Casey Lee
2023 / Product Design
Meet Charmed!
Charmed is an app that is a multimedia product that helps connect friends through a bracelet charm trading system and an online messaging app.
Role:
Product Designer
Skills:
Design Thinking, Product Management, Problem Solving, Figma, User Research
Step 1
Design goals
Product Statement
Adults post-grad who move to new cities need a tool to help make friends in order to achieve work life balance and good mental health.
How Might We?
How might we facilitate social connections among post-grad adults?
Product Goal
We aim to ease the feelings of loneliness and isolation among post-grad adults by providing a solution that makes it easy and time-efficient for post-grad adults to identify each other and begin socializing
Step 2: Research Process
Secondary Research
We researched current dating websites and applications to gauge what has already been made and the reviews themselves.
Primary Research
To conduct our own research, we created google forms to send out to our target demographic of young adults entering or about to enter the workforce.
- Extrovert or introvert
- Scale of 1-10 how scared of you of social life post-grad
- What are the fears you face when making new friends (text)
- Have you ever used dating apps
- How much do you rely on social media to make friends Scale of 1-10
- How much free time do you have left for socializing?
From this, our most valued statistics were:
User Research
Card Sorting
We sorted all the responses in the form to a different format so we could easily access the information.
User Persona
We wanted to create a user to help us connect ideas to and start to truly understand and empathize with the problem itself.
Empathy Map
We also created an empathy map to understand more of how a user could feel currently and why they would want to use a product like this.
Storyboard
From all this, our major findings were that:
Post-grad adults have feelings of loneliness, and poor work-life balance
- are scared to initiate friendship or conversation
- are worried about friendship quality
- have trouble finding a community they fit in
- have no tool to get out of cycle
Step 3
Ideation
We created 20 ideas to try and come up with the best multimedia solution.
Through all of our iterations, we ultimately decided that number 9 was the most innovative and received the most praise in our critique during class.
The preliminary idea was to have our digital aspect be a messaging app similar to dating apps but for friending. Our physical aspect would be a charm bracelet, where you could remove these charms and exchange them. This would allow you to share information and even track your friends. Below is a sketch I made of the a couple frames of the app.
More Research
At this stage, we knew we wanted to add a location tracking aspect to the charms. It was brought to our attention that there are many unethical uses of current location tracking software like AirTags, being used to stalk. Thus, we conducted market research on AirTags, SnapMaps, and Life360, about the ethical use of location sharing and privacy parameters in place.
Questions we researched were:
- How do they determine how users’ locations are tracked, do users get to choose or not?
- Who gets to see the location?
- Have there ever been misuse of location (ex: stalking) and how do they handle that?
- Ratings/testimonials of users regarding location function?
- How do they ensure safety when releasing location?
Step 4: Prototype
Meet Charmed
Our multimedia solution connects post-graduate adults in new cities, mitigating feelings of loneliness and fostering a supportive community for improved work-life balance and mental health.
Charmed App
We wanted to create more magical and softer based off the aspect of charming someone magically. We tried to emulate that in the mockups and the color palette.
Charmed Bracelet
We used AI to create visual images of our physical component, the charmed bracelet. We wanted to create two different versions, one more feminine and one more masculine to keep it inclusive for whoever would want to use our product.
For the pricing, we want the materials of the jewelry to be affordable but also be quality and last our users throughout all their friendships. These would be ordered off the Charmed website.
- $29.99 for a bracelet and 3 charms,
- each charm would be $9.99
Using the Charms and the App
The charms provide real-time location tracking to those who have access to it. Sharing a charm gives a fun way to introduce yourself to someone, and giving a gift to someone can make them feel special and help inspire meaningful interactions. We hope that this app will help people:
- Easily find other post-grad adults
- App notifies users when another user is nearby → Users trade charms
- App shows a map of where previously-traded charms have travelled
- Socialize without fear or pressure
- Users are prompted to engage in a simple mobile game to break the ice before conversation
Chatting and Ice Breaker Feature
The app is made for messaging and continuing the interaction between the two that trade charms. We wanted to include an icebreaker to help start conversation and provide people to start talking about. By turning the process into a game, it makes it less daunting to send the first text.
Security Features
It was brought to our attention during the ideation phase that security could be an issue when it came to location sharing. The precautions we have in place include:
- Receive phone notification when followed by unfamiliar charm, which can be deactivated by app
- similar to Apple’s capabilities that pop up “AirPod Pros are found moving with you…”
- Choose who you share location with specifically
- Varying levels of privacy when it comes to sharing
- Everyone, friends only, select friends, no one
Learning about Charmed
When talking about the marketing about Charmed, we thought it would be super cool if Charmed held events within cities that are highly populated by our target demographic. This would be sponsored by Charmed and free for those who come. This way, our app can encourage communities to meet each other while also supporting local businesses.
Other than this, we would like to advertise at career fairs, company sponsored events and even social events on college campuses to help build awareness of our product. Putting advertisements on common social media platforms would also help people to learn about our product.
Conclusion
My Major Takeaways
This project taught me a lot about project management and the design process. By using a gantt chart, it was easy to assign tasks and keep track of everything we need to get done for the next phase. By having clear communication with my teammates, we were able to effectively get our work done and present a product we were proud of.
I believe Charmed is an innovative solution that blends multiple social apps out there, and I am pretty proud of the way that it came out. This issue may be something that me and my teammates might eventually run into when we graduate and enter the workforce, so this project felt more personal. All in all, I quite enjoyed this process of product design and learned a lot.
Casey Lee 