Alexander Zwerner

Circle Widget

 
 

Circle Widget

Timeline • Role

September 2022 - May 2023 • Personal Project

ProbleM

Our world is filled with notifications and information flying all around us. Due to this we often times miss the most important messages from our loved ones.

Solution

With Circle Widget, we hope to allow you to break through the noise of your constant notifications and get the most important messages from your loved ones directly on your lock screen widgets.

Part 1: Understanding the problem

New social apps almost always are fostered in the high school and college markets. Due to this, we tried to target a similar market with Circle Widget. To get better into the minds of Gen Z user behavior I conducted several interviews with my college friends and the friends of my sister (who was in high school at the time).
From my questions, I learned that younger users are very open to trying new apps out with friends and that they often times can form great word of mouth growth if it catches on in a school. I also learned that many Gen Z users were really interested in making widgets “social”, after the viral growth of locket widget. These responses reinforced my initial hypothesis and helped me better format our value prop. These are some of the questions I asked:

  1. What social apps do you actively use?

  2. How do you message your friends?

  3. How many new apps have you tried out this year?

  4. What frequency do you text close friends in comparison to your more distant friends?

Part 2: Coming up with ideas and solutions

During the brainstorming phase, I focused on creating a solution that was hyper focused on close friend messaging, with a new exciting user experience. Some of the key ideas and solutions that emerged were:

  1. Social Widgets: Building on the social aspect, I explored the idea of incorporating widgets that showcase recent posts or updates from friends on various social media platforms, allowing users to stay connected and informed even without opening multiple apps.

  2. Quick Replies and Actions: Enabling users to respond to messages directly from the widget without unlocking their phones. Additionally, integrating quick actions such as liking, sharing, or marking messages as read, enhancing user engagement.

  3. Fresh app layout: Every new social media app of the past 10 years came with a radical reimagining of social apps’ UI/UX. The best example of this would be Snapchat which put the camera as the very first screen you open to. This history of past social apps, pushed me to think from a first principles perspective on how to reimagine a social app’s layout.

Part 3: DECIDING + PROTOTYPING

With a range of ideas in mind, we honed in on the features that aligned best with our target audience's preferences. We started prototyping the widget's design, considering factors like simplicity, user-friendly navigation, and seamless integration with the lock screen. Visual mockups were created to visualize how the widget would appear on the screen and how users would interact with it.

Part 4: ROUND OF TESTING AND IMPROVEMENTS

Upon developing the initial prototype, we embarked on a series of testing sessions with both college students and high schoolers. The goal was to gather insights into the usability, appeal, and effectiveness of the Circle Widget. Participants were encouraged to use the prototype in their daily routines and provide feedback on their experiences.

After a round of testing and improvements, several key design choices were made for the final version:

  1. Friendship-Centric Design: Building on the social aspect that resonated with Gen Z users, we incorporated pictures updates alongside messages, creating a visually engaging widget that felt almost like a personalized social feed.

  2. Innovative page layout: We wanted the app to feel like nothing else seen out there. In addition to that, we also wanted to encourage users to swipe around and self discover every feature that we created. After a lot of first principles thinking, I came up with this dynamic swipeable page layout. (You can see what I’m talking about in the preview below!)

  3. Widget Messages as conversation starters: To encourage people to use Circle daily with their closest friends we eventually came to the decision to have these lockscreen messages as conversation starters, which when clicked on would open up the chat page where you can talk with friends directly within the app.

By iterating and refining the widget through user feedback, we crafted an innovative solution that addressed the challenge of staying connected amid the noise of constant notifications.

Reflections

After launching the app, we created a number of TikTok videos that got over 100k views. From there, we got over 1k users and a ton of great feedback. Eventually, we got to the point where we were going to have raise some money from investors or step back from the app. We eventually came to decide that we didn’t want to drop out and pursue the app full time. However, the experience as a whole was awesome and I learned a lot about creating products for the Gen Z crowd.