Niche
Niche is an interest-based social network where all of the communities (Clubs) are owned by its members.
Whether it’s a shared hobby, a profession, or even the most obscure interest,
Niche has a club for everything.
PROJECT OVERVIEW

When I joined Niche they were a pre-seed company with a basic app. Though functional, it didn't match their product vision. It lacked user communication, connection and user retention.

I recommended UX overhaul of the app and with buy-in from the CEO and Cofounder, we created the app that it is today.

ROLE

Senior Product Designer

Product Design, UX/UI design, UX Research, Prototyping + Interaction Design

Product Vision

Create an app that connects people based on their niche interests and hobbies. Members create and run their own Clubs. Users own their own data and content and there will never be ads.

GOALS:

Pain Points
  • Users comment on content and never return to it (lacks retention)
  • Comments do not lead to conversations
  • Connection and Community still lacks
  • Sidebar is not intuitive and understood as seperate club feeds
  • One continuous feed feels like Instagram -- content from all the clubs is too much to in-jest at once
User Interviews

The first part of the research was conducting interviews in order to understand our current users, their needs and their painpoints:

  • Features like events, reactions, replies and polls
  • Ways to discover new clubs
  • To be recommended relevant and active clubs based on your interests
  • It's important to be able to have ongoing conversations
  • Finding clubs is difficult
  • Users need to be guided on what to do or post
  • What differentiates this app to it's competitors?

"Connection is key for me. I'm new to the city. I want to join clubs and make friends with likeminded people with similar interests."

The Stats:

65%

of users say they don't understand the sidebar.

55%

of users can not find their ongoing conversations.

40%

of users say the discover screen is confusing and they have difficulty finding new clubs to join.

80%

of users did not see Clubs (or were not placed in clubs) relevant to their interests during onboarding.

Card Sorting

I asked users what pages they expected to see and what features they expected to find within those pages in order to inform the IA.

Solutions + Designs (MVP)

Changes were made based on the research from our users. The homescreen is now a list of all Clubs you are a part of. There is no longer a feed but instead chats for each club where members can connect and have ongoing conversations. The notifications screen was changed and simplified. It's now easier to find ongoing conversations and replies to your messages. Discover is more related to the user's interests based on their activity and the backend AI and you can search for clubs or sort by topics.

Home screen and Club Chat

The sidebar was converted into a home screen where users can view all of their clubs. They can access their updates on each of the clubs, create a new club and mute clubs all on this screen.

Once they select a club they enter the Club's chat. The chat is now continuous conversations that have replies versus singular posts with comments.

Users really liked the change and retention increased.

Discover Clubs

Easy discoverability of Clubs with the top priority being personalized recommendations based on the user's interest and behaviors (using AI).

Users find new Clubs to join and can see who from their contacts are already in the Clubs.

Creating a Club

Creating a Club is a quick process that allows links, location and a description. Each club gets it's own membership card.

Users can use AI for a faster creation of a club. The AI creates club descriptions based on the title of the Club. It also recommends first message prompts to make initial communication seamless and easy.

User Profile

You can click user's profiles to view Clubs in common and to see all their other Clubs. The profile is a place to get to know someone and their interests.
Takeaways

1. Don't assume what the user is thinking
It was very hard to get buy-in from the CEO to change the sidebar (for example) but after I conducted user interviews it was proven that users did not understand how to use it and were frustrated. Never assume what the user is thinking and always ASK THEM.

‍2. Using AI in the right places
AI is the new flashy thing. It can easily be used in the wrong places or distract from the product or feature. When using AI it can be beneficial to pull back on how much you implement it into the product and focus on the backend support it can benefit from first.

‍3. Don't panic and react quickly
When Instagram came out with Threads, the founders panicked and wanted to make major changes to the app. I, instead, saw it as an opportunity to learn from their users—what is working and what is not? It's great research that can be used to make sure our own product is heading in the right direction. Panicking and making rash decisions is not the answer. We need a unique and different product, not a replication of what already exists.

Next Steps

Events
- The ability for Club Owners to create events within their Clubs
- Notifications and reminders to Club members for upcoming events
- Discover events near you

Onboarding
- User can select interests for more relevant Club recommendations
- Only list Clubs with active conversations and that has more than 10 members
- Possibility of an AI chat system that walks the user through onboarding for a more personalized experience
- Ability to download the app and automatically be able to create your own Club without joining Clubs first

AI features
- AI to recommend new message prompts when users join Clubs to remove that barrier of starting conversations
- Club images can be created using with AI based on the title of the Club
- AI to recommend Club descriptions based on the title of the Club

Results

Phase 1 went through user testing and the results were

Next Project
Want to work together?

Don't be shy! Say hello and we'll get in touch.
irinisarlis@gmail.com