Overview
For many millennials, finding romantic love in digital age New York City appears to be unbearably challenging. We are active participants in the swipe economy which attempted to disrupt romance but actually sabotaged our love lives. After the launch of Tinder in 2012, online dating is now the norm. We re-invented heterosexual relationships in self-destructive ways: we added ghosting to communication and regard monogamy as an outdated idea. Why not? Unlimited choices are presented right in front of us! Paradoxically, in a hidden corner of our subconscious, we still expect our date to text back to us and somehow hope to find the one big love of our life.
Super Frustrated NYC Modern Love Stories captures these hopes and disappointments of first dates, heartbreaks and the in-betweens in audio forms at locations where they came about. The whole experience is contained within a mobile app as a response to where many people find romantic love nowadays. The stories are told through real voices of people to acknowledge how many stories are told in the first place and to embrace human voices’ empathetic power.
Societal Impact
New York City has 1.5 million heterosexual millennials, 65.4% of which are single and dating. We know the average length of a modern relationship before marriage is between two and five years which correlates to an annual risk of a 45% break-up rate. That results in 225,000 pairs of heartbroken stories as of now.
Each year, approximately 8% of adult New Yorkers experience symptoms of depression. Building a community that encourages people to connect and share their experience can lead to healthy coping mechanisms and increase self-confidence. That is potentially 40,000 depressed and heartbroken heterosexual millennials who can seek haven from Super Frustrated NYC Modern Love Stories.
My Role
Researcher, UI/UX Designer, Developer
Platform
Mobile app
Timeline
February - April 2019, 3 months
Interviews
I conducted 30 in-depth interviews with people from my immediate community – 1st and 2nd degree connections from my alma mater NYU where I spent 1.5 hour with each interviewees learning about their background, value, expectation, dating approach, past and present relationships.
Research Insights
Through these interviews, I gathered a list of common frustrations I observed.
Because
Playing cool
New vocabularies
Swipe economy
Monogamy is outdated
Don’t know what we want
Therefore
Guessing game
Difficult communication
Low stakes
No one is available
Screw each other over
Prototype
Collaging common frustrations with dating stories from my interviewees, I came up with several 30 second stories told through a voice assistant Audrey. The experience was set up through a mission driven approach where users can select stories from three different levels of frustration. After informing Audrey their decision, Audrey will then guide them to the destination.
Usability Testing
After user testing, I observed three common pain points:
1. Synthetic voice flattens these stories too much.
In order to make them relatable, I want to use the real voice of these storytellers.
2. Mission driven approach demands a lot from the user.
A chance encounter approach might be more suitable.
3. The purpose of dividing stories into different frustration levels is unclear.
This feature isn’t essential and hence should be removed moving forward.
Revised User Scenario
Collaborative Storytelling
Moving on, I invited 16 millennials to one-on-one recording sessions where I asked them to talk about one or two specific romantic encounters and/or relationships they had. Altogether, I collected 27 stories.
System Flow
This MVP was built with Javascript, HTML and CSS. Project Github.
The Result
As a final step, I created a mobile site superfrustrated.nyc to host these audio stories. The website uses the GPS on your phone to show you stories in relation to your location.
Future Roadmap
Within the 3 months I had from coming up with an idea to building a working tech prototype, there were many areas that I wasn’t able to dedicate enough time to. My goal for the next phase of this project includes:
Better UI/UX design and more usability testing
Revisit existing user research insights and conduct more testings with iterations of wireframe prototype to better understand users’ needs and pain points.
Determine a mindful way to test how long and what content users are willing to listen to.
Conduct competitive analysis on popular audio-centered apps like Clubhouse, Spotify and Calm.
Build an ADA compliant design system.
Diversity
Collaborate with storytellers outside of my immediate bubble to create a story collection that represents voices of the diverse NYC community.
Mobile app integration
My current product was in the form of a mobile site instead of a mobile app due to time constraint and my limited knowledge in coding. Moving forward, I plan to integrate the product into a mobile app.
Thought starters for the next phase:
Why do people date when they know that most relationships don’t last? Is a lonely heart less desirable than a broken heart?
How to create a healthy environment where the stories we share are lessons we learned from our experience and not trauma dumping?
Does listening to stories at their birthplace make them more relatable or unbearable? Do they change the way we approach dating?
What are the differences between how men and women tell and receive stories?
What does it mean to maintain a living archive of love stories? What are my responsibilities as a curator and story keeper?
During the pandemic, many dating locations of choice have been shifted from restaurants and bars to private residences. How should my project adapt to this change while protecting privacy and anonymity of the storytellers?
Presentation
10 minute overview of my journey with this project.