Envision
Making relationships more intentional, one journal entry at a time.
For those millennials or even Gen Zer’s in the house, we all know what this age is all about in our relationships: lots of change. Some experience changes in our friendships due to our friends getting married and beginning families, or maybe we have confronting moments of our parents aging and questioning how we want to use valuable time. Envision supports this time with intention and care.
My Role
UX Researcher + UX/UI Designer
Methods
competitive analysis, directed storytelling, rapid prototyping, feature card development, scoping, usability testing, high fidelity prototyping
Tools
Figma, Figjam, Google Suite, Zoom
Client Overview
The client was… me! This was a self directed project. I wanted to create something that felt relevant to the stage of life that me and so many of my loved ones are in.
Project Goals
The goal of this project was to create an app that increases the intentionality and quality of human relationships.
Outcome
Created an interactive prototype of Envision, a relationship companion app designed to help users set and reach their relationship goals by using data analysis.
The Initial Plan
…and some unexpected shift
I initially set out to create an app that felt relevant to my personal life. The idea?
An app to document, categorize, share and record romantic interests and dating experiences. In my plan, the specific benefits of using the app was access to unique and fun metrics to categorize interest and experience—think graphs to measure interest, think dating rosters, and then a way to share all of it socially with those you choose. Fun, right?
However, in digging into the problem space, while research participants were excited about the idea, I was struck by the persistence of other themes coming up that ultimately felt more meaningful.
Letting the Research Speak For Itself
…and not telling me what I had expected
I was struck by 3 prominent themes in my directed storytelling. The millennials and Gen Zer’s (24-34 years old) that I interviewed all reported that this time in their lives as being defined by the following themes:
Participants experienced their mid to late twenties and early thirties as a moment of reevaluation in order to be intentional about relationships because of less time and new priorities.
Many of my research participants experienced difficult shifts in friendships because of changes in life circumstances, or more stark instances of ‘friend break ups’
There was an emphasis in wanting to spend more time spent with relationships that express the most important parts of themselves
They reported that being intentional about relationships is hard because of limited energy and being in a routine
Another layer of context…
While we know relationship changes happen for everyone, I also found that research has shown millennials to be the loneliest generation. This, again, caught my attention.
“30 percent of Millennials say they always or often feel lonely, compared to just one in five (20%) members of Generation X, or even fewer Baby Boomers (15%) report feeling lonely with the same frequency.” (YouGov 2019)
A Reckoning of the Initial Plan…
Well, shoot. What now? Scrap everything? Shift the direction?
The focus on mapping out crushes and making dating rosters was super fun, don’t get me wrong, but felt less meaningful than these important three themes coming up in my research: the desire for revaluation, expression, and intention in relationships.
My findings even resonated with me. So, I did a second round of interviews to validate my further assumptions and found that this really is an area where my demographic needed support. From there, I began designing Envision as a way to support this demographic build the kinds of relationships they want, in a way that works for them.
Introducing… Envision!
Envision is a relationships companion app that allows users to set relationship goals, and measure their progress through self reported data. Check it out!