Lip Service is a social media platform designed for the needs of Baby Boomers. Camera-shy users share their stories and connect with others online through bite-sized audio recordings.
THE CHALLENGE
With 75 million Baby Boomers in the U.S., less than half regularly use social media. How might a digital platform serve a generation that has yet to embrace online social discovery?
PROJECT COMPLETION 2015
MY ROLES
Creative Director
Experience Strategist
UX Lead
BOOMERS ARE AN ACTIVE & INFLUENTIAL GENERATION WITH MASSIVE SPENDING POWER.
PROJECT CONTEXT
Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins approached Rockwell Group to translate our consultancy’s expertise designing social spaces into a digital experience. I led a team of two designers and a strategist in Rockwell’s innovation lab to take on this wide-open challenge as a speculative side project. We committed to developing a concept, prototype, and investor pitch within 6 months.
Starting with a very undefined brief, we facilitated a series of company-wide workshops to define and frame the project. We focused the brief on a social networking or matchmaking platform meeting the needs of Baby Boomers, a market largely untapped by social media products.
OUR IDEA WAS THAT A PRODUCT DESIGNED TO BE MORE INCLUSIVE OF AN UNDERSERVED POPULATION WOULD RESULT IN A BETTER EXPERIENCE FOR ALL USERS.
DISCOVERY
CONTEXTUAL RESEARCH
We began with a competitive audit and secondary research on how boomers use digital media.
Research revealed that boomers spend two more hrs/wk online than Millennials, and are almost 20% more likely to share online content than any other generation.
ALTHOUGH BOOMERS ARE OPEN TO NEW, ONLINE EXPERIENCES, CURRENT SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS CATER ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY TO MILLENNIALS.
GENERATIVE RESEARCH
To build empathy for our audience, we conducted live user interviews with people born from 1946 to 1964. We explored what aspects of social media appealed to them, and what turned them off. We looked to uncover unmet needs that might be design opportunities.
HOW MIGHT A DIGITAL PLATFORM HELP BOOMERS EXPLORE NEW INTERESTS AND MAKE MEANINGFUL CONNECTIONS—WHILE RESPECTING THEIR COMFORT LEVEL WITH SHARING & PRIVACY?
IDEATION & CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
After much brainstorming & synthesis using design thinking frameworks, our team narrowed in on an audio platform concept that lets users connect by sharing stories.
Storytelling is a universal and time-tested way to engage people. The audio format not only would sidestep boomers’ reluctance to share personal photos & video, it also showed proven success in radio, audiobooks, and podcasts.
THE CONCEPT GIVES USERS A TOOL TO SHARE STORIES, DISCUSS THEM, AND MEET LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE VIA AUDIO. WE COMBINED THE ANCIENT PRACTICE OF STORYTELLING WITH NEW FORMATS LIKE SOCIAL MEDIA AND ONLINE MATCHMAKING.
USER JOURNEY
We mapped out a rough user journey and collected feedback from potential users. We gave the platform a working name, Lipservice.
LIPSERVICE IS AN INTERACTIVE AUDIO SHARING PLATFORM WHERE PEOPLE CAN HEAR OR POST MINI PODCASTS, AND ENGAGE VIA TEXT AND VOICE.
HOW IT WORKS
Each week, Lipservice posts a TOPIC OF THE WEEK, with audio stories from noteworthy featured guests.
Users listen and can browse other themes from past weeks (10 free stories/wk).
Users respond to stories by posting comments via text.
Users can direct message with other users via text or audio recordings.
Users record, edit, & upload their own stories (1 free upload/wk).
BASED ON OUR FEEDBACK, WE DEFINED 3 CATEGORIES OF USERS—SPECTATORS, COMMENTATORS, & CREATORS—WITH DIFFERENT LEVELS OF ENGAGEMENT.
PROTOTYPING & ITERATION
We progressed from storyboarding to creating mid-fidelity wireframes. We ran “think-aloud” sessions to test our ideas with people we grabbed in our office, and tweaked the interactions based on feedback. Testers in our target demographic told us they preferred a tablet format over smaller mobile screens.
early paper prototype
mid-fidelity wire frames
user flow
