Solution: DateSafi is an app that enables people to find their life partners. Starting with the name itself, Datesafi aims to provide a platform where people on first access are given an onboarding on the importance of having patience and other good attributes while searching for a prospective life partner, they do have to provide details of what they expect in a life partner and a little bit of their personality will be outlined. The app will filter out people according to their choices and show feed according to their liking. It will provide messaging page for communication.
My Role: As a UI/UX team of two I was responsible for the :
⁕Research
⁕Ideation
⁕Information Architechture
⁕User Interface and visual design Through out the project, I incoporated invaluable feedback from my mentor, team mate, many people who use dating apps and supervisor.
My tools:
✔Sticky notes    ✔Empathy map template
✔moqup template   ✔Pens
✔Adobe XD
✔illustrator
✔User story template

My Process

My process employed a design thinking mindset, in which I focused first on learning about the problem space, through the discovery stages of understanding and empathy, then synthesizing what I had learned to define and frame the problem and finally creating the solution.

PHASE 1: LEARNING ABOUT THE PROBLEM

Understand

◆Secondary research

Looking into existing secondary research from existing dating apps, programs and websites to identify recent trends and patterns. Some notible insights marked increases in:
▹Use of social sites for interactions
▹Use of matching profiles to link up with

◆Comparative analysis

I followed up with a comparative analysis with Tinder,KenyanCupid and Datemekenya. While the focus was on dating, none of the applications brought up the issue of emphasizing on good personality traits.

Empathize

◆Primary research

I moved to primary research after a good understanding of the dating trends where I could learn directly from people through interviews and one on one talks.Prior to setting this up ,I developed some goals:
▹Discover the pain points in dating
▹Determine the means people currently use to find their life partners
I selected six participants to interview and gained some invaluable insight into how various people try to engage with prospective partners and their methods of determining their suited personality choice and these were their thoughts:
" I don't have the time to attend social gatherings"
" Some of us don't trust people on these social sites"

Define

◆ Affinity map

I set to work creating an affinity map after synthesizing my research notes
Three themes emerged:
*Focus on good character traits
*Focus on interests
*Focus on security based on age group

◆ Empathy maps

I created empathy maps to organize information into what people feel.

◆ Persona

Personas were created from the empathy map which included individual goals,motivations,needs ,motivations,frustrations and environment

◆ Problem statement

Finally the synthesis of the information also gave me the opportunity to redefine the problem into a more adressable problem :
People need a more moral and character attributed site that enables them to have a grasp of the personality traits of a prospective life partner.

PHASE 2: CREATING A SOLUTION

Ideate

◆ How might we...?

I formulated how might we questions to adress the core element.
How might we make dating easy and empasise on the good personality traits?

◆ The idea

DateSafi: A dating mobile app that enables people to find their life partners. Starting with the name itself, Datesafi aims to provide a platform where people on first access are given an onboarding on the importance of having patience and other good attributes while searching for a prospective life partner, they do have to provide details of what they expect in a life partner and a little bit of their personality will be outlined. The app will filter out people according to their choices and show feed according to their liking. It will provide messaging page for communication.

Prototype

◆ User Stories

The first step is building a minimum viable product using User Stories,actions and epics.

◆ Information architecture

I created a general structure using a user flow diagram. The improvised revisions would be later added to high fidelity prototype

◆ Sketching

I sketched out the onboarding and screens needed for the app and turned it into low fidelity prototypes

◆ Wireframes

I developed some low fidelity wireframes for more editing and feedback from my teammate. Any changes would be noted down and changed to better revisions and wireflows

◆ Style Guide

I created a style guide to illustrate the typefaces,colors and various UI elements that were applied in the design system. I wanted to achieve a fun and interactive look to stay relevant.

◆ Mockup

We developed a high fidelity mockup that would be the base of the prototype

Test

◆Usability testing

Some people did not have the XD app installed on their phones so I had them testing on the application on the laptop

Lessons learnt

This project gave me great exposure on working on a full User Experience problem from start to completion. Each step was a learning opportunity and it gave me a learning foundation