Mingle App
Description
Mingle is a cellphone dating app that finds compatible people and connects them through GPS. It then offers just enough user information to initiate an organic conversation.
Users wold be prompted to put their phones in "Mingle Mode". Mingle Mode disabled phone calls, texts, and other distraction. We did of course account for safety and install emergency measures.
The Problem
Create a screen-based interaction that would inspire people to put down their phones and reconnect with each other in real conversation.
The Process
A process of observation, sketching and walking through scenarios.
I initiated the user mobile behavior by doing a field observation in coffee shops and local bookstores. I wanted to see how strangers initiate conversation with one another and how much they interacted with their smart phones. What made a conversation successful in the age of constant distraction? The app needed to pick up on engaging behaviors that would allow people to feel comfortable putting their phones away.
My Role: UX Researcher and Designer
I built the apps wireframes based on a series of micro interactions that I gathered from user mobile behavior, interviews, personas, site walkthroughs, and usability tests.
Observations of Habits:
People were hungry for real conversation. They were looking for any reason to put off work while in public spaces. We wanted to capture this human behavior in our target audience of 20 – 30 – year olds.
Conversation needed a source of common ground to come off as genuine.
People would engage in conversation more readily if they were bored.
The Discovery
The same habits that drove people to check their phones out of boredom could be replaced with the gratification of real–time interaction.