UX/UI - MOBILE APP
Coming Out?:
🌈 LGBTQ+ Bar Guide
COMPANY
Freelance work
ROLE
UX Designer
YEAR
2022
team
Context
How might we indicate where the best and safest bars, restaurants, and pubs are for LGBTQ+ people to go out?
Timeline
12 months since initial discovery with User Personas until the final prototype
Background
Coming Out? is an app to find LGBTQ+ friendly spaces like bars, restaurants, and pubs. It is a directory of places reviewed by people whose sexual orientation and identity are on the profile. It’s a real community.
Process
The process of this app UX/UI included an extensive research (Initial Benchmark, Information Architecture testing, User Personas building, User Journeys) and final design execution.
Research & Planning
I performed a benchmark of various apps related to the main functionality, comparing features like filtering bars/pubs/houses, reviewing a place, saving a place for later, or favoriting an item.
Then, I proposed an information architecture and conducted a card-sorting session with 5 users to test it.
I built 5 user personas, comprising a mix of bisexual, gay, straight, cisgender, and transgender profiles, to uncover their needs, pain points, and further opportunities to include in the app.
Design & Prototyping
Completed an initial round of wireframes in Figma, then refined them into high-fidelity wireframes along with a working and sharable prototype.
Solution
Taking into account the UX findings, I designed a complete user flow illustrated in mockups, featuring a map view, review support, and user profiles to enhance this exciting and new community.
Homepage
Homepage - User’s current location
and a range of 5-10 km around it.
Filtering
Including Popularity and Interests
as recommended by the UX analysis.
Reviewing
Reviewing and rating a place based on whether it was enjoyable or if you felt safe.
Place Card
Including music and drinks tags, sexual orientation popularity,
who visited it, and the rank.
Results
We build what users expected
User testing on Information Architecture and initial wireframes guided the following steps and made this user more intuitive and efficient.
UI Reflected the brand style
There's a strict relation between brand style and the app's look & feel. At the same time, the app benchmark delimited what users normally expect in a map initial view.