Balanced
Connecting like-minded individuals to healthy lifestyle communities and activities; helping them transition away from traditional nightlife.
Balanced is designed to help young adults connect with like-minded individuals as they transition to a healthier lifestyle. Balanced helps build connections and discover healthier social activities.
TIMELINE
August 8-11 2024
(3 day challenge)
ROLE
User Researcher
UX Designer
TEAM SIZE
Me only!
TOOLS
Figma
Notion
PROMPT
Design a platform that helps users easily discover and connect with communities and activities that align with their lifestyle goals.
PROBLEM
You want to transition your lifestyle, but finding communities and social events where people can meet like-minded individuals and support a healthy lifestyle is challenging.
In the USA, many Gen Z and Americans are drinking less, looking to switch to healthier lifestyles; but, it’s hard to find communities and social activities that they can take a part of without relying on traditional nightlife.
SOLUTION
A digital platform that connects users with like-minded individuals who share similar wellness goals, offering a range of communities focused on fitness, literature, wellness, and more.
Balanced connects young adults with communities and events that support their transition to a healthier lifestyle, offering an alternative to traditional nightlife. Through Balanced, users can easily discover, join, and engage in activities and events that support their transition to a healthier lifestyle, providing a supportive community environment.
STATISTICAL RESEARCH
Gen Z and US consumers are prioritizing their health and wellness over drinking.
86%
of Gen Z consumers believe that their mental health is as significant as their physical health when considering drinking alcohol.
82%
of US consumers now consider wellness a top or important priority in their everyday lives.
61%
of Gen Z plan to drink less in 2024, up 53% from 2023 when just 40% felt this way.
INTERVIEWS
"I’m trying to become healthier, and now that I don’t go out as often, it's hard to meet new people and find things to do"
With the short time frame, I still wanted to interview people to listen to their stories and thoughts. I reached out to three friends, one who has been working in the corporate world for about three years and two college students where they shared their experiences and challenges with health, finding social activities, and communities.
Don’t Know Where to Meet People
They struggle to find places or communities where they can connect with like-minded individuals.
Hard to Find Activities
Interviewees find it difficult to discover social activities that align with their healthy lifestyle goals. Specifically, they mentioned that the activities they hear about are through word of mouth which limits their ability to explore a broader range of options.
Some Questions That We Talked About:
-
How has your social life changed since you reduced or stopped going out as much?
-
How do you currently find social activities that align with your healthy lifestyle?
-
What challenges have you faced in discovering new activities or communities?
USER PERSONA
Understanding the users.
Age
Occupation
Location
25
Software Engineer
Cupertino, California
"I want to find new friends to do yoga with!"
Goals
-
Find social activities that align with her healthy lifestyle.
-
Find new friends
Challenges
-
Has a busy lifestyle with work and wants options for activity times
Finds it difficult to meet people who share her health-focused interests.
Health Consious Young Professional
Age
Occupation
Location
21
Senior College Student
Seattle, Washington
"I'm here for a lifestyle change!"
Goals
-
Build a community of peers
-
Explore new ways to socialize that don’t revolve around drinking and partying.
Challenges
-
Difficulty locating health-oriented social activities and groups within his college town.
-
Limited awareness of where to meet individuals
Transitioning College Student
OPPORTUNITY FOR DESIGN
How might we connect like-minded individuals with activities that align with their healthy lifestyle goals, while also facilitating the discovery of new activities and fostering a supportive community?
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Organizing everything into place.
Balanced Information Architecture
LOW/MIDFIDELITY WIREFRAMES
Creating a rough outline of where everything goes.
Due to the time constraints, I decided to create wireframes that were between low and mid-fidelity, which helped me move forward more quickly toward the final product.
Low fidelity wireframes for Balanced
STYLE GUIDE
Determining the fonts & colors.
Poppins Medium - Primary
Fonts
Inter SemiBold - Secondary
A3D9A5
C4B0E2
FFB6C1
FFE083
66A8F6
Colors
FINAL DESIGN
You had your fun, but now you want to change the way you have fun, focusing on a healthier lifestyle, Balanced can help you connect with the right communities and people.
Home
A home page that is catered towards you. This is where you'll find your next event as well as upcoming events and events that are popular among your friends.
Explore
The explore page lets you find communities, events, and even friends. It also displays the popular events for that week and in general among all users.
My Community
My Community lets you see a comprehensive list of all the communities you have joined, providing you with updates and keeping you connected.
Profile
Track your history of friends, communities, and events you've attended, all in one place. You can also view saved events and see what events and communities your friends are part of, with the option to join easily if you're interested.
REFLECTION
3 days and 3 main thoughts.
Thinking quick.
I had only three days to complete this challenge. It was something that I wanted to do because I wanted to simulate real-world scenarios where there can be quick turnaround times for projects. It was hard, I'm not going to lie, but I learned to think quickly and adapt to situations.
Time management is key.
Because the challenge was three days, I learned how to utilize my time and days. Each day, I planned specific tasks, day one included research, day two was developing low/mid-fidelity wireframes, and day three involved bringing those wireframes to life and adding last details.
You can do a lot in three days.
I always thought that three days was too short to complete anything significant, but after completing this project, I learned that with focused effort and effective time management, it's possible to achieve meaningful results. Although with any project there can be improvements, what I accomplished during this time can have an impactful outcome.
FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
Keep improving.
Even though the three-day challenge is complete, I would still like to continue this project by conducting usability testing to further refine and improve the design. I would also like to add more features such as progress tracking in which users can track their progress towards their health and lifestyle goals!