Queer Stories

Queer Stories is the final university project we did during our last year in B.A. of Design Computing. We were given different problem statements & themes to tackle, and we selected the LGBTQ+ community.

The project itself is something we developed ourselves and needed to be thought about thoroughly. This meant the inclusion of competitor analysis, concept generations, etc.

The final product took approximately 3 months to make including prototyping, user-testing, wire-framing, etc. It was an interesting project due to my lack of understanding of the LGBTQ+ community, and let me learn the things people from the LGBTQ+ community need to deal with on the daily basis.

 

Project Detail: Designing a mobile website & physical canvas board that allows queer individuals to share experiences and make friends.

Project Duration: 3 months

My Role: UX/UI Designer & Researcher

Tools: Figma, Miro, Adobe Cloud Suite

 

Design Challenge:

Create a digital or physical product that allows queer individuals to seek and befriend other queer individuals. Allow this digital space to be used as a safe space that allows them to explore different communities & people.

Our Design Process

We used the double diamond method for our design process. Made our life and phases lot easier as well.

Problem Discovery

Firstly, we conducted online ethnographies, competitor analysis & market analysis to understand the current demands for apps or websites that have queer demographics. This allowed us to find functions that were considered important for many users such as…

  • Options to stay anonymous for safety & comfort

  • Secure account verifications

  • User choice & filter options

Furthermore, we conducted surveys (16 people), & interviews (6 people) on queer individuals who have been active in Sydney’s queer communities. This gave us a more personal understanding of queer individuals in Sydney & their affiliated community.

 

Findings from Problem Discovery

After gathering all the data, we converted this data into an Affinity Diagram, which allowed us to understand common themes that are portrayed through the qualitative & quantitative research…

Define the Problem

To scope down the problem, we created 2 personas based off from the qualitative & quatitative research. This will be used as a basis to narrow down our demographic focus and to get a better understanding of the problem statement we need to define.

 

Findings from Defining the Problem

Because of the unconscious biases, microaggressions and lack of knowledge of much society, queer people will often seek out the community with each other, as their shared lives and experiences often make for a much more comfortable and friendly environment. But finding such a community can be difficult for young queers and those new to exploring their queer identity if they have never been exposed to such a world. Seeking out friends and safe spaces in person can be daunting and anxiety-inducing.

Therefore, it is important to create a digital product that would help those both new and old to the community. Creating a space that fosters a safe and welcoming environment for people to not only meet others but learn more about the community and their experiences.

Ideation

When we finished with the research phase, we moved into the design phase where we conducted Crazy 8s and Persona-based Storyboarding to ideate several concepts that may work to solve our problem statement. From this, we narrowed down our concepts to 5 feasible ideas.

 

As we delve into the decisions for the final concept we finally decided to do a concept based on a mix of 2 ideas: an art installation-like physical space that allows users to post love messages to show their experience or support as an LGBTQ+ community from a mobile website.

Before ending this phase, we conducted a GOKU analysis (similar to a SWOT analysis) to fortify our understanding of what in required in the prototyping phase.

Interviews before Prototyping

After we built out the final concept, we conducted further user interviews to get an understanding of the social space within the LGBTQ+ community. We interviewed 9 queer individuals between the ages of 20 - 25 who are active within the Queer community.

Through this, we were able to find themes that helped us identify functionalities for our final concept…

  • The effect on queer individuals caused by social media & mainstream media.

  • Limited knowledge by cis-heterosexual individuals on queer communities.

  • Necessity of inclusivity within the queer community.

  • Education & normalisation of the queer experience in society and media.

Sketching & Low Fidelity Prototyping

We started off by doing sketch fidelity for our final concept. This allowed us to grasp the idea of functionality and usability needs through the mobile website.

 

This was further pursued through low-fidelity prototyping. We incorporated simple interactions and wireframing to understand the overall user flow of the product.

Low-Fidelity Prototype User Testing

We used the low-fidelity prototype for user testing. We tested 4 individuals from the previous interview group.

Findings from Low-Fidelity Prototype User Testing

Overall the users found the low-fidelity to be easy to navigate including onboarding process, profile creation, etc. Though we had to explain some segments of the prototype due to lack of content and imagery, most users were able to understand its functions.

Mid-Fidelity Prototyping & User Testing @ Test Fair

The low-fidelity prototype from the previous section was now pushed towards mid-fidelity prototyping. The mid-fidelity prototype was presented at the Test Fair, which allowed us to interview 4 individuals from our class.

Findings from Mid-Fidelity Prototype User Testing

  • Limitations in interface interactions made the prototype harder to use.

  • Plausability of decorating your love letter to send to the digital canvas board.

  • Minor inconsistencies in design & usability.

  • More detailed onboarding for clarity.

High-Fidelity Prototype

Using the findings from our previous user testing using our mid-fidelity protoype, we were able to create a High-Fidelity Prototype that included advanced animated interactions, branding, and imagery.

Key Takeaways

Always eager to learn: Throughout the design phase & research phase, there were so many things I learned about the LGBTQ+ community in Sydney. It made me challenge my design understanding to accommodate certain individuals in a way I have not thought about before such as gender options in sign-up, how copywriting affects an individual from the LGBTQ+ community, etc.

Empathy and Interviews: Through this project, we were able to user test and interview so many individuals from the LGBTQ+ community thanks to one of our groupmates. It made me adapt to the ways of talking to individuals who have a different mindset, which was challenging, yet quite fun.

Value of Quality & Quantity: Though we were able to get a lot of users to interview and test our product, we could have used it more as well. Having more quality interviews would have allowed us to understand the problem better and perhaps derive a different design.