Experience
Share your personal pieces of home!
Event
Connect with others who share a similar sense of home!
Apply
Date & Time
Date & Time
OVERVIEW
Helping people with homesickness by connecting them with events and experiences shared by others from similar places or cultures.
PROJECT TYPE
UX/UI Case Study
Independent Project
TIMELINE
Sep - Dec 2024
ROLE
UX Researcher
UI Designer
SKILLS
Product Design
Interaction Design
Brand Design
TOOLS
Figma
Miro
The Problem
Homesickness is a widely common experience, especially amongst college students. Here are some key issues of homesickness.
The Challenge
How might we empower homesick individuals to develop and access healthy coping strategies, enabling them to thrive in their new environment?
SOLUTION
Sneak Peek...
Final Product
I designed Havenly, a mobile app that helps users discover personalized recommendations and events in their current location. The app leverages suggestions from individuals who have lived in similar places or share the same cultural background, making it easy to find a piece of "home" no matter where you are. Users can also contribute by uploading their own recommendations and hosting events, creating a vibrant and community-driven platform.
🎉
Attend events
Easily attend events in your area and meet people with the same background and interests as you.
💡
Find recommendations
Discover places or experiences that remind you of home, created by people who share the same background as you.
📝
Event hosting and planning
Create and upload your own events! Use our event planning template to easily create one and also invite others to cohost events with you.
🔁
Share recommendations
From local comfort foods or authentic spas, upload experiences that remind you of home for other users to see!
RESEARCH
Who are Havenly’s competitors?
Competitive Analysis
After my initial research into the problems that lie within homesickness, I began to research potential competitors. Although our app is something that hasn’t been done before, we wanted to take a closer look at the companies that are already addressing similar needs within the expat, social media, and event app spaces. This research allowed us to identify gaps in their offerings and understand what features users find most valuable.
Competitive Analysis Learnings
Through my research, I’ve identified an opportunity for Havenly to create a community-driven platform that blends event and social connection features. Unlike traditional event apps focused on logistics, Havenly fosters belonging by connecting users through shared cultural backgrounds and experiences, offering more than just event coordination.
Identifying target users
User Persona
Before beginning the design process, we need to deeply understand who we're actually designing for. Designing with users in mind ensures that the final product truly addresses their needs, solves their problems, and enhances their experience in meaningful ways. To achieve this, I created two personas derived from my research to better understand the pains and goals of my target users.
I chose to focus on college students, as my research revealed that homesickness is especially prevalent and intense among new college students. For many, this marks their first extended time away from home, making them particularly vulnerable to feelings of isolation and disconnection. By designing for this group, we can not only address an acute need but also create a solution that resonates with other demographics experiencing similar challenges. Understanding their motivations, behaviors, and frustrations was crucial to developing an app that provides genuine value and fosters a sense of belonging.
Digging deeper...
User Journey
To better understand the experiences of my target users, I created a detailed user journey map for both Jacob and Annie. This journey helps visualize their emotional experience, actions, goals and pain points within their current experience with homesickness. It also reveals emerging patterns in their experiences, including moments of heightened stress, unmet needs, and missed opportunities for connection. By mapping these out, I was able to identify critical problems within their journeys and uncover areas where Havenly could make the most impact.
DESIGN
Feature Ideation
Hypothesis & Initial Solutions
After conducting desk research, performing a competitive analysis, and creating user personas and journey maps, I strategically developed Havenly's value proposition and defined the app's key features. These steps were crucial in shaping a clear direction for the app and also helped informed the development of an intuitive information architecture.
Establishing structure & hierarchy
Information Architecture
I then developed a clear and organized information architecture for Havenly, mapping out all its content, including the three key features and additional elements.
Framework to functional layouts
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes
With the information architecture in place, I began creating mid-fidelity wireframes to bring Havenly’s structure and features to life. These wireframes served as a blueprint, focusing on layout, functionality, and user flow without the distraction of visual design elements such as color.
EVALUATION
Validating designs through user feedback
User Testing
Using the mid-fidelity wireframes for user testing, I conducted 20 minute in-depth interviews with 5 college students who have or are experiencing homesickness. During the 20 minute interviews, the 5 interviewees reviewed my proposed solutions and analyzed the wireframes, giving me insightful feedback.
Tested with 5 college students
User Interview Insights
After conducting user interviews, I analyzed the qualitative feedback and transformed it into quantifiable data to identify trends and patterns across participants. By categorizing responses and measuring the frequency of recurring themes, I was able to gain a clearer understanding of user needs, frustrations, and goals.
Most liked & disliked feature:
Users love the ability to find and save experiences + events, as it helps them reconnect with a sense of home. However, the empathetic AI voice chat feature received mixed or negative feedback, as users said that they would prefer to have real human connection or would be uncomfortable using it.
Overall Key Insights
Using data to revise current designs
Design Refinements
From the five user interviews, I identified common themes and synthesized them into key overarching insights. These insights provided a deeper understanding of user needs and behaviors, serving as a foundation for improving the design. Leveraging these key learnings, I developed three targeted solutions to address user challenges and refine my designs.
BRANDING
Visual strategy
Branding Competitive Analysis
To ensure Havenly's design was both distinctive and competitive, I conducted a comprehensive branding competitive analysis. This involved examining the typography, logo, imagery and color palette of similar apps within the expat, social media, and event-planning spaces.
Visual exploration
Stylescapes
Using insights gathered from the brand competitive analysis, I developed 3 stylescapes to explore Havenly’s visual identity. These stylescapes combined key UI elements and design principles into cohesive visual frameworks. I decided to go with the stylescape #3, as the warm golden yellow color scheme and friendly yet clean fonts, really brought out Havenly’s core purpose of home and community.
Defining visual consistency
Style Guide
To ensure consistency across Havenly’s visual identity, I created a comprehensive style guide that serves as a blueprint for all branding and design elements. The style guide outlines key components such as typography, color palettes, iconography and button styles.
Final Designs
CONCLUSION
Reflections
What are my key learnings from this case study?
