Joy, love & loneliness: FAM
How might we give back to our community more thoughtfully this Holiday season?
We as a team of 6 won first place for this Hackathon
I led the end-to-end product design efforts.
Problem
In the process of giving back to the community, how can we help and facilitate our community individuals to combat loneliness during the holiday season?
Focus
Individuals lacking family support around the holidays need a safe and collaborative space to provide them access to a loving and welcoming environment.
Key Research Insights
Loneliness during holidays
31% report feeling lonely; 41% worry about loved ones (AARP survey).
"Thirty-one percent of respondents say they have felt lonely during the holiday season sometime during the past five years."
Disconnection in marginalized communities
LGBTQ+ and marginalized groups feel excluded from family traditions.
"Thanksdreading… you're surrounded by family that doesn't respect your pronouns."
Lack of platforms to plan
Few spaces exist to organize or connect during holiday time.
"The desperate need to foster an environment for us to be together during this time."
Fear of judgment
Social anxiety when joining new gatherings; fear of criticism or rejection.
"I still feel incredibly lonely and isolated."
Design goals
Make planning during Holidays more joyful, approachable, and accessible.
Provide resources to support connection and collaboration among individuals.
Make sure individuals' safety and privacy are taken care of.
Design Solution
Key design #1
Join family dinners during the holidays.
Choose a time, place, or event to share an intimate, warm gathering.
Key design #2
Chat with attendees
Learn more about others and collaborate on dinner plans to feel more involved.
Design process
- Team ideation
- Secondary research
- Competitive research
- Problem statement
- Persona building
- Competitive analysis
- Defining design goals
- Wireframing
- User flow
- Hi Fidelity design
- Usability Testing
- Prototyping
- App development
Exploratory phase
Competitive Research
We studied 3+ community-focused products to see how they connect people, build trust, and create social experiences. Our goal was to learn what works well and where gaps exist.
- Bumble → Simple, friendly onboarding.
- OneTable → Strong host–guest connections.
- Airbnb → Visually appealing & trustworthy UX.
- Meetup / Travello → Clear event organization.
Define phase
Building primary persona:
To better understand the needs and motivation of our target audience and hone in on our primary user, we focused on a member of the LGBTQ community who, based on the secondary research, has most evidently been affected by a lack of family support during Holidays.
Behavior:
- Enjoyed celebrating holidays since childhood
- Holidays now bring feelings of stigma and judgment
- Leads to avoiding time with family members
Needs:
- A Holiday support system
- Accessible and resourceful platform
- Openly discuss and share holiday happiness with like-minded individuals at dinner.
Pain points:
- A plethora of anxiety during holiday dinner with family
- Have a hard time trusting new platforms
- Lack of peer support during holidays
Design phase
Userflow:
Based on all the research, we thought to build user flow for a user initially using the app around some user experience design principles.
- Require users to set up a detailed profile for security.
- Provide clear next steps and facilitate the process.
- Engage the user's attention on the most critical things in bite-size pieces.
Users will follow two important flows if they sign up as an attendee.
*For the given time of this hackathon we decided only to create user flow and screens for signing up as an attendee.
Set up personal attendee profile
Sign up for a dinner
Low/Mid Fidelity wireframes:
We built wireframes and prototypes to receive feedback, iterate, and ensure the flow works. We refined design details to achieve the vision and goals.
We designed around below content strategy principles:
- The tone of voice should be warm and welcoming.
- The app should provide features for collaboration and connection before the event.
Setting up a personal profile:
-Attendees need to create in-detail personal profiles to help Host in accepting the invite
Choosing a dinner invite
- -Filter the events to your choice
- -Tap to see event details
- -Read reviews about hosts' old parties
- -Exact location of the venue isn't shared till seat confirmation
A tool for collaboration
- -Chat option for a conversation about event details.
- -Menu could be discussed, and items could be assigned
Final design
Building profile
Step-by-step profile creation | Multiple verification options for security
Discovery
Collaboration
FAM prototype using React Native
We worked with Software Engineers to convert Fam into a functional prototype.
Within the given time frame and with technical difficulties, we weren't able to build a 'Verifying profile' and 'Collaborating on menu items' in the actual prototype
What I learned:
- Understood the differences between online and offline apps.
- Better form design: what should I specify next to UI specs for handoff
- Design decisions affect risks, costs, and development efforts.
- Involving developers in design workflow right from the start of the project adds a powerful new perspective to UX work.
- How to ask better questions from developers, and how to educate them to ask better questions from you
Reflections
I learned tremendously as a designer and a collaborator! We were a very diverse team of engineers and designers. We learned to work together to overcome challenges, adapt to virtual-only circumstances, and develop a design we're proud of as a team!
1 / Collaborating with Engineers.
I learned the importance of handing off organized Figma files with clear annotations for development. Additionally, I understood the technical difficulties that come with prototyping a concept.
2 / Time management
With minimum hackathon time, I learned how we need to prioritize features to build an MVP that solves our problem.
3 / Design Process
I learned that the design process is not always linear and can be tweaked per the project's parameters. We need to innovate methods for ambitious challenges.