TkeOut dating app
A dating app designed to help you
meet people - in real life.
Feature design | April - May 2023
Skills
UI Design
UX Design
Ideation and concept development
Tools
Figma
Team
Me (solo project)
I was the designer in this part of this start-up project. For context, other designers have been assigned on this project before me, so part of the task was to understand the history of decisions made before my involvement. My main goals here was to build the user flow for creating a new date and to prepare the prototype for user testing. I worked with the startup owner and we ideated the concept further during this project. I then sketched and visualized the explorations of the concept along the way.
Project Summary
This digital product serves to help people plan and present date ideas as the first point of contact with other users. The idea is, that the user is nudged towards going on dates and away from texting too much before meeting. This concept taps into the wave that goes against "fast dating"-trend where the users spends all their time on the phone instead of creating real life experiences and meetings.
What I did:
- Ideate and prototype the "Create a date"-flow
- Look at the digital solution as a whole and identify conceptual show stoppers or inconsistencies
How I did it
To create the UI design and flow of how the user should create and post a new date, I sketched low fidelity explorations, created mockups and then, high fidelity prototypes and flows.
We, the startup-owner and I, workshopped on the concept as a whole and discovered and discussed holes in the concept. We also worked with user cases that I set up in the prototype to uncover any issues there.
Ideating the "Create a date"-user flow
Since the user flow for creating a date had not been designed or even mapped out this was one of my main tasks. The first screen that the user meets after onboarding is the calendar view and so we wanted to continue that line of thought and make the Create-a-date flow similar to when you plan a new event or activity in you phone calendar.
Product Goal:
It should be easy and comprehensible for the user to create a new date idea.
Exploration
I started out by exploring different ways of creating a date idea by sketching out different user flows. I ended up with four possible solutions and ran them by the owner. We talked through each variation to uncover any issues. We had the idea of implementing Google Maps in the application, so the user would be able to pick a specific venue for a date. This was implemented in the low fidelity sketches as well.
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Progress bar
In the sketches I worked with a progress bar, something that is also used in check-out flows and similar. When reviewing the flow, it was argued that having one screen for each step in the proces would make the task too complex (or at least make it look too complex). Instead we looked at other concepts where the users are the ones posting content. We took some inspiration from Instagram in the setup and in the way the user is guided to the map flow.
All options in one screen
After taking a closer look at how Instagram and Google Maps works, I created mockups for the flow that included mechanics from both. Taking inspiration from these existing apps, enables us to create a feature that taps into a usability that the user is most likely used to.
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The user flow
With the implementation of the map that is similar to Google Maps or other map integrations we utitlize an understanding that most users already have.
Looking over the concept as a whole
While my main role was to design the interface, I also helped landing the concept as a whole. This startup has been an ongoing project for almost four years and different people have been involved, so the history of the concept development was complex. However, mapping out the different userflows and linking them together unfolded holes and inconsistencies in the concept that we were able to tackle.
I also reviewed the existing components and made sure that they were consistent in the way they looked and acted. I put the components into system and created a library that can also be used by designers getting on to the project at a later time. This makes it easy to change specific components in the whole solution if necessary.
Notes
I would have preferred testing the flow of the new create a date-feature and I also suggested spending a day doing so and analyzing the insights. It was argued that my time was better spend working on the interface design with the purpose of testing the whole flow when it was completely designed. I argued on several occasions that it would make more sense to also conduct user tests on low fidelity mockups to uncover any major user problems in the design before spending too much time on one feature.