Get Together · UX/UI Designer · 2021
Designing a mobile app for spontaneous social meetups
A 5-day design and build sprint with a team of four — creating a mobile-first app that lets people discover activities nearby and connect with potential new friends in real time.
Context
Making friends as an adult in a city is hard. Existing platforms like Meetup require planning ahead; BumbleBFF is profile-based and passive. Get Together was designed around spontaneity — see who's available nearby right now, send an invitation, and go.
Problem
Loneliness in cities is increasing. Adults lack low-friction ways to meet new people through shared activities. The opportunity was a mobile app that removed the planning overhead and made meeting someone feel as easy as ordering a coffee.
Constraints
- 5-day time limit — design and build
- Mobile-first throughout
- Team of 4 (design + engineering)
Process
We began by defining two personas — the host and the attendee — with distinct goals and needs. The host wants to set up an activity quickly and control who joins. The attendee wants to discover something nearby, filter by interest, and join with minimal friction.
From the personas we mapped out the core user flows for both types, identifying the key screens and interactions. We roadmapped the feature set, wireframed the main pages, and I set up the design system before moving into high-fidelity prototypes.
The tight timeline required clear prioritisation. We focused on four main pages — homepage, activity index, show page, and user dashboard — with three secondary layouts for messages, profile, and forms.
Design System
With a clear brand tone — friendly, fun, spontaneous — I set up the type system (PT Sans for body, Source Sans for headers) and brand colours, then built a UI kit with the core components. Typography sizing was mobile-first: max header at 36pt, subtitles at 24px, body at 18px, minimum 16px.
Key Features
- Activity discovery by nearest location, time proximity, and category
- Time countdown on each activity card — reinforces spontaneity
- Swipe right to explore, left to keep searching
- Host flow: create activity, set time, location, and capacity
- In-app chat between host and attendees
- User dashboard: upcoming, past, and hosted activities
- Review system for past get-togethers
Outcome
- Fully designed and built mobile-first web app in 5 days
- Usability tested with target users (millennials, 26–39)
- Differentiated from Meetup and BumbleBFF through real-time, location-based spontaneity