The Brief
Design a mobile application to rival the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. A proudly African social media application to house all popular features in one basket, a one-stop shop.
GOZAR SOCIAL
MOBILE APPLICATION
ROLE
Lead UI & UX Designer
PRODUCT OWNER
MegaTech AI
TOOLS USED
Framer
ROLE
PRODUCT OWNER
TOOLS USED
FRAMEWORK
Lead UI UX Designer
MegaTech AI
Framer, Balsamiq
Design Thinking
UX Research
Secondary Research & Surveys Conducted
The nature of the application is based on already existing products such as Facebook, Twitter etc. I then opted to conduct a secondary research from online news sources and from first-hand experience with the applications. We found out the struggles encountered by Facebook and WhatsApp to fully merge as one platform and what users thought about fusing both applications, to further understand what users actually want.
I also conducted an online survey through Google forms to gather what the target market generally felt about an All-in-one application like the successor WeChat in Asia, according to the results received, stakeholders were happy to proceed to build the application.
Empathy & Journey Maps
I hosted a Design Sprint for a full week (Mon-Fri) with relevant parties within the small office to draw out User Journey Maps and Empathy Maps to understand what users want and their pain-points from existing social platforms. The data contributed in creating 5 user personas to understand our user’s goals and frustrations.
User Personas
Samantha Mckenzie
Age: 27
City: Knysna, Cpt
Family: 3 Siblings, Parents
Occupation: Waitress
Quote:
“I do not get enough time to check on my timeline, I am at work half the time, I rather use Whatsapp to chat with my family and friends, it is enough for me”
Sibusiso Dlamini
Age: 34
City: Kempton Park, Jhb
Family: Girlfriend, 1 Child
Occupation: Marketing Agent
Quote:
“I use all the popular social media networks, for different reasons, trends, news, events and to keep up with what’s new on the market, I am mostly on instagram and twitter”
Stephanie Daniels
Age: 48
City: Sandton, Jhb
Family: Husband, 3 Kids
Occupation: HR Manager
Quote:
“I only use Whatsapp for calls and Zoom for meetings, either than that I am happy with keeping updated via the internet”
Mazwi Mathoho
Age: 36
City: Umlazi, Dbn
Family: Wife, 2 Kids
Occupation: Senior Draughtsman
Quote:
“I only use Facebook to keep in touch with old school mates, and Whatsapp for communication with friends and family”
Common User Goals
- Finding Everything in one place (Efficiency)
- Connecting with relevant people in one space (Convenience)
- Auto-synchronization of information between platforms
Common User Frustrations
- Security of personal information
- Random friend invites and requests
- Inability to seperate friends, family and colleagues
Ideation & Wireframing
Created with Balsamiq
Design & Prototype
Logo Design
I interviewed the product owner (Company CEO) to understand the product and ultimately the company’s mission statement and vision
This was however handled as a separate process where I designed for the entire suite of applications in the pipeline which had to follow the same design language and philosophy.
Framer Prototype
User Testing
After handing over the prototype to software engineers their developed the application for both IOS and Android. The office opted for a beta user testing where people were given exclusive credentials for testing on Test Flight and Google’s beta testing.
Repetitive work was sent back to my desk for redesign and back to the Development team for implementation, we ran daily stand-ups as part of our Agile approach to officially launch the product.
Marketing Collateral
Preparations for Production Launch
