of real life images and glassmorphism. I felt it important for real pictures to be utilized because they represent the real journeys that people would take once they tried some of the places the app presented them with. It felt more tangible this way.
High fidelity wireframes
Moving Forward
There is still a lot more to explore with Venture. What if activities were introduced through the partnership of businesses and events? What if routes were generated by users and crowdsourcing? Can we use other ways to share and review routes? These are just some of the questions I'd like to expand on as I continue to work on this project. I would also like to complete another round of user testing after I further refine the design in order to get more helpful feedback. In the meantime however, feel free to check out the current state of the app here.