UX Research / Design
ROLE
Offer a peer support system for college student navigating dating rejection
MISSION
JAN 2024 - MAY 2024
TIMELINE
PROBLEM
Research shows that swipe-based dating apps is associated with higher levels of anxiety, depression, and emotional distress. Rejection, comparison, validation-seeking, and overwhelming amount of options - current dating apps that are designed to quickly meet people does not have any features to help support those who are going through these difficult experiences.
How might we normalize the inevitability of dating rejection and create a community of support for those who've faced similar challenges?
RESEARCH
LITERATURE REVIEW
We derived our project based on three different persuasive design theories: self-affirmation, self-distancing, and deindividualization.
self-affirmation
Remind people about their values, relationships, and positive attributes. Reduce the impact of identity threat or provocation.
self-distancing
Gauge humor to provide users responses to their negative dating experiences to destress users from traumatic experiences; provide users opportunities to “step back” without immediate responses to negative experiences.
deindividuation
Thoughts are likely to be influenced by salient group norms and prototypes. Peer support through empathy: Users might feel less self-conscious or isolated and more part of a collective
EXPERT INTERVIEWS
We chose three experts from different domains to explore how we can design for personal empowerment in dating. We found that building a robust social web and a community for individuals to comfortably share similar experience can be an effective way to mitigate rejection-related negative emotions.
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EXISTING APPROACH
We looked at existing solution that help people heal relationship wounds, which includes features like journaling, gamification, and daily affirmations. However, none of these products target all three categories. Our approach aims to combine these feature and create a comprehensive healing journey for the users. It will focus exclusively on the post-rejection phase in dating, targeting college students and addressing the emotions that may arise during this specific period.
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DESIGN
CONCEPT IDEATION
Based on the user research, we each individually generated 15 design ideas and created an affinity diagram. We vote on the affinity groups and agreed on expanding the the idea of creating a peer support journaling app used in the path of healing after hurtful experiences in a relationship.
USER FLOW
DESIGN EVOLUTION
We did 5 user tests for each round of wireframe and prototype -
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WIREFRAMING
In our round 1 prototype and testing, we sketched out the main functionalities of self-journals. The idea was to enable the journals to be sharable as "letters" and gives the user the agency of storytelling, no matter to themselves or to the peers in the community.
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CHECK LETTERS
WRITE LETTER -> CHOOSE TO SEND TO YOURSELF OR PENPAL
CHAIN-STORYTELLING
MID-FI PROTOTYPE
After the round 1 user test, multiple users suggest a lack of motivation of using the platform if it is just a simple diary app. They also express a need to have a conversational experience, expressing concerns that they are only talking to themselves without getting sufficient feedback or validation from other users.
DESIGN DECISIONS
01 / Tailored the journaling prompts more closely to dating and use self-affirmation strategies to guide the users in writing journals
02 / Introduced multiple AI "mentor" that takes on different role and personality to comment on the journals
03 / Built a Journal History tab where users can view their journal history and review comments from the AI characters
04 / Eliminating the chain storytelling function, as user suggests the intent of which is not clear
HIGH-FI PROTOTYPE
We applied consistency to the UI design by defining our own design system such as color, fonts, icons, and illustrations.
In the last round of user test, we received mixed feelings particularly on AI mentors. While some mentioned that the AI-generated responses give a human feeling, some expressed skepticism regarding AI's capacity to provide emotional support. Users may have different preferences, which was our biggest insight for the final prototype – accommodating different users with different preferences.
SELF-JOURNALING
Imagining Lena just ended a situationship, which makes her feel down. Lena opens the app, writes, draws, or inserts music to articulate her emotions in the self journal. She can also choose from writing free-form journals or answer guided prompts. Lena decided to send the journal to herself now, but she does want someone to talk to and empathize with her feelings.
AI PENPALS
Lena finds out she can receive opinions from four distinct AI friend, each has different personality -
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Mo.net generates light-hearted personality summaries and drawings to humorously tease people based on users’ description
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Dr.Bruh likes to spill tea and gossip
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The Mentor offers practical advice to the situations.
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Joy delivers daily affirmations to brighten her day.
Lena chooses Monet as her penpal. She find in her inbox a letter from Monet, with a funny portrait of the person she have dated. She laughed over it, and her stress has obliviated.
HUMAN PENPAL
Sometimes Lena feels like she have something to share to real human, which she feels more emotionally connected. She send letters to system-matched pen pals, allowing them to empathize with each other and offer support through story-sharing, replies, and reactions.
WHAT I LEARNED
I learned how to scope down ideas into a solution that targets our persona and considers the persuasive design theories. Working in a class team project also sharpened my communication skills. This project opened my eyes to the possibilities of using chatbots as a solution for wellbeing and emotions.
NEXT STEPS
01
More Diverse Prompt Options
02
More informative onboarding process
03
Integration of ChatGPT API
04
Expert Engagement as Pen Pals
05
Refined interface design
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