NearME

“fun way to explore your neighborhood”

Project Details

Summary: NearME is an online platform that provides resourceful and useful information to users who are looking to move to a new place or discover their neighborhood.

My Role: Product Designer Timeline: 2 months Tools: Figma (wireframe+prototype)

Background-

Moving to a new place or discovering new places are fascinating experiences. On the other hand, this experience creates some pain points for people. It takes time to know what is going on in the new neighborhood or get to know nearby places.

The main goal of NearME is to create stress-free and resourceful environment for users to get attached to their neighborhoods easily and quickly.

Discover

Understand our targeted users through research and interview

Define

Identify the problem and prioritize the issue we need to solve

Develop

Brainstorm the ideas and begin creating solutions

Deliver

Build prototypes, conduct usability testing, and finalize product based on feedback

01// DISCOVER

❍ Research Plan

Creating a research plan helped me define the goals for my project and define my focus points for my intended research.

❍ User Interviews

Conducting user interviews helped in gathering qualitative data and understanding real-life users' pain points, emotions, and motivations.

Objectives

Determine what people need and why from the new/current neighborhood.
Learn what is the hardest part of moving.
What are the main things people look for from their neighborhood.
How to create real-world connections with those nearby.
How to create a platform that grows over time.

Questions

What is the most important thing you wanted to find out when you moved to the new neighborhood?
When you moved to the new place, how did you find out about local restaurants, cafes and bars?
Have you ever attended local community events in your area? e.g. festivals, food, street fairs, etc.
On a scale of 1-10, how important are the customer reviews when you decide to visit a local restaurant?
What is the best search you experienced on websites or apps?
When and how do you need to use local services?
What type of social platforms do they like and don't like?

❍ Competitive Analysis

Completing a competitive analysis helped in understanding the market and user behaviors by looking at competitor companies and products. I also added direct and indirect competitors to this analysis to get extensive results.

Who we talked to

People who have recently moved
People between the ages of 26-30
People who have moved recently or people who are looking to discover nearby places

Interview Process

Total participants: 5
Documented raw notes during the conversations to
highlight key points
Transcribed the interviews through saved audio recodit

02// DEFINE

❍ Affinity Mapping

Affinity mapping was a useful tool in extracting insights and noticing themes because it builds on practicing empathy and finding common ground among users. In a general perspective, affinity mapping helped me greatly in defining major points of issue.

❍ POV Statements and HMW Questions

I would like to explore ways to offer individuals who just moved to a new city nearby local places because people want to feel like they are immersed with where they are.

How might we show individuals which restaurants/cafes/bars/events/garage sales/street fairs are nearby?
How might we show people what they have nearby?

I would like to explore ways to help new people to get ideas about nearby places with different information.

How might we monitor the information people are providing is useful?
How might we show the most insightful information about a restaurants/events to someone who is looking for others' reviews?

I would like to explore ways to connect individuals who are looking to meet new people because finding new friends in the city you are not familiar with can be intimidating.

How might we connect individuals who are looking to meet new people?
How might we let people know what is going on about their new neighborhood?

❍ User Personas

Creating user personas helped me develop understanding and empathy with the end users; I try look from their perspectives to able to understand their needs and frustrations.

I wanted to embody common needs, pain points, and motivations into two types of common users.

03// DEVELOP

❍ Brainstorm Ideas

Brainstorming ideas through the methods of Analogous Inspirations and Playing with Opposites helped because it generated plentiful different ideas and explored similar solutions done by different companies.

❍ User Flows

Three different user flows were created; a flow for searching for nearby restaurant, a flow for searching for event to attend and a flow for sign up.

❍ Wireframes - Low-Fi

I started to create my low-fidelity wireframes as a rough draft to form the structure of my product based on the task flows created.

❍ Style Tile and UI Component Library

I wanted to create a style tile that would help me maintain visual consistency throughout my design and also embody the brand values of the product - creativity, imagination, freshness and growth. I think this split complementary will bring dynamism to the design. Creating UI Component Library was a huge effort in helping me organize important components for creating a consistent user experience across the platform.

“How might we create a platform for the new residents to discover their neighborhoods?”

❍ Sitemap

After brainstorming was completed to learn how users categorize information and topics and to understand their mental models, I created a sitemap with ideas that were developed from my analysis.

❍ Task Flows

Specific task flows were then created to hypothesize how users would navigate through key screens and determine which wireframes to create.

TASK FLOWS I: Create an account

TASK FLOWS II: Join an event

TASK FLOWS III: Create a new listing to sell the item

04// DELIVER

❍ High Fidelity Wireframes

After defining my core brand values from the Develop stage, I began creating wireframes in high fidelity by taking my visions in grayscale and creating them colorful. I used visual consistency while creating my high fidelity.

❍ Usability Testing