Fritual
Building real friendships, one week at a time.
End-to-End App
Project Type
Figma, FigJam, Canva
Tools
94 hours
Timeline
UX/UI Designer
Role
View Prototype
The Background
With adulthood comes many responsibilities and commitments. This causes friendships to often take a back seat. Making new friendships becomes difficult too, as individuals do not have intentional spaces to socialise.
The Problem
Making Friends as an adult can be challenging. Especially with the many responsibilities life comes with.
The Solution
Create a digital tool for individuals to socialise and make real friendships offline.
Research
Learnings
Competitors were presenting too many features to users such as messages, groups, threads and video/audio chat. This leads to decisions paralysis.
User's required repetitive meetups, and not just one time meetups.
Having a familiar UX/UI pattern reduces friction and confusion for users.
User's prefer a clean and aesthetic UI
User's find one-on-one meetups more awkward than group meetups. However, they are comfortable with small group sizes.
Opportunities
Interest based groups do not sustain relationships afterwards. Instead, recurring events for the same groups can be created.
Newcomers can set profile preferences to prioritise meeting others who are also new, and have similar interests and hobbies.
I can deepen user connections through milestones like "try an outdoor activity", which earn badges/streaks while helping users' explore the city.
Most companies do not take feedback or follow-up with users on a second meeting with the people they met.
User Interviews
Interview Stats
4 participants
Ages: 24-50
Migration History: India, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, Maldives & Tanzania
Apps Used: Eventbrite, Bumble, Timeleft, Hinge Meetup
Participants had migrated at least once, had used resources to make friends and had struggled to socialise
Interview Goals
Understanding user's previous experiences with online friendship platforms
Understanding what user's expectations are from an online friendship platform
Understanding the difficulties user's faced in making new friendships
User's Pain Points
Inability to establish long-term connections with new people
A lack of intentional spaces to socialise
A lack of time to socialise due to responsibilities/commitments
Experiencing loneliness
Mismanaged meetups/events on existing apps
Affinity Map
Themes Revealed
User's experience loneliness and a lack of time to socialise.
User's experience difficulty maintaining connections long-term.
User Personas
Both personas revealed consistent patterns of loneliness, social disconnection, and the lack of intentional, reliable spaces to build long-term friendships.
Fritual's focus on facilitating intentional, small-group interactions directly addresses the personas' needs for deeper, more sustainable friendships.
Both the personas' pain points show that Fritual must go beyond traditional meetup or networking platforms, and prioritise ease of participation, repetition of meetups to foster long-term friendships and intentionality.
Roadmap
Task Flow
User Flow
Wireframes
'Create Account' Design
When creating the low-fidelity wireframes, I chose to separate the "Create Account" and "Personal Preferences Form". Design 1 and Design 2 for the "Create Account" process only differed in terms of the app's landing page. Design 1 includes just the logo at the top, which Design 2 includes an image (either a graphic or an image of a group of friends). While Design 1 allows users to directly see the branding of the app, I thought Design 2 might speak of what the app offers users.
'Personal Preferences Form' Design
Design 1 of the personal preferences form was intended to display the different sections of the form as folders. When the user clicks on a section, the folder opens up. This design represents the playfulness of Fritual. Design 2 includes a progress bar that appears above the questions, allowing users to track their position and understand how far along they are in the form. Alternatively, Design 3 presents one question per screen to enhance clarity and help users focus on a single prompt at a time.
UI Design
Logo Exploration
The final logo reflects a brand that is inviting, fun and joyful. The playful, blobby shape symbolizes the ever-changing nature of friendships. The color is supposed to evoke warmth, positivity, and approachability. This mirrors the emotions tied to being part of a supportive community.
UI Kit
The vibrant orange and yellow tones convey fun and playfulness, while the warm purple and blue shades evoke connection and friendliness. The accompanying graphics reinforce this mood by visually expressing the brand’s welcoming and social nature. The clean typography balances these energetic visuals, adding simplicity and clarity to the overall design.
Testing & Iterating
Usability Testing
Positive Feedback
Visual Design
User-Friendly Design
Match between the system and the real world
Accurate system feedback
Ease of use
Iterations
"Your Location" Screen: Provide system feedback when an address is selected
Before
After
"Your City" Screen: Make the city's name bigger and centre aligned
Before
After
"Your Availability" Screen: Indicate that selected availability is only for the upcoming week
Before
After
Add a "What is your age?" question
Before
After
Growth Opportunities
In this project, I had the opportunity to convert user research into design decisions that address real human needs. Conducting research and synthesising it made me realise how empathy drives usability. Creating wireframes and iterating them overtime strengthened my ability to understand what is important to users. I also learned the importance of balancing aesthetics with function, and ensuring every color, question, and interaction contributes to the feeling of connection and belonging that defines the Fritual.
I would like to further iterate and add more task flows to the app. This would include features such as event discovery, messaging and community-building tools.
View Prototype
