Pear
The app for finding companion for meals.
Eating alone has been linked to negative health impacts across several studies. “A survey of over 8,000 British adults found that connecting with others through social eating has one of the highest positive associations with wellbeing and conversely, eating meals alone was more strongly associated with unhappiness than any single factor other than having a mental illness.” (source)
Large cities like Tokyo, Seoul, Los Angeles, and NYC have higher rates of ‘lone eaters’ due to a lack of reliable companion. Added disconnection due to the pandemic, finding a way to bring people together without pressure as we slowly return to socializing, was the key purpose in creating this app.
Roles:
UX Designer
UI Designer
Project Deliverables
Market Research
Personas
User and task flows
Wireframes
Branding & UI kit
Prototyping
Usability Test
Project Specifications
2 weeks (80 hours)
Figma
Maze
Whimsical
Overview
The Need:
Living in both Los Angeles and Seoul, I was familiar with the effect of loneliness in mental health. Especially prevalent during social distancing restrictions, individuals who live alone were at high risk of complete isolation. As we slowly return to some normalcy, nourishing our mental health is a priority.
The Solution:
An app that connects people who want companions for meals with a convenient booking system at the speed and abundance of dating apps.
The Problem:
The current market shows that the typical source of meeting new people is through online dating. The problem is that not everyone is interested in dating.
Resources like Meetup involve large groups, against restrictions in many regions, and leave little chance for intimate conversations that 1 on 1 provides.
The Features
Personalized profile & connections
Restaurant page with offers
Invite, request, and approval system
In-app calender
Yelp outsource
In-app map
Chat & call
The Journey
Empathy - with my passion for bettering mental health, it was important for me to familiarize myself with two key personas for the target audience.
While there are certainly people who enjoy solo activities and time to themselves, people seek out casual interactions for many different purposes.
Among those, the pandemic times created a vast shift in how we work and balance our lives.
With the ability of remote work introduced in the past 2 years, a substantial amount of people relocated.
From February to July of 2020 alone, 15.9 Americans filed for a change of address. source
This means an influx of newcomers and returners with needs of making new connections and exploring their environment.
Adapting is hard, but we don’t have to do it alone. This is where Pear comes in.
Market Research & Interviews
Methods:
Secondary Research
Feature Comparison
User Interviews
Bumble BFF
Bumble BFF connects people the same way their dating platform does: pick a nice picture, fill up your profile, and swipe right or left on people you like or dislike. From there, users are notified of matches and a chatting feature to connect further.
“It tries to treat friendship like dating, and that doesn't work.” - Zulie Jane
Here’s what 5 Bumble BFF users had to say about their pain points:
Meetup
Meetup allows for users to create a group meeting or attend depending on interests, hobby, or activity. It’s group and activity centric, which allows for users to connect without too much focus on their account appeal.
“Group meetups were a blast until the pandemic blasted us.” - interviewee
Here’s what 5 Meetup users had to say about their pain points:
Planning
Convenience is a key factor in the function of the app.
This meant that users should be able to access user profiles, view restaurants and offers from other users, in-app requests and approval, and calendar of bookings all within the app.
Task Flow
Based on my required features, I created the user task flow of booking an invite on the app. Starting from login/sign up page, I designed the prototype to showcase what a returning user’s homepage would look like. From there, the user can maneuver through the restaurant page, search/explore, calendar, and chat.
Wireframes
After planning the task, wireframing was designed for each page in the task. The pages needed to include all information one needs to request an invite, be notified of acceptance and have a page where all the information is saved for them. From these basic wireframes, more pages were designed.
Design & Prototyping
After my wireframe sketches, I started designing the app screens. I iterated through multiple different styles and chose the peach design per my peer and mentor reviews.
”The peach color feels very appetizing and friendly. It’s refreshing!” - anonymous surveyor
Using the task flow mentioned above, I developed the prototype for usability testing.
I designed two types of pears for the logo because I named the app “Pear” as a play on “pair”.
I chose gradation color scheme for both the logo and the buttons.
For the icons, I kept it minimal, rounded to match the section designs of the app, which are all rounded and shadowed.
The overall feel I wanted to portray was friendly, easy, and modern.
Prototype Usability Test
Using Maze, I had 8 users test the prototype in unguided, mission-style tasks. All 8 users were able to complete the tasks with misclick rate of 13%.
The group scored usability ease at level 8 satisfaction out of 10. (0 being difficult and 10 being intuitive).
The feedback from the usability test highlighted two areas of improvement: in-depth user profile descriptions and reorganization of the chat icon.
Takeaways
Lessons
There are many opportunities to integrate products to strengthen one. For example, a map and calendar were necessary for this product. The integration of google maps, calendar, as well as outsourcing Yelp strengthens its functions.
I cannot solve all the problems at once…in two weeks no matter how much I want to. There were so many intentions storming in my head, such as public safety, user protection, and liabilities. Solid products take time and an orchestra of teams.
Accelerated my pre-existing passion for mental health and solving problems to make life a better experience.
Next Steps
Design user profile page and user settings
Preference settings and privacy
Create new invite feature
User review
Notifications
Reporting feature for safety and satisfaction
Further expansion of content: a broader spectrum of activities beyond meals.