Role
UI/UX Designer
Duration
3 months
Methods
Research Analysis , Wireframing, Prototyping, Testing
Tools
Figma, Jira, Miro
Background
In 2019, a group of college students founded Go Off! as a result of their dissatisfaction with current methods of online socialization.
The goal at Go Off! is to create the most natural online socialization experience possible.
Problem
Social platforms are not designed for users to have natural and impactful conversations
Current platforms mold the interactions in an unnatural way, and the consequence: users voices are ignored, dismissed, and tossed into a void.
There is no moderated online space for real-time conversations
No social platform is designed to enforce community guidelines in real-time with a scalable moderation solution.
Relevant Data-Driven Insights are
Hard to Gather
Content creators using current social media platforms are having a hard time getting insight about their audience and their engagement with them.
Our Solution
Go Off! is a social platform where people can host small live moderated text-based conversations around trending media topics.
My Goal
I joined the team three months prior to their launch date for the product and because of that time constraint my goal for launch was to have high and constant collaboration with the tech team to design a product they would be able to develop by launch and would also directly address the problem and user needs.
Process
Understand
Go Off! had a years worth of interview, research, and analysis conducted when I started working on the product which moved my role into understanding the research instead of conducting it. I read over several interviews and all the research they has accumulated and synthesized it in a digestible way that would help me make informed design decisions when I began the ideation process.
User Personas
Based on the interviews, I created a user persona that display the type of user that would be primarily interacting with our product.
User Empathy Map
Creating a map helped me better understand the users pain points and behaviors and take a step towards ideating a product that would relive those frustrations.
Value Proposition
We identified 4 key identities to make our product unique from the competitors and address our users wants and needs.
Be Heard
Create a platform that doesn’t make users scared of not receiving validation or engagement and promotes users to post and engage with a quality over quantity mindset.
Natural Conversations
Allow users to engage in live synchronous text-based conversation so have meaningful and natural conversations.
Feel Safe & Engaged
Provide a platform to users where they feel engaged with their audience as well as have a safe space to discuss topics they care about.
Gain Insight
Give users instant feedback about their engagement with their audience and be transparent about their engagement to help them grow.
Ideation
User Flow
Low-fi Wireframes
Branding
Colors & Logo
Logos
Icons & Buttons
Testing
Through a series of testing sessions with potential users for the product I realized some aspects of the platform needed to be modified to make it more intuitive for our users. A button was added for users to easily share an upcoming conversation with their friends, an option to save conversations so that users don’t have to immediately commit to attending a conversation, and “happening now” conversations were added to the discover page to encourage users to immediately engage with the platform.
The Product
Onboarding
Users have the option to log into a pre-existing account or sign up for a new one, where they can create a profile and need to verify their email or phone number before successfully creating an account and viewing the home page.
Home Page
On the top navigation bar users can search and filter for people and conversations as well as view notifications and access DMs and their own profile.
The left tab allows users to quickly enter chats they have RSVP’d for as well as the ability to navigate between pages on the website. The right tab displays trending topics users may be interested in as well as friend activity to encourage more user engagement.
Users can scroll through the home page and see what conversations their friends are hosting and read about them as well as RSVP or save them.
Discover Page
Users can find ongoing conversations and start chatting as soon as they enter the website. They can also find conversations based on the genres they are interested in. The page also displays featured hosts based on the users interests and engagement with the platform.
Chat Page
This is where users can have live synchronous conversations about a topic guided by a live chat timeline is created and moved along by the host. Users can also invite their friends to join the conversation as well as view the participants in the chat as we as any media shared in the chat.
Profile Page
Users can edit and personalize their profile and settings on the profile page. They can view their old and upcoming conversations that they host as well as upcoming chats they have RSVP’d for and chats they saved and went to previously.
Reflection
Go Off! was my first experience designing a social platform and working in a start up. Collaborating with a team of developers under a time crunch to meet a release date for the product allowed me to grow as a designer and work under tremendous pressure as well as take rejection and go back to create something viable in the time we had that would also allow for a successful product.