Active Meet

"Meet new friends with the same physical activity interest!"

Active Meet is a mobile app that helps people who are still new in a place and would love to meet new people through physical activity. As doing physical activity doesn't require a lot of communication, it makes people more relaxed and may create a bonding, thus making friends feel easier. 

Research

Problem

Culture shock is an experience most migrants have to face when they arrive at a new place. The increment of human migration’s number has become bigger in the globalization era and the struggle in facing culture shock can be varied for each person.

Problem Solving Process

Step 1. Gather information about culture shock

When people encounter a new culture and experience culture shock, change and unfamiliarity influences their own psychological adjustment and participation in a cultural environment. This psychological confusion and emotional discomfort usually causes a tremendous amount of psychological stress (Eschbach et al, 2001) (Xia,2009)

The negative impact of culture shock on individual psychology often includes a large and diverse set of symptoms...The major symptoms may be described as depression, anxiety and feelings of helplessness (Mio, 1999)... Most important is that when people fail to defeat the symptoms of culture shock, they are likely to become hostile to host nationals, which may lead to a handicap of interpersonal relationship (Ferraro, 2006) (Xia, 2009).

Based on Junzi Xia journal “Analysis of Impact of Culture Shock on Individual Psychology”, I propose that culture shock cause psychological stress, which is likely to lead to depression, anxiety, and helplessness as the major symptoms, and may disturb ones' interpersonal relationship if they are not well taken care of.

Step 2. Find the focus point

From my proposal, I see 2 points affected by culture shock:

A. Depression, anxiety, and feeling of helplessness.

B. Interpersonal relationship

Step 3. Dig focus point deeper

Step 4. Conclusion

From the process above, I conclude that culture shock can be reduced by building friendship and improving the limbic system; which can be done by doing physical exercise, surrounding oneself with people who provide positive bonding, building people skill.

Solutions

The idea I come up is to help people meet through physical exercise. Because doing physical exercise helps the body release chemical endorphins that improve brain quality resulting in reduced stress, with a possibility of less communication required. It can be an advantage for people who are still learning the host’s language. Besides, doing physical exercise together will create a feeling of sharing that may lead to friendship.     

Personas

Personas’ Analysis

Amelia’s Goal

 - Go for hiking and have some relaxation

 - Have friends bonding

 - Possibility friends of similar age

Amelia’s pain joint

 - She doesn’t know much about her surrounding

 - Possibility of language barrier (lacking ability to speak host’ language)

 - Have little time to do things outside study

Scenario Map, Site Map, User Flow 

Site Map 

First Site Map
This is the first site map for the first wire frame. I found this site map is too crowded and can be simplified, which lead to the second site map.

Second Site Map

User Flow

Sketches and ideas

 I find the vertical navigation bar is more straightforward compared to navigation bar at the bottom of the phone screen. The downside, vertical navigation bar limits the information screen space. Direct all the content towards the right side of the screen. And require users' to move their finger around the screen more, which I feel not very user-friendly. These downsides distract users' focus from the content.

Color and Shape Choice

Bright color seems to be the best to light up mood. I choose red - orange, which associate with energy and friendliness for the main color. Green (calmness), blue (confident), and purple (ambition) for outdoor, indoor, and search section.

White and grey for secondary colors, as they are neutral colors.

I used more of circular, oval shapes, and rounder corner , as these shapes are giving more feeling toward softer and approachable. 

First Wireframe

Icon Design

Second Wireframe

Language page will show up automatically after the welcome page. Once user chooses the language, it will automatically be directed to location page.

This page, home page, contains the choice of the sports activity and list of the events based on the sports.

View event page gives detail information about the event posted on the home page. In this page, the user can directly join the event or contact the event organizer first.

 

Name and email in the "Profile" will be used when user sends message to other Active Meet's user. "Upcoming Event" shows all the upcoming events user is joining. "My Event" shows all the events user has posted. The user can edit his/her last post, as long the event songoinggoing.

"Add Event" feature allows the user to create an event. In this feature, user can upload images to promote the event and choose by date/dates or weekly.

"Search" feature allows the user to search with more specific based.

On the "Settings", user can change the language and theme preference.
Theme feature purposes to let the user comfortably uses the app by choosing his/her color.

A little history about Active Meet

Active Meet is a personal project I created in order to learn UI UX design. 

This project is done in Balsamiq, Figma, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.

Thank you for your visit!