CIRCLE
A unique service dedicated to discovering and sharing inclusive and cultural events in Berlin, designed to elevate underrepresented voices and distinguish itself from traditional platforms by focusing intensely on voices that sparks diversity and accessibility.
Client
Capstone Project
Field
Digital Event Platform
Duration
4 Weeks
Team
3 UX/UI Designers
OVERVIEW
As a queer person, diversity, inclusion, and equality deeply resonate with me. These values sparked the initial vision for CIRCLE. This case study details our team’s approach through the UX/UI research and design processes for our Capstone Project, aimed at broadening access to diverse cultural events in Berlin. We tackled the marginalization of underrepresented voices within the city's vibrant arts scene, a challenge identified from our own struggles and validated through early user research and community feedback.
My Tasks
Collaboration: Fostered teamwork among diverse members, enhancing synergy.
Design Oversight: Ensured alignment with project goals and user needs.
Workflow Management: Maintained smooth, timely project executions.
Conceptual Design: Contributed innovative, user-centric solutions.
UX Research: Conducted in-depth studies to understand user behaviors.
UX Writing: Crafted clear, accessible, and engaging communication for CIRCLE.
the challenge - Let me take you on a journey
Berlin celebrates its diversity, continuously creating space for what's different—one of its defining qualities. However, despite its cultural vibrancy, the arts scene in Berlin faces issues of fragmentation and inaccessibility, particularly for diverse and underrepresented groups. Current tools for discovering cultural events often favor mainstream narratives, directing users mostly towards major institutions and exacerbating the visibility gap for marginalized groups. Our objective was to delve deeply into local experiences and behaviors when engaging with Berlin's cultural diversity.
EXPLORATION PHASE
What makes this city's cultural scene so impactful?
What platforms are people using to find events?
What gaps can we identify in these services?
How can design make culture more accessible?
Our main goal was to grasp a full understanding of the social-political context and analyzing our competitors, essential for laying a solid foundation for our service.
We evaluated various platforms and media to uncover user pain points and identify gaps in the current offerings, summarizing our findings to guide the next phase of our research.
Discovery Phase
Can a centralized service showcasing a diverse array of curated cultural content increase the visibility of underrepresented perspectives and make Berlin's art scene more inclusive and accessible?
We explored this question through a series of workshops and in-depth interviews, gathering robust insights that informed our design decisions and led us to the development phase.
CRAFTING SOLUTIONS | SHAPING IDEAS
Armed with these insights, we brainstormed innovative solutions to address the identified challenges. Our focus was on creating features that made the platform both user-friendly and inclusive, enhancing the sense of community among users.
Design System - Inspiration from Art
Inspired by editorial magazines and street posters, we aimed to create CIRCLE as a welcoming space for all types of art, events, artists, and venues.
From design tokens to fully reusable components, our goal was to create a minimalistic yet impactful aesthetic.
Our design principles—simplicity in motion, dynamic expansion, and fostering shared experiences—guided our visual identity, making it inclusive and engaging for all users.
App Features
Discovery Page: A dynamic home screen that adapts to user interactions, featuring tailored content and connections, enhancing personal relevance.
Search Page: Enables easy access to events, locations, or artists, enhanced by intuitive filters to streamline the search process.
Event Page: Provides an immersive experience by collating all essential information in one place, enhancing user engagement.
Sharing an Event: Facilitates sharing events within the app or externally, enhancing community interaction and connectivity.
Save & Create a Circle: Allows users to create "Circles"—collections that can be private or public—to save favorite events and view others’ collections, aiding in decision-making and social exploration.
Planning and Voting: Encourages collaborative event planning and decision-making within Circles, maintaining high engagement levels and user investment in the platform.
Reminders: In-app reminders help users manage their event schedules and receive timely notifications, ensuring they never miss an event of interest.
On-Boarding & Discovery
EVENT PAGE & SHARING
SAVE & MAKE A CIRCLE
THE (END) RESULT
This project gave me the opportunity to work with a great team and put user research and collaboration into practice throughout the process..
The journey with CIRCLE provided invaluable insights that shaped the service and taught us profound lessons about designing for community inclusion—the driving force behind our passion for this project. We have laid a solid foundation and the desire for CIRCLE's future development.
To my team,
Thank you for your dedication and creativity.
Luis and Sonja, your contributions were crucial in bringing CIRCLE to life.