Drop is an app that helps people “unmiss” connections
THE PROBLEM:
Have you ever experienced a missed connection so unforgettable that it left you with a lingering sense of regret and the painful awareness that tracking down that person may prove impossible? This challenge becomes particularly daunting in metropolises like New York, where the odds of reuniting with a missed connection depend heavily on sheer luck
MY ROLE: Dreamer, researcher, designer, prototyper
MISSED CONNECTION is a situation where two people briefly encounter each other, often in a public place like a park, gym, train, café, or street, and feel a sense of connection or attraction, but fail to exchange contact information or even initiate a conversation. As a result, they "miss" the opportunity to connect with each other and may never see each other again, leaving one or both parties with a sense of longing or regret. The most romantic of them all try posting under “missed connections” in hopes that the internet works its magic and reunites the twin souls
DESIGN PROCESS
EMPATHIZE
Understand my user through research
DEFINE
What are user needs defined with a persona
IDEATE
Wireframing after user flowchart
CREATE
Solution in high fidelity prototype
THE DISCOVERY
SECONDARY RESEARCH: Thorough investigation of missed connections and related topics such as dating apps
PRIMARY RESEARCH: Interviews engaging with potential users to learn about their needs, goals, behaviors, and pain points.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS: Study existing solutions, including competitors' products or services, to identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement.
PERSONA: A fictional character that represents my user
AFFINITY MAPPING: What is my user feeling
SECONDARY RESEARCH
Secondary research proved that missed connections is a concept that is of much interest as there are abundance of articles written and research done about the phenomena. Many articles reflect on people’s missed connection posts, sorting from best to weirdest, dissecting the message for humoristic pursposes. A Vox article analyzed 10,000 Craignlist missed connections and the data shows the staggering degree to which men outnumber women on Craiglist posting missed connections, which was a surprising finding for me.
EXISTING SOLUTIONS
Notoriously Craigslist popularized the concept of missed connections but since there are other channels such as LEX app that has a tab “Missed connections” where similarly to Craigslist people are able to post their messages
Happn is a mobile dating app that helps people discover and connect with potential romantic interests who have crossed paths with them in real life. It uses location data to show users profiles of other Happn users they've physically encountered, allowing them to like or initiate a conversation with those they find interesting.
Certain cities have taken craigslist’s missed connections to their own websites such as Missed Connections New York City who also promotes and charges followers on their instagram account to pin the promoted posts each week. Although rather an interesting problem space and several intriguing solutions, none of the apps or existing products actually solve the problem of missed connections.
PERSONA
Birds were a main motif since the conception of Drop. Pigeons have been used as messengers for centuries and I wanted to make that connection to today’s digital world. Also, the idea of Drop was partially inspired by Apple’s Airdrop feature and when I was brainstorming concepts that reminded me of air, messaging and New York, birds naturally landed on my deck and eventually I started sketching some logo ideas using different styles. A bird sitting on a magnifying glass was born as the logo with lots of potential animation ideas to add delight
PAIN POINTS
FEAR OF REJECTION: While getting ghosted online has been somewhat normalized, the perceived fear of rejection in person is so terrifying that people would risk to live with this sort of regret rather than bite the bullet and ask for their number.
DATING APPS: In the age of doom scrolling, doom swiping is yet another dopamine slot machine we’ve trained our brains to crave as a side effect of our search for human connection. The shallow experience that online dating provides through its window shopping creates a culture of disposable dates and one night stands that feel more isolating than their intention of creating valuable connections.
GENDER NORMS: Modern gender norms still create a contradictory miscommunication between all genders. Even if women might have the desire to make the first move, they expect men to approach them first in fear of being labeled as desperate. Men on the other hand fear being perceived as creepy if they make the first move. So umm… What are we supposed to do?
URBAN LONELINESS: Is the paradox of living in a city like New York and being surrounded by 10 million people and yet somehow not enough when you feel like hanging out and nobody is around
IDEATIONS
HOW MIGHT WE HELP PEOPLE MATCH IRL?
....
HOW MIGHT WE HELP PEOPLE MATCH IRL? ....
THE CONCEPT
Right after experiencing a missed connection, the user opens the Drop App, hits “unmiss” as the apps searches and suggests potential matching profiles according to geolocation and time stamp. If the person user is looking for is also on Drop and has similar search criteria, the app will find their profile. Recognizing their missed connection, user is now able to send their profile in a form of a selfie with text, stickers and social media links within a 5 minute limit. If their missed connection accepts the drop, then they will be able to chat and potentially meet for a second chance.
THE BRANDING
Crafting the branding identity for Drop was a very important part of my process because I wanted to create a sense of playfulness and fun so that the app doesn’t lean towards hinting creepiness. To create a trustworthy feeling, I took an angle of whimsy rather than minimalism. The bird character comes back throughout the experience being the I defined my brand as approachable, safe, playful, bold, adventurous and put together a moodbaord to help me recreate the vibe of the app. I then extracted brand colors from the moodboard
THE LOGO
Birds were a main motif since the conception of Drop. Pigeons have been used as messengers for centuries and I wanted to make that connection to today’s digital world. Also, the idea of Drop was partially inspired by Apple’s Airdrop feature and when I was brainstorming concepts that reminded me of air, messaging and New York, birds naturally landed on my deck and eventually I started sketching some logo ideas with birds. A bird sitting on a magnifying glass was born as the logo with lots of potential animation ideas to add delight
FINAL RESULTS
Drop is meant to bring back spontaneity in today’s online dating and help people match in real life instead of succumbing to the invisible control of the algorithms. My final prototype starts with the onboarding and profile creation of the user, where they get to define their search criteria. What sorts of relationships are they open to? Are they looking for romantic dating or are they only looking for gym buddies and friends? According to this, they will receive the appropriate drops, and their profile will be hidden from others, not in their criteria. The prototype then takes you to the search feature, where the user opens the app following a missed connection, and hits “unmiss. ” The app starts searching, and the missed connection is eventually found. The user then has only 5 minutes to send their drop. They take a selfie including a brief message, and attach music, stickers, or social media links if they wish similar to Snapchat. Once sent on time, the user will now wait for connection to open the drop and hopefully accept. The user is able to see an interactive map of all the drops they were able to send and receive. Check out the prototype on FIGMA
NEXT STEPS
FINISH PROTOTYPING
The next steps would be to prototype the drop-receiving workflow. What happens when one user receives a drop and needs to make a decision to reject or accept it?
What happens when the sender isn’t sure if the app found the right person since the encounter was so brief or perhaps the pictures aren’t clear?
How to deter random creepy people from sending drops to people they didn’t have a missed connection with?
The next workflow would be the chat, where once the drop is accepted, the users can start texting and video-chatting in app
IN-APP PURCHASES AND PREMIUM MEMBERSHIPS
If the user fails to send their drop within 5 minutes, Drop will offer to extend the time for a symbolic fee. Premium users will have up to 5 free extensions and other perks
Once the final prototype with all workflows is ready and tested multiple times, it would be interesting to talk to engineers to see if this product is at all technically feasible the way I imagined it
SECURITY
Since Drop will use location tracking, can security and privacy be of no concern?
USER TESTINGS
Throughout the prototyping phase, user testings can guide where more attention needs to be focused on making the app run smoothly. It would be also interesting to do quantitative research finding out if this app existed, would people actually use it?
IF YES
Then it would be interesting to think more in-depth about the loopholes of the app, the business model and assess what would be needed to create an MVP.
MANIFESTING
To find a cool cofounder one day and take this idea to YC and make it happen