Clubhouse App

Overview

Clubhouse is a new "Social Audio App" founded in 2020. It's a place where you can bounce around hallways of the internet and meet interesting people talking about almost anything. The rapidly growing app works well but could use some additional features and design tweaks to better accommodate all users and embody the fun clubhouse energy.

Tools

Duration

3 Weeks

Process

Objectives

Research

Competitive Analysis

Taskflows

Wireframing

Design

Initial App Evaluation

Below is what you see when you join a club room. Which displays all members and active participants and remains pretty stagnant through out the meeting. The ring around the active speaker moves as it changes.

1. Reactions

It's hard to gage how the audience is feeling in an app where you can't see expressions. My first enhancement is to find a simple way to include reactions, while staying true to clubhouses' audio-only nature.

2. Captions

Clubhouse has amazing content for everyone. The social, audio-only app, excludes people with hearing disabilities. One way to make this app more accessible to all, is to include closed captions.

1.0 Reaction Task Flow

"Hallway"

The hallway is the first screen you see upon opening the app. It functions just like a hallway, as a passage way to all the club rooms.

Club Room

This is what you see when you enter the club room. All active speakers are clustered at the top. Circles swell up and down corresponding to who is speaking. This is also where the "reactions" feature lives. To keep it simple and positive, users can choose between an applause, laugh or heart to send to the current speaker. The emojis will burst like confetti on screen so the speakers can feel the love.

Profile Overlay

If you're curious about someone in the current room, tap on their photo to see a brief overview of their profile.

Profile Page

Enhanced profile page shows reactions received while speaking. It also prioritizes upcoming events they are speaking at. Followed by their bio and what clubs they are a part of.

2.0 Caption Feature Flow

Settings

This is where you can find the new closed caption feature to toggle on and off.

Club Room with Captions

The captions populate below the speakers. The black rings and size of photo indicate who is speaking.

Club Room Captions and Reactions

Users can send reactions with captions on.

Extended Captions

See more copy at once with an expanded caption view.

UI Design

Playful and Accessible

The nostalgic idea of a "clubhouse," the place all the cool kids would go after school, made me want to elevate the current UI to have a more playful look. Utilizing the colors they already have in the logo and carrying them through the app's design. Also, playing with the scale of avatars was another way to add some "clubhouse" spirit.

Final Thoughts

How else can we humanize an app that wants to be exclusively audio? Could an audio-only app survive?
Could we get podcasters to live record episodes on clubhouse and it become a new podcasting platform with a "live audience"?
Will people utilize the reaction feature? Is it too limiting with only three options?

If I were to do this project again. I would include a lot more user research from avid users of the app. The features explored above are features I believed to be useful, along with my classmates, after using the app only a handful of times. I would love the opinions of people who are utilizing it daily. Do these features stay true to clubhouse? Or are they straying too far from the whole clubhouse idea?
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