Jacket (UX: Wireframes)
Personal ProjectJacket is a conceptual social media platform where people collect and share “Patches,” concepts that align with their values and personal identity. Users build a robust profile of these ideas, gain insights about their preferences, and connect with each other in a wholesome manner.
In a personal mock project meant to test my UX process, I sought to identify and meet the wants and needs of younger generations. My project began by identifying audiences of Gen Z through older Millenials, with a focus on social media and media consumption. I was specifically interested in the ways young people use entertainment preferences to navigate their identity on social media. My hypothesis: By attributing human-centered UX design practices to one of the most outspoken and socially vulnerable populations, we can identify and take on broader conflicts in technology and habituation.
Research
After thorough research and a number of UX exercises, I identified a breakdown of user wants and needs, expressed via empathy maps and personas. I meant to address social media saturation and unhealthy practices that tech companies use to exploit their users. Despite our reverance for technology, there is still an untapped market of platforms built specifically around media consumption and the communication of personal identities (often ascribed through stories, characters, memes, or Buzzfeed-like quizzes, Tumblr blogs, or listicles).
My audience’s motivation to interact with art is highly reliant on an expression of their personality traits. For more and more young people, what they consume is very much a form of their identity management. To navigate this, I want to provide user’s with a platform where they can explore these concepts in a way that doesn’t exploit the user’s time, privacy, and fear of missing out.
My audience’s motivation to interact with art is highly reliant on an expression of their personality traits. For more and more young people, what they consume is very much a form of their identity management. To navigate this, I want to provide user’s with a platform where they can explore these concepts in a way that doesn’t exploit the user’s time, privacy, and fear of missing out.
“Personal identifications are especially vital in social media content, since social media is largely about the promotion of one’s self-brand.”
My audience applies their identities to inform individual expression and communicate with each other within media discourse. Furthermore, analyzing how they experience and interpret media consumption provides key insight into developing critical media literacy, the persuasive power of social media, and the construction of their consumer identity.
Instead of creating a social identity to be targeted for products and services, I want to give that power of data and interpellation to the consumers themselves. In other words, this concept needs to do two things: Create a space where users can easily communicate their interests, and be a tool to help young people better understand themselves.
With these goals in mind, I began an exhaustive wireframing and prototyping phase.
“Tag Yourself” memes, quizzes, listicles, and other similar forms of creative self-expression through media consumption, served as a rallying point concept for meeting my audience’s needs.
Wireframes & Prototyping
A major draw to social media platforms is the user’s ability to express their likes and interests. This is often done through hundreds of posts, images, and shares. The goal of Jacket is to be even more deliberate than platforms like Tumblr, where users can curate their perfected social media brand and express themselves in the plainest terms.
This is Linktree, mixed with Carrd, mixed with WikiData. Through data, we can give reccomendations and insights about concepts that would normally never be pitched to users. This service can provide young people a way to expand their world view, and find new things that closely align with their idealogy and values.
Jacket isn't a forum, nor a fully integrated social media system. Young people are busy, exposed to more than ever, and social media is already hypersaturated. Jacket is merely a customizable page that users link to, maintain, and come back to for insight.
This is Linktree, mixed with Carrd, mixed with WikiData. Through data, we can give reccomendations and insights about concepts that would normally never be pitched to users. This service can provide young people a way to expand their world view, and find new things that closely align with their idealogy and values.
Jacket isn't a forum, nor a fully integrated social media system. Young people are busy, exposed to more than ever, and social media is already hypersaturated. Jacket is merely a customizable page that users link to, maintain, and come back to for insight.
Refinement, Branding, and Visual UI
