Synple.
Find the things you enjoy, and the right people to do them with, in one place!
Project Info
Brief
Synple was an idea pitched in 2017, the mobile app that users can share and manage the in-person event with their friends which aggregate from different social network platforms. You can not only quickly search for related events based on your interests, but also help you managing event scheduling and participator list. If you still hesitate about what to do this weekend, how about post the event information on Synple now? We will help you looking for friends who have similar interests to join in.
1.
Explore and discover things you want to do.
3.
Invite friends who have similar interests, make your event more fun.
2.
Track event details and participants, keep up with
the latest update.
4.
Meet new friends with mutual interests, connect friend on other social network apps.
Preliminary Research
Interview
To quickly inquire the pain points and current solutions, I approached six SCAD students and professors for a user interview.
Insights
1. Most of the users prefer to directly share an event link or a feed to friends who they want to invite instead of post it as a feed. Because of a feed will easily drown in the dizzying updating speed.
2. Over two-thirds users in the interview indicate that they will mute events group chat because they can quickly descend into chaos as everyone starts chatting with one another.
3. People in the group chat are constantly asking similar questions such as when do we meet on that day, how many people eventually decided to go, and should I bring or prepare anything.
4. Missing message or mix up content frequently happens when users are using the various platform and involve plenty of groups.
5. Most people will ask who is going with them when they first get the message or sharing links about event.
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Secondary Research
Pain point
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Hard to track important information through plenty amount of message in a group chat.
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Challenging to make a decision when event participants are uncertain.
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Organizing friends list from different social network platform.
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Lacking a way to explore friends who have similar interests and might be interested in the event.
Brag point
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Explore and discover things you want to do.
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Track event detals and participants, keep up with the latest update
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Invite friends who have similar interests, make your even more fun.
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Meet new friends with mutual interests, connect friend on different social media platforms.
Flow Diagrams
Sketching
Usability Test
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It would be lovely if I can see what my friends are doing this weekend. So I can think about which event is the most attractive one for me than I can participate.
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When I create my own event, I might want to ask people to send a requirement, if I want that guy join in than I can approve it, if not I have the right to reject him/her.
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There are too many things happening on this screen, it seems can be separate to two individual steps may be more easy to handle with.
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The reason why sometimes is very hard to find an interesting event is that people may just text a few lines of text to describe the event. I believe that if hoster add some pictures can be a good idea for us to have an apparent understanding of what this event is about or looks like.
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I love the idea how I can directly check other user’s social media profile through one app.
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On event detail screen, I feel like if you want to encourage people to participate this event, you can add an available number of participants can be helpful. User’s mood will be affected when they saw something is almost gone or full. Makes them feels like this event must be excited otherwise why there is not much space left.
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I get confused about user’s profile screen. I thought when I tap “add friend” button; it will bring me to his/her facebook page, and I can send an adding friend requirement on the Facebook profile page. However, in your paper prototyping, it seems like it will directly happen. This working flow should revise a little bit to make it more clear for the user.
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How can I communicate with other participants in an event is a question for me right now, it should provide a function or something that I can directly send a message to them through this app.
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In my calendar page, every event that I will participate is all showing on one screen. I think to create a module tab or calendar to organize different events’ timing can be useful.
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When I create an event, the screen shows to me some people who might be interested in about this event, and I can invite them. From my perspective, maybe adding a field to allow user directly search for a friend’s name that he/she want to invite will be convenience.
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From my experience, I believe if there are several time periods to pick can be helpful when I watch this home screen. I would like to select whats happening this week or this month.
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The number of participators looks like pagination if use dots to explain it. (Using 4/6 is more evident than dots.)
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The social media little icon beneath the user avatar looks kinda strange; I think it can be reconsidered to put in a better position or somewhere.
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When I create a new event, I realize that this app wants to recommend me some user who might be interested in this event, I think adding one more field about the tags in that create event screen can help system search the keyword or interest tag through the database and find the more accurate result to me.
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Small social media icon under the participator’s avatar cause confused. If there are more than six participators, too much
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social media icon will show on screen at same time.
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I would like to know who I familiar with in this event participant list. Maybe some color hint to distinguish it. This detail helps me navigate who I have followed on Facebook or Instagram and who hasn’t.
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If I change my mind and don’t want to go to this event, should I require to leave a comment or something to let hoster know about it or directly quit without any sign?
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As for now, notification looks quite unclear. Notification should involve related activity’s detail. So, the hoster or participants will not feel confused when they have several activities at the same time.
Takeaways
• The user should be allowed to search for a friend’s schedule and gain the information what’s he going to do this weekend. (Adding this feature to the search page. Using a module tab divide the activity category and the friend list into two part.)
• Once user decided to join an activity, it should consider whether the request will be approved automatically or it has to wait for organizer’s authority. ( Adding checkbox property “Need authentication” and “Private activity” when the user creates their activity, they can choose this option or not.)
• Adding a picture to activity detail page can make the activity more obvious. User’s avatar list should be smaller.
• Separating creating activity and people might be interested in this activity to two pages. (Make the original sketch in two steps, step one input activity information, step two invite friends who might interested in.)
• Adding how many available participator spaces left on activity detail page. Encourage the user to join it now.
• When a user browses a participator’s information, adding friend button should jump out to related social network app screen instead off directly happen.
• Creating a posterboard section to leave comments is functional on the activity detail page. (Only show when the user has joined the activity.)
• Schedule page should keep consistency to add a timelines module tab beneath the header.
• The user can directly search for a friend’s name when “people who might be interested in” page come out.
• Using color to identify existed friends and people who are not your friends in the social network.
• Notification should involve related activity’s detail. So, the organizer will not feel confused when he/she have several activities at the same time.
• The number of participators looks like pagination if use dots to explain it. (Using 4/6 is more evident than dots.)
Style Tiles
Visual Comps
Onboarding
Explore and discover things you want to do.
Track event details and participants, connect friend on other social network apps.
Invite friends who have similar interests, make your event more fun.
Add your interest tag to explore mutual interest friend.
