This project was my attempt at designing a social network specifically for the evolving needs of the new generation. I pursued this endeavor because I saw something seriously wrong with the social environment of the university I attended, and one of the major underlying causes was our unhealthy consumption and addiction to digital products. All of the features designed in this product are intended to produce a more mindful user experience.
I initially took this project in the direction of a typical software startup, but due to my lack of experience and resources, I struggled to execute my vision. I would like to return to this project in the future. The video below is of an early "MVP" prototype I came up with for the few devs who were helping me out.
Maintain's home page acts as both a news feed and a friends list. It is very simple and intuitive to navigate. From here, you can add friends, share, and keep up to date with experiences your friends have had.
The highlighted updates were designed to capture the user's attention right before viewing the new post. Ideally, this small trick has the potential to create more meaningful interactions with shared experiences.
My overall goal with the newsfeed/home page was to mitigate the mindless scrolling through infinite newsfeeds seen in products such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
Our communication platform was designed ideally to act as a hub/centralized system that could integrate with external sources (e.g. Discord, Slack, and WhatsApp) and incorporate some of the features that are successful within these products.
Most of these features were designed to optimize communication amongst my university friends. At school, I noticed a common trend where everyone pretty much had AirPods or headphones in while walking anywhere. I thought it would be cool to be able to hang out in voice group chats where users could pop in and out as they please.
Our user profile was designed to be very simple, familiar, and intuitive to navigate. It was important to me that the user profile represented a journey of experiences rather than a polished photo album.
It took me many iterations to find something that clicked. The first few designs were more experimental and included features that would allow users to customize their profile in several different ways. In the end, I settled on something that balanced customization and structure.
I felt that I didn't necessarily need to reinvent the notification system to produce a more mindful and attentive experience.
Our posts do not publically display the number of favorites an experience has received. Instead, the author of a post can only access them through our "Experiences" tab. This tab will keep track of all the favorites and comments your shared experiences have received.
Maintain is more than just a social network. It is also, something I refer to as, a "Digital Consumption Management Tool." This is a very complex system that I put a tremendous amount of time into designing. It is a system that is intended to function on top of iOS's "Screen Time" and Android's "Digital Wellbeing."
It includes a well thought out a variable reward system, gamification features, community building, individual progress and recognition, custom reminders, and a machine learning algorithim that incentivizes creating and maintaining mindful consumption habits.
