2019

The Clique

An app for the movers and shakers
UX Research
UX Design
Top
Research
Design

Context

The Clique App concept came to fruition in a meeting with a client who highlighted an opportunity in the social networking space for a premium, networking app.

I worked with another designer to develop the first concept that was to be passed on for further development.

Goal

The goal was to reimagine the traditional members club in a digital, app-based space, targeted at 18-35-year-olds, giving users premium access to brands and like-minded members.

Research

User Interviews

For the idea to come to life, we needed a thorough understanding of the potential user experience across the entire product. We had an idea of who our target audience would be but needed to gain a more detailed insight into their behaviours. For this, we interviewed 20 millennials, asking about their lifestyle habits and traits in order to discover what they would want from a digital membership.

User PErsonas

From the data collected, we created 4 specific user personas to tailor the app experience to whom we called the movers and shakers, the modern socialite, the modern explorers and the trend advocates. With each persona having their interests, goals and pain points, we began to consider how the app could create value and appeal to these multiple user types.

Based on their personality, each user type would have a different way in which they'd want to use the app, for example, the trend advocates would want to sign up to attend fashion releases, whereas the modern socialite may mainly use the app to connect with interesting people. Understanding the potential scale of the product we could create, we decided to narrow the design of the app to a beta version, focusing on two main user goals that the app could provide; event registration and connecting with members.

Design

With the two goals in mind, there were countless decisions to be made, regarding how the app could create drive interest and provide value to its users. In consideration, we came up with a tier system, to differentiate the exchange of value between user and app. We segmented our users into Black (VIP), Gold (premium) and Silver (standard) members, a tier that would sit on their profile and dictate the level of access and rewards the user can redeem.

We imagined the app would be powered by a virtual currency called "Clique Points". Members would earn Clique Points by interacting with the app in various ways and could use these points to redeem event access and premium app rewards. With the reward system understood, we decided our next step would be to visualise the beta platform, starting with the most important user journey on the app, the onboarding process.

The journey we illustrated was that of a standard, silver member. The member had just downloaded the app and was going through the process of creating a profile, searching for and registering his attendance at his first event. I designed some low fidelity user flows to map out this journey, including useful features like tooltips to aid the users understanding and navigation.

I then decided to build on this journey, tying the interaction with the app's reward system. I wanted to explore how the user could benefit from completing valuable actions, in the example below, the user has registered for their first event and received a Clique Point reward in their notifications menu. The points reward served as instant feedback, confirming a successful, positive interaction.

With a better understanding of how the product would function, these screens were handed over to the other designer to be developed further, producing some high fidelity wireframes. He also created a mini branding guide and design system to aid the development of the UI components across the app, before visualising a detailed onboarding journey.

Due to budget and time constraints, the final deliverables for the project were largely conceptual. Despite this, due to the thorough execution of the process, we were able to establish a fully visualised beta app platform. The goal was to test and design a concept that could be developed further and, with our UX/UI exploration, we were able to achieve that.