This project won second place at the University of Michigan School of Information's annual Converge Design Jam. The theme was centered on the idea of “parallel lives,” the versions of ourselves we think about but rarely act on. We competed against 12+ teams in a team of four, all with different education backgrounds and levels of design experience.
TEAM: Felicia Wang, Jason Zhang, Eva Chong, George Gu
SKILLS & METHODS: Interaction Design, Product Strategy, Market Research, Rapid Wireframing + Prototyping
01 / PROTOTYPE
FIGMA
02 / RESEARCH
⋆｡°✩ MARKET LANDSCAPE ✩°｡⋆
The experience economy is huge, but no platform sells the seat that's about to go empty. Existing players sell scheduled events or curated travel. None surface unsold, last-minute capacity to locals at a discount.
01
Mass-market ticketing for planned events. Filter-heavy, booked days or weeks ahead. No discounting on unsold inventory.
02
Curated, tourist-leaning activities. Premium pricing, full commitment. Built for travelers, not locals trying something on a Tuesday night.
03
Subscription fitness or community-led meetups. Require monthly fees or planning ahead. Neither matches spontaneous curiosity to last-minute capacity.
Gap: None of them solve for the 2-hour window when someone wants to try pottery tonight.
03 / PROBLEM
FRAMING
01
"too expensive"
02
"I can't commit"
03
"might not like it"
04
"I don't have time"
KEY INSIGHT
PERSONA
04 / SOLUTION
PRODUCT
05 / WIREFRAMES
LOW → HIGH FIDELITY
⋆｡°✩ LOW FIDELITY SKETCHES ✩°｡⋆
Exploring functions of core experiences
ONBOARDING
Tags automatically populate from the user's journal entry
DISCOVERY
Intuitive + interactive swiping interface
EVENT + PROFILE
Building community with comments + gamification from aura points
06 / IMPACT
BUSINESS + WHY IT WORKS
⋆｡°✩ BUSINESS MODEL ✩°｡⋆
07 / TAKEAWAYS
ROLE + REFLECTION
MY ROLE ⋆｡°✩
REFLECTION ⋆｡°✩
