Trybe

“A community-driven personal growth mobile app where users can create and join community-based challenges for self-improvement.”

Role:
Product Designer

Tools:
Figma, Miro, Photoshop

Deliverables:
UX Research - Secondary Research, Competitive Analysis, Interview Research Synthesis, Affinity Map, Usability Testing
UX Design - Low & Mid Fidelity Wireframes and a High Fidelity Prototype

Timeline: November 2021 - December 2021 (4 weeks)

Design Team: Victor Chue, Anita Trimbur, Yifan Cui, Nicole Galisatus

Client: Tameem Rahal

Project Overview

People are increasingly finding themselves stuck, complacent, and lost in life, not sure how to evolve to the next level of themselves. Only 34% of US employees are engaged at work.*

This leads to feelings of frustration and lack, that continue to perpetuate those exact negative behaviors.

**Problem Statement**

People have difficulty finding new ways for self-improvement due to lower engagement at work and lack of motivation.

Solution

TRYBE is a community-driven personal growth mobile app. Users are able to participate in individual & group challenges to encourage them to try something new. (e.g. a new food diet, a new exercise routine, etc).

Secondary Research

After researching several articles, I found that online community has been used to develop long-lasting connections for self-improvement. One article** stated 5 Core Components for Community:

The need to trust
The need to fit in
The need for self-worth
The need to be rewarded for good behavior
The need to feel empowered

Take Away:

A community-based app has potential to do well. As long as there is trust within the user base and that people can share vulnerable posts.

The hope is for users to be able to encourage one another to try new activities, even if it’s the small things in life.

Competitive Analysis

All the apps currently on the market either are “habit-focused” or “challenge-focused”. There isn’t one app in particular that focuses on doing both features. As TRYBE will be a more challenge focused app, it is important to include similar features from Strava, 21 Day Challenge, and Habitus.

Including an activity feed is also important for community-based feedback from the app’s users. Having one that is similar to 21 Day Challenge or Habitus would be ideal. Design wise, taking inspiration from either Strava’s professional look or Rabit’s art style would be nice.

Top is 21 Day Challenge, Right is Strava, Bottom is Rabit.

Click to enlarge the image.

User Interview Questions & Research Insights

Some of the research questions included the following:

“In the past three months, have you tried to develop any new hobbies/skills?”
“What new skills did you try to develop?”
“What kinds of hobbies/skills do you prefer to develop with a group of people online or in a community?”
“Did you meet any difficulties when you want to try something new or develop a new hobby in recent months?”

From the interviews, my team found 3 main significant insights that participants encountered:

A lack of motivation or consistency to develop new hobbies.
Scheduling problems and competing priorities make it hard to create attainable goals.
Could not decide which hobbies or skills to build.

This informed our Design Thinking questions:

How might we help users create attainable goals?
How might we help people stay motivated with their goals?
How might we incorporate close community support into personal growth?

Affinity Map

Survey participants showed a wide range of hobbies and skills. Some of them have used note-taking, journal writing, and planners to record their progress.

In addition, most of their goals were to improve their mental health, social skills, and relationships. To keep them accountable for their new priorities, they relied on friends & family. Finally, listed below are some highlighted quotes based on personal growth, success, and reflection.

User Flows

Before wireframing, our team designed a User Flow detailing all of TRYBE’s features.

The main decisions points the following:

Create a Challenge
Join a Public Challenge
Browse Community Feed

After creating the challenge or joining a public challenge, the user is able to update their progress under the challenge overview screen.

The end goal was to have three clearly defined paths that the user is able to easily follow.

Click on image to enlarge.

Wireframes

The team created mid-fidelity wireframes for the client. Shown below are the red routes for the individual & group activities, and how to create a new post.

Also included is the onboarding process where users can select different interests to customize their experience. The goal was to streamline the process of introducing new activities and hobbies that people can try out.

Click on image to enlarge.

Usability Test

Another teammate and I conducted 5 usability tests based on the wireframes. All the users are professionals with ages ranging from their 20s-40s. One main feedback was that it was hard to see the post icon. I changed the icon so that it was larger and more readable for accessibility.

Users were also confused about the community tab’s function: was it a public newsfeed or a private newsfeed? The team decided to add filters to specify which community the user is viewing. In addition, there were some minor changes for the frequency options when creating a challenge. I decided to change it to industry standards (e.g. every day, once a week, etc.)

Prototype

After designing the mid-fidelity screens, the entire team worked on completing the high-fidelity prototype. We decided to rename the tab “my space” to “my profile” for clarity.

We also chose to overhaul the create challenge screens by including a line connected by green design dots to indicate where you were in the process. The color palette was changed from orange-themed to white with coral red action buttons for visibility.

The profile section was also revamped to include light colors. Also, the text area for a challenge has a variety of colors depending on the category chosen.

For the group tab, I added filters to specify which group you are viewing. I also added additional screens to expand what it would look like to post and comment on Trybe.

Reflections & Future:

This 4-week design sprint was an exciting but challenging opportunity to take on. From scheduling conflicts to differences in design decisions, I got to experience the work-life balance in a startup environment.

Three key elements allowed the team to succeed for this app:

Communication: Because the design team lived in different time zones, clear communication through Slack and Email was necessary for each designer to understand the client’s user goals.
Time Management: The expedited 4 week timeline meant that we needed to stay on task every week in order to meet the end product’s deliverables.
Relying on each team member’s strength: As a team, we decided to split tasks based on our strengths. Two of us focused more on the research side of the project while the other two spent more time on the app’s design.

If we had more time, I would have liked to have done a second round of usability testing for the Hi-Fi Prototype Screens. But in the end, I’m proud to have been a part of the team that created the Trybe App.

The client is looking to launch their mobile app soon. I hope to see it on the marketplace in the near future. Look forward to it!

*Statistic from -> https://news.gallup.com/poll/241649/employee-engagement-rise.aspx

** Article Link -> https://hbr.org/2017/02/why-self-improvement-should-be-a-group-activity