CHALLENGE
Design a product to aid users to reliably and successfully expand their social networks and source recommendations from the people they already trust
OUTCOME
The LineUp allows users to create a network thetruly know and engage with both on and offline.
FOCUS AREA
Digital app design, Product management
MY ROLE
Brand identity, UI/UX design
COURSE
Product Management
TIME FRAME
3 months (April 2022 - June 2022)
Revised case study coming soon
Capturing the potential of our networks as a resource is challenging. Meeting new compatible people, finding cool restaurants and activities, identifying trusted care providers (healthcare, childcare, petcare) etc, is time consuming, frustrating, and often results in dead ends.
Our aim was to solve the user's need to reliably and successfully expand their social networks and source recommendations by providing a platform for users to source this content from the people they already trust – their existing network.
A early exploration of what the product's direction might look like from a value and visual standpoint.
While originally intended to help foster meaningful connections, modern social media platforms have diluted this original value proposition and have left users looking for more powerful ways to form and maintain genuine friendships and find recommendations that provide real value.
CHALLENGE
By the end of 10 weeks, we would pitch our social media product concept along with a market requirements document detailing target users, unmet needs, existing solutions, points of differentiation, use scenarios, market sizing, unit economics, adoption barriers, and risks/key dependencies.
SOLUTION
We successfully designed a high-fidelity prototype walking users through how they would add friends and other interests to their "lineup." Our mission is to help people transform their social network into their most trusted and valuable resource.
With an abundance of apps and social media platforms already out there, new products need to have specific audiences and pain points they are solving for in order to have the best chance at success.
RESEARCH
Our two primary personas for the LineUp are: The traveler who wants to feel at home and have a trustworthy network in any location they find themselves. The opportunist who wants to try new things in their city and meet people with similar interests to engage in activities with. To validate our hypotheses, an initial round of research was conducted with 7 participants, most falling into the traveler and opportunist personas.
My primary role in the research process was contributing to the persona creation based on notes and highlights produced by team members who conducted user interviews, and getting a deeper understanding of the competitive landscape through secondary research.
Low fidelity prototypes are a quick way to share your vision with an internal team to align on product vision and direction before investing time and energy into refining a user interface.
PROTOTYPING
Based on our initial research, we develop a low fidelity mockup of what our product could look like. Team members and external users provided feedback on the ease of use and feature quality. After many iterations on the low fidelity prototype, we felt confident to move forward and add elements from our visual design system.
I was responsible for creating a mood board based off of the initial user research and our team's vision for the platform. Based off of the mood board, I developed several logo concepts. I collaborated with another product designer in our group to finalize the logo and develop the general user interface of the the platform.
Understanding where a product stands in the market is a critical step into assessing how to navigate towards success in the space.
MARKET ASSESSMENT
We outlined several business models. The initial launch of the LineUp would use an "unlimited free trial" freemium business model by which some fundamental product features are available for free, but expanded and highly-valuable functionality.
TAM (Total Addressable Market): The total addressable market encapsulates the entire global social media market. There are estimated to be 4.62 billion social media users around the world, resulting in a global social media market and Total Addressable Market of $233 billion per year.
SAM (Serviceable Addressable Market): We predict The LineUp could convert roughly 25% of users to the paid Gold or Platinum Tiers. We are targeting an average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) of $5 per month for Gold users, and $20 per month for Platinum users. Assuming 80% of our subscribers select the Gold plan and 20% select the Platinum plan, this results in a Serviceable Addressable Market of $5.2 billion per year, if we could capture all of the social media users over the age of 18.
SAM (Serviceable Addressable Market): Our team does not believe we could capture the entire potential market. Our research and interviews have revealed that while alternatives exist for meeting friends, these platforms leave much to be desired in the mind of users. As such, we believe that through marketing and its unique positioning on trusted connections and recommendations, The LineUp can ultimately capture about 20% of the Serviceable Addressable Market, resulting in a Serviceable Obtainable Market of $1.04 billion per year.
The learning from this project was that to launch a successful product, there needs to be a combined understanding of user needs and market research in order to find the sweet spot of differentiation.
KEY LEARNING
Product management is more than just developing an interesting concept. It involves guiding the product development from design through business planning. It lives at the intersection of design, business, and technology. When the three come together, the result is something users love and are willing to invest in.