Impromptu App

Overview

"Impromptu" is a social networking app focused on organising events for anyone, anytime, anywhere. Conceived as part of a User Research module at Digipen Singapore, the project sought to develop a comprehensive mobile application from inception to fruition within a 6-week timeframe.

The project team consists of Clement Leow, Kar Lonng Lai, Gerald Soh, Matilda Lim, Xavier Tan, Valda Kum.

Problem Statement

“Young adults in Singapore struggle to find like-minded individuals with similar interests for social activities.”

End Product/Deliverables

Low, Mid, and High-Fidelity Mockups, Style Guide, Iterative Figma Prototypes and Finalised Wireframes

Product Vision

Is Loneliness detrimental to health?

In 2023, the World Health Organisation (WHO) published an article declaring that loneliness is a pressing global health threat with a mortality effect equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, mandatory quarantine and travel regulations were enforced to protect people, but it also unintentionally increased the loneliness people felt. Due to the limited social interactions, many individuals feel socially isolated, regardless of age.

For older adults, loneliness is associated with an increased risk of developing dementia, incident coronary artery disease or stroke. Younger adults experiencing loneliness are more likely to drop out of university, even resulting in poor job performance.

Concept Summary

In order to see if this is an issue prevalent among young adults in Singapore, a survey was conducted with 50 participants. The survey results are as such:

From the survey, we gathered and streamlined the two main age group that best resonates with our problem statement are between 18 to 24 and 25 to 34.

The survey shows that across all genders, most of our participants are single and introverted and that they are uncomfortable participating in activities with people they do not know. An equal amount of participants feel that they either rarely or sometimes struggle to find activities to do alone.

Despite that, results show that an above-average number of participants desiring to step out of their comfort zone and interact with new people. While they are comfortable and have found activities alone, they still yearn to interact with others.

The next set of results supports this, displaying that a high percentage of participants struggle to find activities to do with others, and even if they do find a suitable activity, they have trouble finding a sufficient number of people to join.

Most young adults, regardless of gender, are introverted and uncomfortable engaging with strangers. Though participants do not struggle to find solo activities, most still desire to step out of their comfort zone and connect with new people. However, participants struggle to find group activities and, even when they do, face challenges finding enough people to join.

The results above show that the problem statement, “Young adults in SG struggle to find like-minded individuals with similar interests for social activities,” is entirely accurate.

Background

User Testing Goals

Our user testing goals this time round will be focused on:

Evaluating usability of new features
- Assess how easily users can navigate and utilise the newly introduced features, such as reorganised bottom-docked icons, smart defaults, and streamlined checkout processes.
- Identify any pain points or areas where users encounter difficulty or confusion while interacting with the updated UI.
Measure user engagement and satisfaction
- Collect feedback on user engagement levels when interacting with the redesigned homepage, daily discover system, smart defaults and voucher management.
- Determine whether new features improve user satisfaction and make the shopping experience more intuitive and enjoyable.
Test:
- Reorganised navigation bar
- Consistency in filtering functions
- Effectiveness of simplified checkout flow
- Distinction between chat messages and event enquiries

Heuristics Evaluation

Competitors Analysis

Direct

Indirect

Research

User Persona & Empathy Map

Primary

Secondary

User Story

User Flow

Based on our user persona and empathy maps, the desired user flow is structured as both a functional, task-based path where the user browses for and creates a social activity, which then transitions into a more dynamic process as human elements are introduced.

Testing Workflow #1

Low-Fi Paper Prototype

Low-Fi Paper Prototype Test Overview

Functionality:
Users are seeking enhanced filtering options for events, desiring specific categories rather than broad terms. The "request to join" feature should be made more visible and accessible within event listings and chat interactions. Additionally, event details need to be more comprehensive, including information about weather plans, refunds, and target demographics.

User Experience:
Overall navigation is smooth, but some users found redundant features, such as the "Edit Interests" page. Design elements, like navigation bars and search placements, lacks consistency. Safety concerns about meeting strangers emerged, highlighting the need for features that build trust and improve user confidence in the app.

Improvements:
To enhance usability, the visibility of call-to-action buttons should be increased, and event filters should be more specific and customizable. Streamlining the review process to be optional and less intrusive can improve user satisfaction. Additionally, implementing safety features, such as user blacklisting and reporting, is essential to address safety concerns and foster a secure environment for users.

Mid-Fi Paper Prototype

Mid-Fi Paper Prototype Test Overview

Functionality:
Simplify event creation by consolidating redundant toggles, adding clearer category terms, improving flexibility in reviews with a star rating system, and establishing that payment is not a part primary of the application but prices are stated as estimates. Additional safety measures, like reporting unruly participants, were also recommended.

User Experience:
Enhance the homepage layout to handle multiple tags, improve visual feedback on buttons/icons, and add notification features like timestamps and message indicators. Streamline chat/enquiry functions and clarify if chats are individual or group-based. Make event details clearer with labels for “Free” events and payment options.

Improvements:
Improve icon visibility for enquiry and rating buttons, add a top-screen pop-up for new messages, and display the “Tune Your Interests” page in a colour-coded list format with more subcategories to enhance clarity and navigation.

Mid-Fi Wireframes

Current User Journey Map

Current User Task Flow

The following flow chart presents the overall pages and functions of the Mid-fi Wireframes.

Please click on Link to view the chart in larger scale:

Mid-Progress Report

High-Level Problems

Based on our user research and analysis done within 2 weeks, we identified several high-level problems in Impromptu’s user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) that negatively affected both our primary and secondary users.

These high-level issues include:

Recommendations

To address these high-level problems, we implemented several targeted solutions in our mid-fi wireframes. They include:

Mid-Progress Evaluation

In this user analysis, we focused on improving the overall usability and clarity of our app’s prototype, aligning it with the primary goal: to provide users with an intuitive and efficient platform for event discovery and participation.

Initially, our prototype faced several high-level challenges, primarily encountering the lack of clarity. Users found it difficult to access essential information and were often confused by overlapping functions between general chats and specific enquiries. These issues impacted the overall user experience, resulting in inefficiency, frustration, and lower engagement.

Together with addressing the high-level problems as well as countering them with recommended changes made in our final iteration of the wireframes, its revision addresses the initial problem statement by providing a more streamlined experience that enhances event discovery and engagement. These changes include:

Improved filtering and tag system
Interest tuning and question pages
Clear separation of chat and enquiry pages
Consistent display of key event details

By minimizing confusion, prioritizing key information, and empowering users to personalise their interactions, this prototype lays a strong foundation for our final prototype that effectively meets user needs and promotes a more enjoyable and efficient experience. Ultimately, to address the need to target our problem statement as well.

We have identified the users of the app to belong to one of 2 categories, organisers and participants.

Organisers set up the event, its pricing, location, time and other details, while participants simply use the app to find events they like and attend them. After sufficient user testing with a mid-fidelity prototype of Impromptu, several users have shared their views on the application, summarised as so:

To resolve these concerns, the next prototype iteration has enhanced current features such as filtering and personalisation options so that users can find events relevant to them, as well as ensuring more crucial event information is being consistently displayed to the users.

Finally, for users to address any further concerns about the event, dedicated event chat and Q&A pages have been added to allow communication between participants and organisers.

Testing Workflow #2

Mid-Fi Prototype

Click HERE for link

Mid-Fi Prototype Test Overview

Functionality:
Users are seeking flexible options, desiring ease of use for application features. Search filters can be further refined to cater to user needs. Additionally, personalisation such as the “tune your interests” feature can also be streamlined to be more accessible and convenient for users to customise their experience.

User Experience:
Overall navigation is smooth, but some users still found app transitions to be clunky. Some features, such as the search bars, are not immediately obvious and can be improved to draw attention. Others, like the toggle between organiser and participant question pages, still cause confusion and can be reworded for greater clarity.

Improvements:
To enhance usability, application functions in need of clarification should be expounded on with short descriptions. There also needs to be greater focus on a balance of iconography and line weight based on the overall layout to smooth out user navigation.

Hi-Fi Prototype

Click HERE for link

Hi-Fi Prototype Test Overview

Functionality:
Users have suggested several enhancements for event creation and browsing. Proposed improvements include setting a participant limit to remove fully booked events, displaying the event creator's name for accountability, and adding time-based filters along with customizable tags for better navigation. To improve visual clarity, showing participant counts and applying a black fade to thumbnails was recommended. Expanding the favourites feature with counts and notifications for creators could boost engagement, possibly linking it to a reputation system. Merging the messaging and questions sections into a "Questions and Answers" area, along with resolved query indicators, could enhance communication. Lastly, freezing the footer and aligning action buttons would improve navigation and user interaction.

User Experience:
Tidying the home page layout by expanding the search bar and repositioning it beneath the banner carousel was suggested, along with shifting or limiting the "Impromptu" tag to prevent confusion. Reducing branding to just the logo and ensuring uniform transitions, particularly for back buttons, would improve flow. The heart icon for favourites should be red for better hierarchy, and clearer separation between notifications and the header would help navigation. While chat and enquiries are distinct, occasional confusion indicates a need for better differentiation and consolidation.

Improvements:
A confirmation modal for leaving events would prevent errors, and filters need adjustments, such as fixing the close-tab arrow direction and adding missing locations like "Central." Bugs included incorrect search results (e.g., "basketball" showing "badminton"), non-functional image expansions, and misplaced icons in the favourites section. Expanding favourites into a reputation-based system and simplifying navigation through clickable event titles and images would address usability concerns while enhancing social engagement.

Final Prototype

Click HERE for link

Final Prototype Test Overview

The feedback for the final round of testing was minimal, with most testers being neutral or agreeable to the final proposed wireframe of the application. We took this as a good sign, as if there are no obvious errors or feature improvements to propose, we believe that our current prototype is in a good state at its core.

Navigation was generally smooth, the only layout concern testers had was with regards to the footer confirmation tabs for creating, joining and editing events. Testers felt that flushing the footer elements to the bottom right corner can lead to the text getting cut off by curved mobile screens. The footer elements could be brought up, and if confirmation is the only action on it, have the button centralised.

Another issue testers had was with the consistency of wording across the application. For instance, the event description is a text-heavy section, where some event creators have chosen to separate their content into bullet points for legibility. However, this leads to confusion from testers believing the bulleted points to be additional fields in the event creation.

For singular text fields, there are also minor wording concerns where testers have pointed out what can be changed for greater clarity.

Overall, users understood the intention of the application and the problem that it is striving to solve. Its use cases are clear and they would actively try it out or encourage others to pick it up to give it a spin.

Logo Creation

Name Ideation

As stated before, our social networking app allows events to be listed anytime and anywhere. This type of planning, prompted by occasion with little to no preparation is closely tied to the word: “Impromptu”, a word that fits the function and casual nature of our app.

Symbolism

To create a logo for Impromptu, we must first deduce what symbols relate to this app. The easiest way to deduce that is to discover why our users use this app. The reasons are likely because users have time to spare, are looking to enjoy themselves or aim to meet new people.

Colours and Their Meanings

Looking into colours for our logo, we decided to go for the contrasting colours of Steel Teal and Tumbleweed Orange.

These two colours chosen for "Impromptu" are intended to be easy on the eyes and gentle, further reinforcing the theme of fostering natural and welcoming events as well as communities.

Iteration Process

Initial prototypes were created first to create the logo, trying to accommodate symbols with the initial letter of our app name.

After the first iteration, many comments stated that the logo was too authoritarian and could be more curved to fit the casual nature of our app. In addition, the logo could combine more than one symbol to make it more eye-catching, resulting in our second iteration.

After conducting some surveys, we discovered the most popular logo amongst users. With those survey results and feedback, we adjusted the logo further to achieve the desired design and applied the selected colour scheme typically used in our application to fina ly obtain our logo.

Logomark and Logotype

Style Guide

Final Flow Chart

The following flow chart presents the overall pages and functions of the finalised wireframe prototype.

Please click on Link to view the chart in larger scale:

Proposed Final Wireframes

Click HERE for link

Final Summary

High-Level Problems

These high-level issues include:

Recommendations

To address these high-level problems, we implemented several targeted solutions in our final wireframes. They include:

Conclusion

Final Words

In this original interactive prototype, we focused on identifying several high-level issues that required immediate attention to create a more user-centred and effective experience. aligning it with the primary goal: to provide users with an intuitive and efficient platform for event discovery and participation.

Our user analysis and the iterative changes we made to the app’s final prototype have been essential steps to create a more effective, user-focused event discovery and participation platform. Here are the high-level problems that caught our immediate attention:

Improved filtering and tag system
Interest tuning and question pages
Clear separation of chat and enquiry pages
Consistent display of key event details
Lack of app responsiveness
Ambiguity between user roles and event types
Lack of obvious personalization

The changes we implemented, including the addition of separate chat and enquiry pages, prioritization of key event information, the inclusion of pop-ups for visual feedback, enhancements to the "Tune Your Interests" page and its integration into the profile page allowing users to engage more meaningfully with the platform. These targeted adjustments have resolved the core challenges users faced and positioned the app as a more intuitive and engaging tool for discovering and participating in events.

Ultimately, the refined prototype was improved with our primary goal, which is to help young adults in Singapore find like-minded individuals with similar interests in social activities. We aim to offer a platform that is not just functional but enjoyable.

Post-Mortem

Takeaways

Standardising Testing Processes:
For this project, at the end of each prototype iteration, the team collaborated to identify the key areas or features we wanted feedback on. This approach allowed us to develop a standardised set of questions, which effectively guided the user testing sessions.

This process was invaluable in two main ways: it focused our efforts on gathering impactful, specific feedback rather than general insights, and it relieved testers from having to independently generate feedback.

Standardising questions streamlined the process, allowing us to capture consistent and actionable insights across different sessions, as well as sped up the data collection process as the 6 user tests could be done by multiple testers.

Unbalanced Division of Labour:
Due to the tight time frame, the team decided to split into functional sub-teams so as to streamline the iteration and testing processes. However, this caused an imbalance in the division of labour as certain tasks were more time and labour-intensive than others.

This was partially mitigated by the delegation of smaller tasks like creation of the Logo to another team member who had more bandwidth.

Retrospective

What was done well

The team had a better testing process in the later half of the project. This led us to generate useful insights at a higher rate and allowed for a more de-centralised testing process while not sacrificing result quality.
Everyone was more familiar with the iterative process over time so the whole design and testing cycle ran rather smoothly with everyone very clear on what had to be done.

What can be improved

We underestimated the amount of time needed for the completion of each task and did not stick to our timeline well enough. It can be observed that there were bursts of activity and periods of stagnancy due to competing priorities.

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