In a world dominated by busy schedules and digital distractions, many people struggle to maintain consistent communication with their friends and loved ones. Cherie was born from the insight that small, regular interactions can greatly strengthen relationships, yet they are often overlooked.

To understand the problem space better - to understand the varying challenges, significance of this problem to individuals, current methods and their limitations, I started by conducting interviews with varied demographics. I recruited 8 individuals from different age groups, genders and professions, as well as varied social lifestyles (extroverts & introverts) and those living away from family and friends as I felt there would be a significant difference in their approach to maintaining relationships. I supplemented this with a survey to gather quantitative data on the frequency of communication and the challenges faced by individuals in maintaining relationships. The following are the breakdown of the interview pool:

Gathering the data I created activity notes and derived an affinity diagram to identify patterns and insights. The following is the  Affinity diagram  that was created, followed by a summary of the insights gathered.

This then allowed me to create a persona that would represent the target user group for the application. The persona related to the user group that would benefit the most from the application, which tends to be those living away from family and friends and those with busy schedules. The persona was created to help guide the design process and ensure that the application would cater to the needs of the target user group.

Based on the insights gathered from the user research, I identified the key requirements for the application. These main 3 requirements were critical challenges faced by the user and would make the defining deliverable of the application.

To visualize the user journey and test the application, I created a user journey map that outlined the steps a user would take to achieve their goal. This allowed me to identify how the application can supplement the feature requirements, as well as possible bottlenecks. The following are the 3 test scenarios that were created to test the application:

The design philosophy behind Cherie was centered around empathy and usability. After identifying key pain points such as forgetfulness, scheduling difficulties, and lack of conversation starters, I designed a user-friendly interface that would help users overcome these challenges.

1. I first developed a  low-fidelity wireframe  to visualize the user journey and then iterated on its interactive prototype, testing with potential users to gather feedback and refine the interface.

   
2. This allowed me to improve the design, coming up with a  mid-fidelity prototype   that was much closer to the final product and followed the "happy path" of the user journey for each test case.

   
3. Finally, I brainstormed on suitable color schemes and typography for varied demographics in age and gender, as well, continued user testing to further expand on functionalities, which allowed me to create the  high-fidelity prototype  that was ready for development.

Building Cherie was a deeply rewarding experience that allowed me to blend my technical expertise in Flutter with my passion for creating meaningful user experiences. The project taught me the importance of empathy-driven design and the value of user feedback in shaping a product that truly resonates.

1. Expand the app’s functionality to include group reminders for planning meetups.
2. Incorporate analytics to help users understand and improve their communication patterns.
3. Explore AI-driven suggestions for personalized conversation topics.