Tipz is a social recommendation app that introduced a revolutionary way for people to share and store tips on cool places with their friends in a centralized place. I defined the visual strategy and led UX/UI design, creating a stunning interface and an intuitive, impactful experience for this new lifestyle app.
Many people often seek and share recommendations from friends and family for cool places to visit, whether in their hometown or while traveling.
There was no specific platform to centralize these recommendations. People often used Google Maps, Notes, and other apps to save places, while relying on WhatsApp and other communication apps to share and seek recommendations.
An app designed to centralize the storage and communication of recommendations would immensely help people organize their favorite places and simplify the process of sharing and seeking recommendations.
In collaboration with the PM, we explored how people share and ask for tips. There are different ways of doing it, but none are very satisfying. These methods include using social media, asking friends on WhatsApp or email, saving tips on Google Sheets, or pinning places on Google Maps.
Through quantitative research, we were able to go deeper and gain a deeper understanding of people's behaviors and needs. We had 46 participants ranging from 18 to 40 years old, with the majority from NY, where we planned to run the MVP.
The research showed that Google Maps was the most used tool to save favorite places, followed by Notes. There was also high demand for people asking for or giving recommendations and significant dissatisfaction with the solutions that were available.
We also wanted to go deeper in understanding the behavior of potential customers. By analyzing the data, we found that the most common cases involved people looking for and sharing tips in their own city. That made it perfect for us to run an MVP in NYC.
In collaboration with the PM, I developed dozens of charts for all of the flows so we could understand the user experience at a macro level.
We explored dozens of different concepts and hundreds of screens to ensure we were covering off most bases. We decided to try something different instead of just being another social platform. It should be fun, visually stimulating, and encourage shareability.
When I joined the project, the brand voice and the overall brand identity had already been defined. It was very playful and fun. My challenge was to translate that into a visual identity for the app.
In the timeline, users can either ask for or give tips. The sandwich format makes it fun for them to navigate in addition to making it different and interesting.
Getting into a post of interest brings the user to answers to the questions or comments. As a user like or save answers, it automatically populates a list of recommended things to do related to that spot.
Users can see their favorite tips in the "My Tipz" page. They can filter them by date and location to know what's happening and when.
Exploring the profiles and lists of well-traveled friends with good taste is a great way to find cool places.
Users can easily filter the list of tips by type, location, and friends.
