In our increasingly busy lives, people often struggle to maintain relationships despite the number of connectivity tools available. Most tools focus on new connections or content consumption, rather than prioritizing existing bonds. Inspired by conversations with friends and Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, tools to help maintain relationships, I set out to explore why so many struggle to prioritize connections and how a CRM-like tool could help people maintain and strengthen relationships.
People find it challenging to connect and maintain their existing relationships due to lack of time, energy, and tools that make connectivity feel personal and meaningful. How can a product help people prioritize existing relationships and inspire connection in a way that feels warm, personal, and effortless?
Sway is a concept app MVP that leverages the power of shared memories to help people bond with their existing relationships. By reflecting on cherished moments, rather than relying on traditional set reminders or tracking systems, the app encourages genuine and meaningful connections.
Conversations with friends suggested a CRM-like tool could help maintain relationships. While I was familiar with CRMs in a business context, I wasn’t sure if they could support personal connections. To explore this, I researched existing CRMs and gathered insights on user sentiments regarding maintaining relationships.
CRMs were a jumping off point for a potential solution therefore I began my research by analyzing 3 popular CRM tools to understand their strengths and weaknesses in promoting connection and identify areas for differentiation. Through this analysis, I determined there is an opportunity to develop an approach that motivates connection.
My competitive analysis shifted the research focus from how people track and promote connection to what motivates them. I held conversations with participants from online forums to gain a deeper understanding of their relationship dynamics and the motivations and challenges they face in connecting. Due to these being personal topics, I took a conversational approach, focusing on building trust through active and empathetic listening.
What makes you reach out to your friends and family?
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To synthesize the qualitative data from conversations, I used affinity mapping to identify key themes, uncovering insights into user challenges and needs in maintaining meaningful connections. These insights align with findings from my competitive analysis and point to an opportunity for a solution that makes connecting effortless and personal, motivating connections through spontaneous, meaningful triggers that resonate with users more than automated reminders.
The problem, goals, and user needs drove my ideation, sparking feature concepts like friend profiles and memory storage. To increase creativity, I used rapid ideation and drew inspiration from unexpected sources, like baseball cards.
Using the MoSCoW framework, I prioritized features that foster connection, encourage meaningful engagement, and stand apart from existing tools.
From the features I identified three main task flows required for the product to work: swiping through the Friend Highlights on the homepage, creating a friend, and creating a memory. To ensure functionality, usability, and that design patterns informed and reinforced one another, I designed the flows alongside low-fidelity wireframes.
The concept of memories informed branding, evoking a sense of warmth and closeness, aligning with the product vision. A dark mode, featuring a greyish-purple background paired with white typography ensures legibility, while warm, soft colors and gradients reflect users’ cherished memories. I used a monotone primary palette with sparingly applied secondary accents for a cohesive visual experience. Rounded sans-serif typography ensures both readability and emotional resonance, balancing accessibility with a sense of comfort.
After identifying key screens and components for task flows, I tested my initial concepts using Maze for quick validation. I wanted to ensure users could navigate the main flows and that design patterns were user-friendly. The feedback gathered helped refine designs as I moved to high-fidelity, with a focus on feature clarity, data input usability, and overall screen functionality.
I conducted virtual usability tests with five participants via Google Meet to assess the main flows and Friends screen of the high-fidelity prototype. I tracked task error rates and user satisfaction using Google Sheets, along with qualitative feedback on design clarity and usability. The tests revealed a need for feature clarity, improved navigation, and more user-friendly creation flows with better data gathering processes.
I designed the UI kit to ensure consistency and streamline scaling for future features, making the product adaptable and cohesive as it grows.
The goal of this project was to design a solution that facilitates authentic, meaningful personal connections by going beyond traditional CRM approaches like scheduled reminders and tracking connections. Sway successfully addressed this by centering the user experience around shared memories, making interactions feel spontaneous and personal. This approach resonated strongly with participants, resulting in a 90% Customer Satisfaction Score and feedback that highlighted how much more genuine Sway’s interactions felt compared to existing tools.
Despite this success, Sway’s reliance on manual memory creation and limited functionality were noted as areas for improvement. Future iterations can address these gaps by exploring features like:
A key lesson from this project is that adding optional features don’t always add value. Although the “Reminders” feature was optional, it caused confusion and didn’t align with the product’s goal of promoting intentional and genuine connections. This experience reinforced the “less is more” philosophy; features should only be added if they clearly support the product’s vision. Moving forward, I will make an effort to avoid scope creep by questioning unnecessary additions and focus on features that truly enhance the user experience.
Usability testing played a crucial role in uncovering this insight. By testing early, I was able to quickly identify “Reminders” as unnecessary and remove it from the experience. This reinforced how important it is to validate design decisions early in the process to ensure product remains aligned with goals and user needs.
