- Mark - user journey
- Ken, an exchange student from Japan who also arrived to Canada 3 weeks ago, Would consider himself quite shy when looked at from the outside, but on the inside he enjoys getting to know people and connect with them and form strong bonds and friendships.
- He was worried that during his time in university in Canada he would not be able to find someone to form a strong friendship with. Or, in his words, “a Canadian Toby”
- Toby is his one and only best friend in the University of Tokyo And he was hoping to join him in his exchange program, but unfortunately, due to financial reasons, Toby couldn’t make it.
- But despite Ken being afraid of coming here alone, he knew that it would be a good opportunity to get out of his comfort zone and try making more friends.
- Since he would consider himself an introvert, he didn’t enjoy going to big groups or clubs because he would just be quiet in there and not feel like he belongs.
- So he thought to himself, “How else would I be able to find friends in here? Everyone seems to already have their group”, and that made Ken feel a little bit isolated and homesick in the first three weeks.
- One day, while Ken was having lunch in Mac Hall, he kind of had this thought: “Man, I wish someone would approach me and talk to me.”
- Ken was afraid that:
- He would be rejected, or
- he would be disturbing people, or
- the other person would not be interested, or
- he would put himself in an awkward situation, or
- he would put the other person in an awkward situation
- There were a lot of things that stopped Ken from doing the approaching himself, so he just sat there and had lunch by himself, wishing that someone else would be courageous enough to approach him.
- As he was leaving Mac Hall, a poster with a title “make friends the easy way using Orbit” catches his eye.
- That night, he decides to give this application a try.
- He creates an account and answers a series of questions provided by the app.
- He was hesitant to share his personal info at first, but the app reassured that this info would only be shown to people I have requested to meet up with
- His information will not be shared to anyone, so he would be able to navigate the app’s features and look through people’s requests without revealing their personal details
- That thought gave him a high level of trust in the app and it’s safety.
- They can easily delete their accounts and erase all their data from our database with a single click
- At first, he wasn’t too convinced that he would use this app, but once he finished the onboarding and looked through the requests in Mac Hall and the countless positive reviews of interactions people have had in there, he became very tempted to actually give it a try.
- As he was scrolling through the list of requests for tomorrow in Mac Hall at 12pm. A very interesting conversation starter made by ‘slingshot69’ showed up.
- He I decided to look further into the request and see some general details about who ‘slingshot69’ is.
- Based on what he sawIn the request details, it was green flags all around, so he thought to himself: “Yo, maybe I can vibe with this guy.”
- While he was very resistant to approving that request, The app said, “Even if the other person approves your request, you can just cancel it as if the request you sent never happened.”
- You would also be able to immediately report or block a certain person.
- So he decides to Approve that request and see what happens.
- Once Ken woke up, He receives a notification that “Mark, a.k.a slingshot69, has approved your request”
- So he excitingly clicked on the notification where he is taken to a chat interface. Where you can also see more details on who ‘slingshot69’ is
- He is now able to see:
- their profile picture if they have one
- Real name
- other social media accounts connected to their profile
- Deeper/more niche interests and Q&As that are more personal and revealing.
- Mark introduces himself and asks Ken if they should meet up beside Bake Chef, He says, “Sure! Let’s do it!”
- Then a small message saying “Mark has scheduled his location to be shared at 11:58 a.m.”
- This gave Ken more confidence and reassurance that he was interacting with someone who’s just as motivated to make new friends.
- Once 11:58 hit, Ken receives a notification from Mark with his location.
- This assisted him to find the exact table Mark was sitting in.
- Ken felt a little bit awkward at first, but Because Mark was attentively listening to Ken and acting very genuine, it made him more comfortable with the situation. And little by little, Ken also became comfortable and started to let go of his nervousness and enjoy the conversations they were having.