Connect Beyond Distance
We created Gifte [gifti:], a digital platform that connects online communication and real-world gifting activities for remote loved ones.
Timeline
Sep - Nov, 2021
My Team
Eva, UX Designer
Eric, Researcher
Stephen, UI Designer
My Role & Focus
Interview & Research Analysis
Brainstorming & Storyboarding
Video (script, storyboard, video editing)
Iteration
Product Strategy
Check out how it works ☕️
Part of the user flow of Gifte
About Gifte
People's need
By enabling people to send and receive real-world gifts in remote situations, Gifte fulfills people’s emotional needs that are often unsatisfied in long-distance relationships. Rather than the traditional digital communication that only involves intangible words, Gifte is trying to make people’s love in remote intimate relationships more tangible.
Intangible
Digital
Tangible
Care
Current Limitation
People's Need
Our Solution
Problem Space
Why Are We Doing This?
Relationship
with loved ones
In the
distant contex
With digital
communications
Policies such as quarantines, stay-at-home, and travel bans, have largely impeded us from physically seeing our distant loved ones. How to better keep in touch with them in this situation?
All of us in this project are international students. Inevitably, we are separated from our families and friends. How to satisfy our emotional needs with remote connections?
Although digital communications are very developed in the internet era, people are not satisfied with their remote communication experiences.
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A growing problem since COVID time
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An inevitable topic for international students
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The limitation of current digital methods
How might we reinvent the idea of "keeping in touch" and try to push further on how people connect and take care of their distant loved ones?
Research & Findings
How: secondary research,120 surveys, 3 interviews + differential diagram
Intangible digital connections cannot satisfy the emotional needs in remote close relationships.
1. Digital communications with loved ones tend to be more emotion-driven, sometimes with no aims or topics. In contrast, conversations with less close people are more prone to have clear motivations.
2. Most current digital communications are tools for transmitting information, with messaging (text, voice) and calling (video) functions. Compared to the activities in the real world, these methods are too monotonous for those close to us.
3. People feel their remote connection with close ones is hindered by current digital tools. Care within screens is too intangible and unreal. They expect something which can be extended into the real world.
Opportunity
Is There A Doable Middle Ground?
Intangible
Digital
Tangible
Real-World
Concept
My Way Is To...
Connecting online communications and real-world gifting activities to help satisfy people’s emotional needs with their distant loved ones.
Instead of sticking with traditional messages and calls, what more can we do to make people’s digital communication more “tangible”? After discussion, my concept was chosen.
Below is my revised storyboard, illustrating the design concept.
Prototype
Will It Work In Real Life?
We started with some low-fi screens and tried experience prototyping. The movie was created by me.
Feel free if you'd like to watch.
Usability Test
How About The App?
To know if the app would work, so we came up with mid-fi and set up 3 benchmark tasks according to our user flow for usability testing.
Usability Evaluations
How Did Testers Feel?
Testers
24
Tasks
3
Direct Success
97%
4.3/5 rated for clarity of the screens and interactions
Usability Test
How About The App?
To know if the app would work, we came up with mid-fi and set up 3 benchmark tasks according to our user flow for usability testing.
Task 1:
Open the Gifte you received and navigate back to the homepage
Task 2:
Send a Starbucks Frappuccino as Gifte to your friend Lilian
Task 3:
Change the location [from China to the US]
Feedback & Implications
What They Said 👉 What We Realized...
Iteration
Check Our Main Changes
Artifacts
Finally, Our MVP!
Our finalized user flow 👇
*Send a Gifte via a reminder
Strategy
Next Steps For Business...
Although Gifte is a school project, we still want to consider its next steps if it really ships.
After presenting to professors and industry professionals, I came up with the following strategies from 3 aspects, individual user, community, and platform.
User engagement
Coupons and membership systems to encourage individual gifting activities.
Feedback reminds and rewards systems to motivate mutual interactions.
Groups & communities
Adding features such as intimacy level, category, to help users group friends and form communities.
Platform
Serving as a platform between users and retailers, we need to further build the user experience for to B business and the business model to cycle the system.
Users
Retailers
Takeaways
What Would I Do If Given More Time?
Competitive research
Although we have no competitor products with the same model, we can research successful O2O examples in food delivery and lifestyle services, for instance, Yelp and Meituan, to help us establish and refine our O2O strategy.
Workshops for my teammates
Working as a creative designer before, I found holding workshops a useful way to cultivate design diversity. During these sessions, I introduce methods to help my teammates brainstorm and establish a better sense of creative strategy. If given more time, I'd prepare workshops for my team members with my expertise.