01
Commission from event host organization
02
Payment from individuals
03
Ads sponsors
JU-A
A social dating platform for Chinese students and young professionals in Tier-1 cities.
Project Duration
Oct 2021 -
Aug 2022
Project Type
UIUX design, User research, Interviewing, Prototyping
Tools
Figma
Feishu
01.
Overview
Designing a multi-function product
Working as the only designer in a start-up team with product manager, developers, marketers, my work mainly focusing on design and prototype of the Wechat program JU-A. Also established the design system, iterated the product structure, and refined the design. The MVP version was launched on Wechat Mini program at 2021. As planned, the app version will be launched at the 2023.
02.
Research
Context and background
In the most important regional market in China, especially cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, because of the large population of the single young people who are usually high educated, living in a busy schedule, struggling to have work-life balance, the use of social and dating apps were significantly increased over these cities. “JU” is an informal way of saying “plan” in chinese, we are a location-based product, targeting people in their 20s and 30s, people can search and join event with a possibility of finding match, unlike most of the dating apps, we help people find matches with more common interest.
Vision
Tantan, a major social platform in China, launched a survey on the concept of love, marriage and childbirth of "Gen Z". Under the guidance of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, this research was carried out for users of Tantan platform who were born after 1995.
Competitor
We downloaded some popular social app that are available on the market, We found out that most of them have one focus market, Some are designed to help users savour the matchmaking process, while others match graduates of elites universities with each other.
Insights
• According to the research, nearly 70% of the respondents believed that social software was more effective than traditional love channels.
• A primary part of JU-A business to cover the process from event to social. From the initial research, we think that there’s a gap between the products that are available on the market, and people’s expectation.
• People want to meet their ideal date but tired of using dating apps.
• How might we help people find date in the events that they are interested in?
There’s a large single population in China, whether it's housing, dating, food delivery , cosmetic, there is a definite growing potential to target single adults, as the "single economy" promotes new consumption trends across China. A group of professions working in Tencent, Bytedance and other giant tech company gathered and decided to dive deeper into the market. They hired me as the only designer in the team. To start off, we want to learn more about the younger generations who are looking for fun events and potentially future partner, about their user habits, as well as their frustrations.
Roadmap
Operation standardization process
Revenue model
Design Process
03.
Design Problems
Goals
Based off of the design goals the team came up with, PM generated the information architecture. Based on the priority, I designed the screens that are essentials for signing up to an event. After the initial stages, I found two design problems are waiting to be tackled.
04.
Ideas
Design Solution #1
In the event detail page, showing the essential informations-date, time, address participants and organization in the standard format. We will ask the event host to provide event details, promotion information, in a strict format.
Explorations for event detail page
I made the CTA button sticky at the bottom of the screen, so when people scrolling over the long page, they can easily conduct the action as we expected.
Design Solution #2
An essential part of our product is social. We brought up these concept of “Metaverse” for our social section. User can find the entrance in the event page.
Explorations for participants card
Flow
Ticket purchase Flow
First milestone
An important holiday coming up, we decided to host an event with our MVP, with the current supported functions, we were able to do so. We contacted the venue, sponsors and successfully host a trio performance on Christmas Eve, 2021.
event recap
Designing for efficiency and easy collaboration
As we began to design low-fidelity wireframe, I focus on making the design efficient, and easy to collaborate. I organized a design system and further defined the visual language of the product.
05.
Deliverable
After the event, we were able to gather data at this point, and review our entire flow. I delivered the design specs of the first version product. We are continuing to conduct user surveys and usability tests to iterate the product.
Next steps
The chat function will lunch later this year, so far we’ve archive the usability increased by 43% and user satisfaction score by 23%. With a total of 56% growth in active users in 2 months. Next we will conduct more user research with our user base, and further iterate the product.
06.
Reflection
Define the project scope
It was never addressed enough, with the short amount of time given and being the only designer in the team, the workload can be heavy if not aware. We spend a lot of time going through design flows, from user onboarding, profile set up, purchase to user chat, and made iterations before taking to the design stage. I’ve learned a holistic view of a mobile application, from product strategy to end-to-end experience.
Communication is key
It was my first time directly communicate with PM and engineers, I matured my skill to assertively communicate with other team members in a timely manner, by using methods such as holding a weekly meeting to update the progress, sharing to-do list, which all helps improve the efficiency, we also addressed disagreement with mutual compromise. I learned how to convey my rationale to delivered conscious design by communicating back-and-forth, also keep internal communication open would motivate the team to drive the product further to the desired direction.