Lineup
PROBLEM
Fueled by the fear of rejection, woman leaders find it emotionally taxing to ask other party attendees for a dance. This limits their ability to practice and ultimately become skilled leaders.
GOAL
Help beginner woman dancers to find partners willing to be led by them in a hassle-free and safe way.
OUTCOME
A platform that helps beginner dancers pursuing the non-traditional role for their gender to find willing partners to practice with at the party.
TOOLS
Procreate
FigJam
Figma
maze.co
Keynote
DURATION
15 weeks
CLIENT
MFA thesis
Role & Collaborators
MY ROLE
Lead designer
WHAT I DID
User interviews, wire-framing, low-to-high-fidelity prototyping, assumptions mapping, user testing
COLLABORATORS
Krissi Xenakis: interaction design advisor
Lineup is a digital dance card that helps beginner dancers find willing partners to practice with at the party.
Designed to reduce the fear of rejection that partner dancers experience, Lineup connects Learners, Helpers, and dance event Businesses to facilitate dance learning through the lens of gender inclusivity.
Clickable prototype
research
Problem discovery
32% of women are not leading as much as they want to.
In a survey I conducted of 25 women in the Latin partner dance scene in NYC, I learned that there is a large drop in the percentage of women who habitually lead in class vs. at the actual dance party. This helped validate one of the difficulties I was personally experiencing in my dance journey.
Generative interviews
Anxiety gets in the way of women leading at socials.
To better understand the party or "social" setting and the challenges that women faced in the space, I conducted several interviews with women leaders of different expertise levels. The biggest takeaways were that beginners are especially intimidated by the party, that judgment hurts women's confidence, and that it's difficult to ask for dances.
User journey mapping
Direct or vague rejection is what most discourages women leaders.
I conducted specific interviews with beginner women leaders to get a full picture of what a night of dancing is like for them. The fear of rejection and the pressure to perform are so significant, that women often give up turn to the comforts of following, which they already are better at.
Problem statement
Having a dance with an uneager partner hurts women's confidence.
Impact
Opportunity statement
How might we design a better way for woman dancers learning to lead, who struggle to practice during the dance event, to find partners willing to be led by them?
Without practice, women can't become the experienced leaders they want to be. Eventually, strong role models will encourage more women to lead and further disrupt gendered dance roles.
development
Historical inspiration
European ballroom dance cards form the 1800's.
Essentially an analogue dance-booking system, male suitors would have their name added to an available song (think time slot) of a lady's dance card. The woman would then be committed to having that dance with that suitor.
I went back to my user interviews and drew inspiration for strategies to boost confidence, increase commitment and improve skills on the dance floor that women leaders had shared with me.
Experience strategy
Book dances, receive affirmations, get feedback.
Low-fidelity wireframing
Designing the key flow: creating and booking your dance card.
In designing this flow, some of the further requirements for the platform became to come into play. Aside from selecting the user type, learners had to select how many dances, their event, and find a way to enter their partner's information.
Site mapping
I used site mapping to make sense of the interactivity and data transfer between user types, and more easily prototype the key product screen.
Task and data flow across Learners, Helpers, and Businesses.
UX research
Testing the basic assumptions for a digital dance card.
With a low-fidelity prototype of the platform's key flow, I set out to validate the high-risk underlying assumptions with a user test. These were (1) are women OK getting randomly assigned to eager partners? (2) will receiving affirmations boost confidence? and (3) How much value do women see in this app?
Research takeaways
Users were comfortable with partner randomization, saw value in the product (7.8 NPS score), and perceived how it would reduce the fear of rejection and remove pressure, especially for shy or introverted dancers.
Booking and affirmations are valued. Reflecting, not so much.
Branding & UI
Taking inspiration from online dance and learning applications.
I took the confident aesthetic of popular online dance learning platforms like Steezy, Koros and Everdance, but exchanged the dynamic, urban coolness for the approachable, down-to-earth quality of learning apps like Quizlet and Duolingo. I opted for a gender neutral aesthetic since the product would need to appeal to male helpers, and co-ed businesses.
final outcomes
Features
Book a card
Learners book a number of practice dances for the night (over time, AI will suggest a manageable number). Them, Learners request dances to Helpers attending the same event as them.
Randomization helps introverts meet new people and prevents the app from becoming dating-driven.
Smart affirmations & progress
After the dance, Helpers can send anonymous affirmations and feedback to Learners. Affirmations improve Learner's confidence. Feedback gets collected into practice areas for Learners to select and track at their leisure.
Curriculum suggestions
Based on the collective data from all Learners, Businesses can see overlapping practice areas that their Learners are looking to improve. They can then add it to a report to share with their instructors.
Prototype recording
Takeaways
Next steps
1. Mapping out the user flow diagram for this platform was challenging but super fun. It helped me get a grasp of all the cross-user interactions and identify key moments to prototype.
2. Defining assumptions was super helpful in framing the goals of my first round of user testing.
3. It is challenging to user test when not all in-between-screens are clickable. Some users really get confused.
As a fan of research, I'd like to conduct a second round of user testing, this time with Helpers and Businesses users. To get there, I would first need to build out the key flows for each of these user types.
As a side project sometime in the future, I'd like to run a real test at a dance event using a low-resource method like a pen-and-paper sign-up. If that succeeds, I would collaborate up with a developer in the partner dance community (there are actually quite a few!) to create the app!