GlowGather: Streamlining Social Planning with Smart Recommendations
GlowGather is a social planning app that Allison Canahui and I designed in Figma to simplify the process of organizing events with friends, family, and partners. By leveraging profile analytics, budgets, location data, and polls, GlowGather helps users identify the best locations and events for gatherings. The app eliminates the stress of coordinating plans and enhances the experience of socializing and exploring new activities.
Coordinating social plans often feels overwhelming, especially when balancing different schedules, preferences, and budgets. Existing social planning tools are often limited to specific audiences (ex: couples or travelers) or require extensive back-and-forth communication, so we wanted to create a simple method to solve these issues through the form of an app.
Key Challenges
In order to make sure our app covers all the topics we need, we needed to make a list of our key challenges.
Users need a streamlined platform that consolidates event suggestions, scheduling, and communication in one place.
Users require accessible tools to align group preferences efficiently without lengthy conversations.
Personalized recommendations should cater to diverse social dynamics, from romantic dates to large group hangouts.
Competitive Analysis
GlowGather addresses gaps identified in competitors like Cupla, Howbout, Troupe, and Wanderlog by offering a broader, more versatile feature set:
Cupla focuses on couples and shared calendars but lacks group coordination features.
Howbout excels in visualizing availability but lacks strong recommendation tools.
Troupe emphasizes trip planning with group voting but overlooks casual local events.
Wanderlog offers comprehensive travel tools but lacks flexible social event coordination for everyday plans.
GlowGather blends key strengths from these competitors while introducing powerful new features like customized recommendations, flexible polling, and enhanced privacy controls.
Design Process
1. User Research & Discovery To ensure GlowGather meets user needs, I conducted interviews and surveys targeting individuals who frequently organize social plans. Key insights included:
Users struggle to find mutual availability when planning events.
Many expressed frustration with fragmented communication across multiple apps.
Participants valued personalized recommendations tailored to shared interests, budgets, and locations.
2. Ideation & Wireframing Based on insights, I designed wireframes that prioritized clarity, flexibility, and user control:
Centralized Event Pages where users can access event details, polls, and chats in one place.
Dynamic Polling System to streamline group decisions for date, time, or location.
Customizable Calendar Integration to allow seamless coordination across personal schedules.
3. Prototyping & User Testing Through iterative testing, I refined GlowGather's interface to balance functionality with ease of use:
Improved poll visibility by displaying results directly within event pages.
Enhanced navigation by grouping key features under intuitive tabs (Events, Calendar, Chats, Settings).
Added a color-coded event status system (Today, This Week, Future) for better organization.
Final Solution
Key Features:
Sign-up/Login System: Users can quickly create an account and sync their calendar data for streamlined event management.
My Events: Organized into "Today," "This Week," and "In the Future," this section offers clear visual cues and detailed event overviews, complete with guest lists, chat integration, and polls.
Calendar Integration: Users can sync calendars with friends and partners, viewing shared plans in a centralized space. A top-bar selector allows for quick toggling between synced calendars.
Event Discovery: Users can explore local events via category filters. Adding an event automatically generates an associated chat and invites participants to join polls or add notes.
In-App Chat: A dedicated chat section houses conversations for one-on-one messaging, group planning, and event-specific discussions, reducing the need for third-party messaging apps.
Settings Customization: Users can personalize their experience by adjusting:
Display preferences (font size, color themes, languages)
Privacy controls (visibility settings, online status, and distance filters)
Friend tagging for tailored event recommendations (e.g., "Partner," "BFF," "Friend").
Reflection & Next Steps
Creating GlowGather emphasized the importance of designing for flexibility and inclusivity in social planning tools. Moving forward, I aim to:
Expand event recommendation capabilities by integrating user behavior data for smarter suggestions.
Enhance accessibility by refining visual contrast and text size options.
Develop a desktop companion app for easier planning across devices.
GlowGather bridges the gap between chaotic group chats and limited social planning tools, offering an intuitive, feature-rich solution for building stronger social connections.