Drew Van Diest Design

Social Media Startup

Spark

Social Media Startup

Spark

Client

Business partner & myself

My role

Head of Design, Partner

Responsibilities

Lead design & creative strategy for startup

Build product from the ground up

Lead design & creative strategy for startup

Build product from the ground up

Methods

Design Thinking

Prototyping

UI Design

High-fidelity prototypes

Usability testing

User Research

User Interviews

Wireframes

Style guide

Design Thinking

Prototyping

UI Design

High-fidelity prototypes

Usability testing

User Research

User Interviews

Wireframes

Style guide

Tools

Figma

Sketching

Figma

Sketching

01 I Problem & Opportunity Space

Problem

The main reason people use the internet and social media is to stay in touch with friends and family. Those important interactions happen in environments that users say they do not like.

Current social media (driven by advertising dollars) has been proven to impact users with many negative outcomes, including mental health disorders, poor self-esteem, addiction, cyber bullying, misinformation, low quality social connection, and more.

Tech & social media companies were blind to or chose to ignore the consequences of building habit-forming products that resulted in social media addiction.

Teens fighting big tobacco needs a web presence that represents them, informs people about their club, their goals , and makes it easy to join.

Club communication and sharing of social media assets needs to be streamlined.

The teens need to be able to maintain the site and update the content themselves post-launch.

Opportunity

Optimize for connections, not engagement

Flip the social media business model & fix the incentives of the internet

Provide real value to users by optimizing for connection, not engagement

A custom Wix site that represents the diversity of the Incorruptible.us teens, their club, shares resources, and makes it easy for new members to join.

Handoff onboarding materials with a PDF guide, Loom videos & a live presentation with Q&A to teach current and future YTAG members how to maintain and update their custom site.

A TikTok integration that allows students to update content on their site by using #IncorruptibleUs

Outcomes

Social media users make real, meaningful connections

Reduction of negative consequences of social media

Social media users make real, meaningful connections

Reduction of negative consequences of social media

02 I Research

The Anxious Generation

Youth Tobacco Action Group

The U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, wrote an Opinion essay published in the New York Times calling

for a warning label on social media platformes, akin to labels on other products like cigarettes. He wrote, "The mental health crisis among young people is an emergency — and social media has emerged as an important contributor.

The U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, wrote an Opinion essay published in the New York Times calling

Statistics

Social media use

linked to

heightened risk of

mental health problems

"Adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms, and the average daily use in this age group, as of the summer of 2023, was 4.8 hours." (Source: JAMA Psychiatry,

academic paper)

The teens requested we hand-off a custom-coded Wix site that they would continue to maintain and update with fresh content.

Nearly half of

adolescents say

social media makes

them feel bad about

their bodies.

We asked participants about the impacts, both positive and negative, of social media….participants did think social media made some things worse, including grades in school (31.3%) and body image (46%).

(Source: Boston Children's

Digital Wellness Lab)

At least one third of

middle & high school

students have

reported cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying can take many forms, all of them harmful. It may involve harassment, the sharing of nude photos, encouraging self-harm or suicide, or falsely accusing someone of reporting troublemakers to administrators. (Source: Cyberbullying Research Center)

The teens requested we hand-off a custom-coded Wix site that they would continue to maintain and update with fresh content.

Research methods

User Interviews

Secondary Research

Competitive Analysis

User Surveys

Data Analysis

Data Coding & Bucketing

Data Coding & bucketing

User Interviews

Our users say...

03 I The Idea

Social media

that's good

We identified features of current social platforms that have negative effects on their users. Below

are features and goals that Spark will offer as solutions to these problems:

Fully customizable, modular profile pages. Spark users create profiles that truly represents them. Current social media platforms put users in a box and make it hard for people to showcase their full personalities. Our users can add their own backgrounds, music, videos, writings, gifs, memes, polls, AI creations, and more

No quantifiable metrics. Counting likes, views and other data often makes people feel bad and makes

them compare themselves to others.

Eliminate endless scroll. Endless scroll contributes to social media addiction, insomnia, and informational overload.

Prioritize connection. Primarily, users should add people they know in“real life”. Facilitate online friendships

because of common interests via our Circles feature. Help new online friends create real world relationships.

Our Circles feature helps people bond with others who have the same interests. Connecting over common interests

makes more meaningful connections.

No ads. Advertising drives the attention economy and social media addiction on current platforms.

We won’t have their hands in our experience. Spark will be funded by micro-transactions like special profile stickers, assets,

and sharing stickers with others.

Threaded comments. Comments on posts follow the order of the conversation, not the ones that score the highest

metrics.

04 I Ideation & Design

Sketches

I sketched out ideas and discussed with my business partner to get ideas and features flowing.

Lo-fi Wireframes

05 I UI Design

Y2K nostalgia with a

little extra gloss

When I talked to users about their favorite social media platforms, Myspace and Tumblr came up a lot.

Taking inspiration from these platforms made sense because they're fun, customizable, and full of personality. We are tapping into Millenials' nostalgia and the Y2K trend that is popular with Gen-Z.

When I talked to users about their favorite social media platforms, Myspace and Tumblr came up a lot.

Taking inspiration from these platforms made sense because they're fun, customizable, and full of personality. We are tapping into Millenials' nostalgia and the Y2K trend that is popular with Gen-Z.

Moodboard

Comparing &

choosing plugins

Comparing &

choosing plugins

After creating lo-fi sketches, we researched and compared the plugins that most closely satisfied our feature requirements. We compared plugins for events, TikTok, Instagram and many widgets.

Ideation & lo-fi wireframes

Information architecture

Mid-fidelity wireframes

Final Design & Implementation

Design & engineering

collaborate to meet challenges

Design & engineering

collaborate to meet challenges

Design & engineering

collaborate to meet challenges

Creating traditional hi-fi wires for this project didn’t makes sense. WIX is not designed for going outside its templates. Our developers and designers, found that WIX becomes very temperamental when trying to customize with code.

Hi-fi meant building the website within the editor because we were constantly running into unforeseen technical limitations that would effect our ultimate designs. Designers and developers collaborated closely to make adaptations along the way.

Engagement Highlight

One of our biggest priorities was to design a site that the teens feel represents them. We knew that the teens were active on TikTok, so we created an Incorruptible TikTok challenge.

When someone uses the assigned hashtag their TikTok video is showcased on the Who We Are page.

One of our biggest priorities was to design a site that the teens feel represents them. We knew that the teens were active on TikTok, so we created an Incorruptible TikTok challenge.

When someone uses the assigned hashtag their TikTok video is showcased on the Who We Are page.

06 I Onboarding & Handoff

Pass it on

Once the final site was live, we had to make sure YTAG had all the knowledge, guidance and tools to maintain the site for years to come. We handed over the site and knowledge of maintaining it in several ways.

Handoff guide

Contains crucial site information and detailed instructions for updating content and maintaining their website.

Loom videos

We created video tutorials with Loom that can be watched, downloaded, and kept on file for the future.

Zoom tutorials

A live demonstartion was hosted with YTAG members and coordinators so that we could discuss their site and how to work with it live.

Drew Van Diest

Design

Drew Van Diest

Design

Links

Resume