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Soar
Dating and Friendship App for Autistic Individuals
Overview
Soar is a dating and friendship app for individuals with autism. Our app aims to provide a safe, supportive, and inclusive platform for individuals to connect, make friends, and explore romantic relationships.
Date
Spring 2024
Role
UX Designer & Researcher
Tools
Figma, MAXQDA, Maze, Illustrator, Miro
Understanding the Need
Individuals with autism often face difficulties in social settings due to differences in social communication, sensory sensitivities, stigma, and limited access to inclusive spaces.
Prototype
Secure Sign-In
Soar prioritizes safety with required ID verification during the starting sign up process as well as mobile phone number verification.
Our users value their safety and Soar ensures a safe and secure experience in our app. These safety features help prevent in-app harassment as well as ensure that people are who they say they are.
Connect Through Events
We identified a preference among our users for in-person interactions over the previous swiping feature within our app. Our new prototype prioritizes creating meaningful connections through events near users.
Users can click interested and going to show their interest as well as see who else is attending the event.
Users can also see the sensory information relating to the event to check for potential triggers.
Prompts and AI Chatbot
Message and call people you connect with right in the app and take advantage of the prompt suggestions to start a new conversation.
Our new AI Chatbot feature detects instances where users may be sharing sensitive information and prompts them with a warning pop-up before to ensure they want to send the private information.
Research
Individuals with autism often face difficulties in social settings due to differences in social communication, sensory sensitivities, stigma, and limited access to inclusive spaces.
Online Ethnography
Thematic Analysis
Here are some of the major themes we found among our research process
Struggles
Social Anxiety
Late Diagnosis
Overwhelmed
Discrimination
Accommodations/ Triggers
Success
Story
Support
Advice
Comfort
Being Independent
Fear
Isolation
Burden
Loss of hope/ Giving up
Masking
Conforming
Frustration
Comparing/ Analyzing Others
“All my life I've never been able to maintain a relationship.”
Competitor Analysis
Hiki is a direct competitor of Soar and also targets autistic individuals on their dating app.
Pros:
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Emphasizes user safety and privacy.
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Accessible interface for diverse users.
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Provides avenues for various types of connections.
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Cons:
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Smaller user base compared to mainstream apps.
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Potential for neurotypical individuals to antagonize the neurodiverse community.
Persona
Below is a user persona to portray a typical user based on the target users and demographic of Soar
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Design Requirements
Our app provides conversation starters, prompts, and guides tailored to users' interests, emphasizing support and advice. Additionally, it organizes virtual or in-person events centered around shared interests, offering structured opportunities for users to connect and interact.
Community and Engagement
The app offers customizable sensory settings, allowing users to adjust colors, fonts, haptic feedback, and sound notifications to suit individual sensory sensitivities.
Sensory Settings and Customization
The app distinguishes between relationship and friendship connections, allowing users to customize profiles extensively with details like triggers and interests. It includes a location radius feature for personalized matches and enables users to offer feedback for continuous improvement, suggesting enhancements or reporting issues.
Friendship and Relationship Features
Ideation and Design
During this phase we began ideating our app and designing the wireframes and layout of Soar.
Brainstorming
We began brainstorming and ideating ideas for our app to enhance the user experience and meet user needs
Affinity Diagram
Miro Board
Initial Wireframes
Focus Group and Card Sorting
We conducted a focus-group interview with 10 autistic individuals to learn more about their experiences and allow them to test out our prototype to see their thoughts and what changes need to be made.
Interview Findings
Focus on Events
Users widely identified a preference for in-person interactions through events over the swiping feature within our app.
Protecting Information
Users were concerned about the protection of their personal and private information in the messaging feature of the app.
Prioritize Safety
Users highly prioritize and value safety within our app, especially identity verification. This is to prevent people from being untruthful about who they are.
Interest Expansion
Users emphasized the importance of offering a diverse array of interest options within our app to cater to the wide-ranging preferences of our user base.
Figma Prototype
Usability Testing
User testing was conducted using Maze where users tested our prototype by attempting tasks within the app and navigating throughout it.
Task 1: Sign Up
Users were tasked with signing up for our app and verifying their identity with the ID in the camera roll
Results
100% Success
99% Usability Score
Task 2: Message another User
Users were tasked with messaging another user in the app and use one of the conversation starter prompts. The user was also asked to try and send their address to another user.
Results
87.5% Success
80% Usability Score
Task 3: Navigate the Events
Users were tasked with navigating the baking event and trying to see who else is attending the event. The user then had to find Emma and look at her profile.
Results
87.5% Success
87% Usability Score
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