Groopz is a personal project and business of mine that I have brought to life from conceptualisation all the way to a minimal viable product that is coming to market. It is a group messaging platform designed to bring people of like-minded interests closer together, by providing the latest news on any given topic. Extensive user research is the foundation on which this idea had been built.
My research discovers what key features of current social media attract people to them and what are their general purpose of performing certain tasks within them. Firstly, by understanding the current state of knowledge in current work will lay the foundation of what to expect in terms of what informs social media adoption and what features make a media successful.
I started by creating a survey to empathise with current social media users and it is often easy to gather a large sampling of users as well as being able to reduce bias towards certain answers, due to the lack of the interviewer’s presence. The survey received 116 responses.
The second set a data collection involved 8 in depth consumer interviews and 3 semi-structured interviews with professionals in the field of UX/UI design once a prototype had been created.
Firstly, a pilot interview was done to get a feel for the questions and to test the validity of the content so that the interviewer could correct any problems found, this was done with the first interviewee before the recorded interview.
Keeping in contact with close friends and not the masses of people that they have links with on social medias is far more important than socialising on a bigger scale
Current users of social media bounce between different platforms to perform different uses as some media seems to be preferred to others due to being inundated with features that don’t necessarily add to a user’s experience.
People find themselves adopting different medias due to more than the idea itself but because of the apps content and user experience. There are many contributing factors that mean different medias are used depending on the intention of the user.
• WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram are by far the most popular medias.- Some medias are becoming too overcrowded with people and media and this deters users from using that media.
• Users have started to create smaller groups to share media with close friends as it is easier and more relevant to them.
• Keeping in contact with close friends and not the masses of people that they have links with on social medias is far more important than socialising on a bigger scale.
• Large medias are still important for browsing videos but they can be too clustered most of the time.
* The interface of the social media informs adoption as complex medias tend to put off users from using it regularly.
Following the research findings, wireframes were produced and presented to the UX professionals to check against my findings. I wanted to collaborate with others to spark any other new ideas before beginning development. I then proceeded to create high fidelity prototypes to visualize and test the app with more participants in a focus group.
To test the functionality, i conducted moderated usability studies with 6 participants, providing tasks for them to complete whilst observing them. I then held semi structures interviews after to learn what they thought of the idea and how it can become a product that would offer them genuine use
Working closely with a developer I have created what is now a minimal viable product that I am pushing to take to market with other colleagues of mine. I continue to test and gain feedback on the product, with the vision to create a new informative way to communicate and connect.
