Background
How we share, save and discuss what we find on the internet is fractured all over our devices. People lack an organized hub to collect, share, discuss, and attach thoughts to online information. We asked: How might we help people discuss online content more meaningfully and efficiently?
The app hvr facilitates comments, discussions, or personal notes anywhere on the internet on a layer over every website visible through our browser.
MY ROLE
Design the UI for the first iteration of the MVP to function much like a social network within a basic browser.
KEY OUTCOMES
• Users can hold conversations, and leave personal thoughts in context within the browser
• Website owners can maintain advertising revenue from site visits generated from social engagement and increase chances of users discovering more content
• Created a space where the buzz of social engagement and publishing coexist so that both elements may complement each other
Research methods used
• Interviews
• Competitive Analysis
• Journey Mapping
• Prototype Testing
• Competitive Analysis
• Journey Mapping
• Prototype Testing
TEAM of three
• UI/UX Designer
• Product Manager
• Mobile Developer
• Mobile Developer
TIMELINE
6 months
PLATFORM
iOS & Android
Product page
hvr.world
Research
Our intention was to build for three main users: Publishers & Content Creators, Influencers, and Millennials.
To understand our main users, we learned about them through
• interviewing founders about target users
• sitting in on partner pitch meetings
• brainstorming user goals and motivations
• journey mapping
• user testing
• sitting in on partner pitch meetings
• brainstorming user goals and motivations
• journey mapping
• user testing
From these discussions and research, I drew out a few key points to use as my unofficial design principles for our long term goals.
We aimed to create
• a web that is alive with activity but also allows for personal contemplation
• a hub for communication and organized research
• a space where users feel safe from toxicity
• a web that is alive with activity but also allows for personal contemplation
• a hub for communication and organized research
• a space where users feel safe from toxicity
Paper prototypes and sketches exploring posts within the feed and on websites.
Prototyping & Testing
Create post
Goal: We created the flow for a public and “only me” post and tested it to ensure it was intuitive.
Takeaway: While users had no issues with the flow, the idea of an “only me” post was puzzling.
Result: We adjusted the language to change the intention of the post from its audience to its visibility which also served to assure users that their private notes were indeed private.
Visit a website / read comments
Goal: One of our early challenges was to find the right balance between the presence of online conversation and the website within the limited space of a mobile screen.
We tested how people reacted to how we presented this additional layer of conversation asking them to visit a website after following a post that would appear in their feed.
Takeaways:
• Users were not interested in seeing the comments right away when they wanted to read the website
• Users were not interested in seeing the comments right away when they wanted to read the website
• Publishers and content creators did not like seeing their websites covered up by user comments
• Users expressed a need for more control over when they wanted to read comments and when they wanted to read the website
Result: We adjusted the initial view of the site from the feed so that the website was the focus.
To address the need for user control over the volume of comments, we wanted to maintain the buzz of activity over websites and offered users the ability to toggle how and when they could read user-generated content.
What I learned
This experience as an in house UI/UX designer was a crash course on everything from design systems, the care and feeding of design assets for developers, and adapting to pivots and setbacks. Outside of that, my biggest takeaways are:
• Learning to stay focused on the target user but to also balance their need against others
• How to navigate the real-life push and pull of keeping design human in a feature-driven environment
• We are all learning as we go and that software will morph and evolve over time
