Livvi
Livvi matches women in small groups of 4-5 for socialization and exploring in their city. The mission is to create an easier, effective, and fun way of building social circles in new cities.
Role: Product Designer
At a Glance
Team
Co-founders (CEO & CTO)
Marketing intern
Product designer (me)
Tools
Figma
Timeline
July-Sep 2022
Responsibilities
Competitive Analysis
Wireframing
Prototyping
Feature Ideation
The Goal
Create high-fidelity mockups for the key pages of the app:
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Profile
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Group chat
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Event search
Please note that due to NDA restrictions, I'm unable to share some of the designs and details for this project.
Discovery Research
Research Questions
1. What aspects are important to friendship for women, and how can the app help women bond?
2. What barriers would prevent a successful meet-up among a group of women?
Research Methods
Throughout the summer, we used three primary research methods:
Competitive Analysis
I conducted a competitive analysis among a variety of competitors, including dating apps like Bumble and Hinge, and existing friendship apps like Bumble BFF and Hey Vina. The goal of this analysis was to see how the apps facilitated matches and what information each app included on a user's profile.
Weekly Ideation
The Livvi team met up once a week to review our research findings, brainstorm new directions for the app, and discuss ways to iterate on our current designs
Focus Groups
Throughout the summer, the Livvi team also facilitated group matches in various cities to learn more about what women wanted in a group match and what variables led to the most successful matches.
Findings
Competitive analysis and weekly ideation helped inform profile and event page designs
The competitive analysis and weekly ideation sessions helped inform the organization of information in the profile page and helped determine the layout of the event page designs. The goal was to match user expectations from similar apps while incorporating Livvi's unique goals and values.
Focus groups demonstrated importance of suggesting events
The focus groups showed that women liked getting suggestions for local events to attend as a group, which highlighted both the importance of the events search page and having a group chat page that would allow matches to easily talk and make plans.
Refining the Design
Events Page
Here was my initial mockup of the events page:
I included sort and filter options, since these are common in similar apps and would help the user find the specific types of events they're looking for
On each event card, I made sure to include the information a user would most likely want to know at a glance, such as the name, location, and price
I also wanted to include a share button so users could easily share events they were interested in with members of their group
After meeting with the rest of the Livvi team, I iterated on my designs to make the following changes:
I moved the search bar below the events title because it made it clearer what the function of the search bar was
I added labels to show the event type at a glance
Group Chat Page
Similarly, I iterated on the group chat page throughout the summer as I received feedback from the rest of the team:
I added the Livvi logo at the top for clearer branding
I made the chat bubbles rounded to make match the rest of Livvi's aesthetic
I demonstrated the different ways the group members can interact, such as liking messages and sending pictures
Final Designs
Reflection & Takeaways
This was my first time working on a project with a team and real-world constraints, so it was a great learning experience. I learned a lot throughout this project, including:
Designing with time constraints
The timeline for this project required quick turn-arounds, requiring me to iterate quickly and prioritize the most pressing design needs. I also didn’t have time to do as much research as I would have liked. If I'd had more time, I would have done some usability studies with the app prototype to get additional feedback from users and go through more rounds of iteration.
Working with a team
This was my first experience working with a team, and I found that brainstorming design ideas with others was extremely helpful. I learned how helpful it was to explain my design choices while being open to my team members' ideas and branching into new directions.
Gaining experience with Figma
I was the only designer, so when I had questions about Figma, I needed to answer them on my own by experimenting with the tool and reading tutorials. It was a good experience because I know that when I have questions in the future, I’m capable of figuring them out, and I now have a much stronger knowledge of Figma.
Overall, this was a great learning experience for me to design with real-world constraints and limited resources. It also demonstrated the importance of collaboration and iteration in the design process.