InReach
An app focused on simulating the serendipity of reconnecting on social media without all of the other distractions.
InReach Wordmark
Contributions
- The concept
- User interface design (Figma)
- Prototyping (Figma)
Problem
While exchanging contact information with my project groupmates, I discovered that the general sentiment towards Instagram was “I don’t want to use it, but I want to have casual opportunities to reach out to more casual friends or new acquaintances”.
I have a more systematic approach to keeping up with my friends without using social media, but that moment made me consider how a tool dedicated to recreating the serendipity found in social media without many of the traditional drawbacks.
Solution
Main menus and overlays
Rediscover
After syncing with a user’s contacts app, Rediscover shows the user’s contact cards in a random order, and give users the option to reach out, “skip” them (a là Tinder), or delete them from the contacts list altogether.
Remind
Remind nudges users towards cultivating one deliberate connection through periodic reminders. It takes a “one-reminder-a-day” mechanism similar BeReal and applies it to reaching out to a contact of a user’s choosing. At the end of the week, users are prompted about whether or not they’d like to switch out the contact they’ve chosen to focus on.
Prototypes
Design Considerations
- Used iOS menus and SF Symbols to prioritize usability and simplicity
- Used familiar interactions to simplify user education
- Created taglines to put the name “InReach” into a natural-sounding sentence (“…with InReach” ➜ “within reach”)