Find My New Friends
Andrew Wilson
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Project Statement
Find My New Friends is an addition to the existing application Find My on-Apple devices; the new feature will have people interacting on a live map to make new friends.
The biggest design challenge for this application is keeping it in line with what Apple offers. The usability and interface must align with what Apple already provides (clean/straightforward) and the ethics Apple heeds. The latter is the biggest issue, as this pushes their ethical line. On this application people can see other people’s locations and that could be grounds for stalking/harassing. Any application in which a user voluntarily gives out this type of information inherently has the risk that someone will abuse this information. I’ve made sure that I added features where people can block other users and restrict their location to a general area (their current town). Obviously, I can only mitigate that so much; however, this application feature has enough potential that the reward would outweigh the risk. It is worth a proposal, even with its possible dangers/risks.
The design process has involved me learning Figma to create a working prototype, and researching Apple applications to make a prototype that aligns with Apple’s interface standards. I have gotten feedback from my professor and a local professional, which helped me inform a mid-fidelity prototype. With my mid-fidelity prototype finished I conducted usability testing and got some valuable feedback from those who participated. I have been making changes to the prototype with this feedback in mind.
This feature could help people meet new friends in an increasingly connected world via devices and a decreasingly connected world/society via face-to-face interactions. In addition, this will help break the ice for many people who may otherwise have too much social anxiety to meet new people face-to-face in a typical environment. A typical environment could include places such as town squares, gyms, the boardwalk, or parks amongst many other places people gather. This application will have no association with dating as most “friend” applications currently have. It will also be in real time, so in theory you will be able to see participants moving around on your live map. This feature would be something never done before, and it will ice-break real-life interactions in real-time.
