Liv2BGirl (Spring 2020)
Addressing the negative impact of social media on young women by creating a positive and supportive social media platform.
About Project
Social media has been shown to have negative effects on mental health for children and teens across the board. Having a strong application that can be moderated well to support girls and young women would have a positive effect. The platform we have developed is completely anonymous and heavily moderated so that users feel this is a safe space where they can interact with each other in a meaningful way. There are currently two key features the app provides to accomplish these goals. Users can join "Groups" to discuss interests in a particular topic of their choosing. Users can also ask any questions that crosses their mind where they feel feedback from other girls and from official mentors of the organization would be useful in the "AskMe" page.
Our Client
Liv2BGirl
Liv2BGirl is an organization that focuses on supporting girls and young women by providing them with an environment they where they can interact with one another in a meaningful, authentic way. Where they can connect with other girls that have common interests, goals, concerns. Where they can safely share the ideas, thoughts, and images that define them. Where they can learn to respectfully express themselves online
Our Process
Product Scope
Client Goals 🥅
The client would like a social media platform that tackles the key mission of the organization (outlined above). To accomplish this, they envision having some key features implemented in the application. These features include: users chatting with each other about interesting topics, users asking questions and receiving advice/support form other users and verified "mentors" on the app, mentors to be able to share content application-wide about anything they may think a user would need to know about or would be beneficial to users, and Moderator functionalities to ensure safety is maintained on the application
End-User Goals âš½
The user would like a compact social media platform that she can go on to interact with other girls around the world regarding any topic. More specifically, girls would like to be able to see positive content, information, and thoughts on this application so that they can uplift their spirits and learn new and interesting perspectives that may be applicable to them everyday. Lastly, this application should provide some form of advice and support if a girl is in need of that.
Technology 💻
Our project is written in JavaScript, using React for frontend interfaces and Next.js for API functions and server-side rendering. All data is permanently stored in a MongoDB database instance. The project is currently being hosted on a Heroku instance.
Our Solution
Key Features
Groups
The purpose of this feature is so that girls can discuss a common topic of interest. For example, if a girl is interested in "Horseback riding", she can create a group about this topic and other users can join the group and discuss this topic with her and the other members of the group.
AskMe
The purpose of this feature is so that a girl can receive advice on any topic that she is wondering about. For example, if someone is going through a hard time in school because they are dealing with a bully, they may ask for advice like "how do I stand up to others?". Ambassadors of the application can respond to the question and their response will be pinned at the top as the main response. Further, other users can also respond to the question and give advice to the girl.
User Flow 🌊
With the key functionalities decided we brainstormed about the subfunctions and designed the paths user will take to complete different tasks through them. We aimed to design a user flow that is clear, comprehensive, intuitive so that users in different scenarios all can complete their tasks smoothly. The flow will help us determine what pages will be needed and what content and navigational elements will be on each page.
Our Team
Reflection 💬
"I loved serving as the Engineering Manager for Liv2BGirl this semester. Being able to serve as the coordinator between product, design, and developers has been an incredibly rewarding opportunity. Developing a social media app for Liv2BGirl presented a unique challenge and gave plenty of opportunities to improve my skills in development. I really enjoyed working with my team this semester and making new friends in the process."
"This is my second semester in Bits of Good. I feel lucky to have the chance to work on something new to me and also have friendly and reliable team members support each other. For me as a designer, one of the best things to be part of Bits of Good is being able to work with product managers and developers and see our design becomes viable product and really benefit some end users. I'm excited to learn more about doing design and working with other roles here and see what impact we can make in the future."
"I loved being a Product Manager for the team this year. Designing a social media platform involved combining ideas from several existing platforms to create something with a unique and impact vision unlike existing products. It was an interesting problem to tackle. I also really enjoyed getting to know all my team members this year and creating memories with everyone."
"A couple of our team members get dinner at Sweet Tomatoes."