Flag
Surround yourself with passionate people
Context
This project was driven by my progress as a student of the 2020 cohort at the University of Washington’s Continuing Education Certificate in UX and Visual Interface Design. It comprises three courses: UX Design Thinking, Applied UX Design, and Integrating UX with Interactive Visual Design.
Challenge
We are living in comfortable bubbles
Most of us are pretty set in our ways. We have a lot in common with the people in our inner circle. We get used to our daily routines which are comfortable at times.
Lack the desire to try something new
Some people are not excited about experiencing something new outside of their daily routine because they don’t see the real value.
It is hard to broaden and deepen ties online
Nowadays people are intentional with friendships. Making friends online even harder. The Internet urges you to be much more careful when trusting someone. .
“Living in Comfort Bubbles are comfortable and safe. But, they are also isolating, reducing our connections to our larger community.”
OPPORTUNITY
How might we create a sustainable online community with engaging strategies that can encourage people to step out of their comfort bubble and expand their social network?
Research
Audience Research
We interviewed 12 people to further understand the problem. The goals of the conversations were as listed:
- How serious of a problem is living in a comfortable bubble?
- How do they feel about meeting new people?
- What are the effects that social media bring to you?
- How might we help people to burst their comfort zone bubble?
Secondary Research
Each group member researched a particular topic about “Comfort Zone Bubble”, and built a shared research notebook. We also did some market research on competitors to investigate the current offerings in the market and take inspiration from particular features that we liked about each app.
Research Findings
People are willing to explore something new if they can see the real value behind it.
Life is about learning, growing, and advancing. With friends like this, you can learn from each other. It’s always great to have a friend who can recommend a good book or share information with you to help you on your path.
People are highly engaged and motivated in small group gatherings.
The fewer people there are, the easier it is for them to get to know each other. It’s easier to keep in touch with a smaller group of people than a larger one.
‘I’m really talkative when its just me and one or two other people even if I don’t know them that well, but when its a room full of people even if I know them, I feel really uncomfortable when there are many people.” – Participant 1
Sharing common values is an important ingredient to bonding.
When friends have similar values, they can help keep each other accountable. When you have friends with common goals, you will be partners and work on your goals together while encouraging each other in reaching them.
New interests bring new connections, and vice versa
Typically a new interest or hobby may involve some kind of group setting. Simultaneously new people introduce new passions into your world. They have their own likes and dislikes and ways of seeing the world you might not have thought about before.
Building Personas
Design Goals
Trust and Reciprocity
The solution should be secured and is able to build trust among users.
The solution should help users evaluate the information and access to those are authentic and valuable.
Bridging Social Divides
The solution should provide diverse social opportunities to get varies social group involved in
The solution should help users to build meaningful and lasting bonding.
Participation and engagement
The solution should find a way to encourage user’s personal engagement.
The solution should allow users to share, support and collaborate to each other.
Discover and growing
The solution is built for exploration. It allows users to investigate potential interests, gain new experiences and learn different perspectives.
The solution should create a collective resource every one can get inspired.
Ideation
During the matrix brainstorm workshop, we come up with four key questions from our design principles:
- How to build a secured and trustful social environment?
- How to bridge social divides?
- How might we help people discover new interests?
- How might we help people evaluate information?
and add them to the X axis, then added a set of categories to Y-axis that could enable a solution that helps us to address opportunities. During 30 minutes, we garnered many ideas that directly address opportunities.
At the rest of the workshop, we emerged with many ideas to evaluate, prioritize, and mature to our last four concepts:
Sharing Forum
Cooperation Games & Group Adventures
Events near me
Peer Coaching & Learning
Ideation User-testing
After making four low-fidelity paper prototypes, we ran eight times testing to validate to determine the desirability of the four concepts we had created.
We got a lot of great feedbacks that both ironed out inconsistencies in the product and gave us insights into how individuals can differ how they use mobile applications. It was revealed that there were commonalities in the product vision. We identified the following key user stories:
- A short survey is helpful to discover User’s needs, interests and goals.
- People like building relationships organically, but they don’t mind using prompts or excuses to start a conversation. “You have to come up with questions to ask. ice break it self is hard.”
- “We need a solution which allows people to have nicknames and yet have trustworthy profiles.” Social media platforms are often linked with one another.
- Points, badges, and leader-boards are all good ways to create a sense of accomplishment and competition then to create a higher level of engagement.
- Besides sharing ideas and experience, the platform should also allow information gathering and organizing.
- The recommendation system should be smart that can open users up to alternative perspectives.
Solution
Flag is the common value/goal/interest shared by a small group of people. You work as a team to support and monitor each other with right motivation and words.
In the flag, you will set your activities that help you achieve your goal; form a habit or learn a new skill.
Site Map
Introduce Flag
Flag is an online community where you will experience new things, meet people from different backgrounds, and have your most fundamental ideas challenged.
DELIGHTFUL
ONBOARDING
The delightful onboarding process allows you to create your unique profile within minutes. You can improve the credibility of profiles by connecting with other social medias.
By working with the “Reality Inquiries” , you will begin to see clearly how you feel about your current life and you will start taking active steps to make productive changes.
“My Life Chart” tool gives you a snapshot of where you stand right now in specific areas of your life. By breaking down the different aspects that make up your whole life, you can see where it makes sense to put energy and seek change.
EXPLORE
YOUR LEARNNING ZONE
The discover section is a quick way to open you up to how other people are passionate about. Seeing what other peers are committed with, find a flag that might stimulate you and get you started.
6 People Team
According to Evan Wittenberg, director of the Wharton Graduate Leadership Program, while the research on optimal team numbers is “not conclusive, it does tend to fall into the five to 12 range, and reinforced six is the right number on a team.
START YOUR FLAG JOURNEY
CONNECT WITH YOUR GOAL BUDDIES
Aligned with all the clarity and insight you gained so far, it is time to translate them to specific set of goals and a detailed and actionable plan. In Flag community, you can start your flag journey by joining an existing flag through category or create a new flag.
Join an Existing Flag
1. Tap the yellow “Add” button
2. Select a category
3. Preview the Flag you are interested
4. Join the Flag
5. Create a detailed action plan to give structure
and momentum to your Flag journey.
Create a new Flag
1. Type your goal in search bar and search
2. Join the Flag think might meet your need or create a Flag
3. Create a Flag
4. Initial setting for a new Flag: Choose a flag category; add a flag cover photo; descript the flag; invite your friends (optional).
5. Wait peers to join your Flag.
ENGAGE
ONLINE FLAG COMMUNITY
Within the Flag group, you will experience the motivational force of external accountability. This cohesive small group drives engagement around shared goals and activities and lead to valuable knowledge exchanges.
You are able to easily follow and monitor your peers’ progress through their check-in and streak statistics. If they are about to skip their planed activity on the day, you are welcome to send your peers a friendly remind by one simple click.
The same is true for you, if you don’t do what you committed to, expect notification rings from your peers.
STAY IN TRACTS
SHARE YOUR PROGRESS
Check-in the activities you successfully accomplished. Share your progress and success, and get support from your accountability Flag team.