HourTime: Relationship App

Project Overview

Context

HourTime is a relationship sustainability app designed to help users build and maintain long-lasting relationships—not as a matchmaking tool, but as a platform for strengthening existing bonds. The app supports lifelong partners, friends, and pet lovers by offering a structured approach to personal growth, shared milestones, and digital memory tracking.

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Objectives

• ‍Produce long-lasting relationships through structured engagement.‍
• Provide a roadmap for personal growth that enhances relationships.‍
• Create a digital journey map to track shared memories.‍
• Enable users to share life milestones with their close circle.‍
• Establish a therapeutic platform to support emotional well-being.

Problem Statement

In today’s fast-paced world, people struggle to maintain meaningful relationships due to lack of communication, personal growth roadmaps, and shared experiences tracking. While dating apps focus on helping users find relationships, there is no widely adopted digital solution that provides ongoing support for sustaining and strengthening those relationships over time.

Design Process

Human-centered design

I used the human-centered design (HCD) process which is a methodology that places the user at the heart of the design process. It seeks to deeply understand users' needs, behaviors and experiences to create effective solutions catering to their unique challenges and desires.

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Phases of the Human-Centered Design Process

• ‍Empathize: Understand the users' needs, behaviors, and challenges through research, observation, interviews, and other methods.‍
• Define: Clearly articulate the problem or opportunity based on the insights gathered during the empathy phase.‍
• Ideate: Brainstorm and generate a wide range of potential solutions to the problem.‍
• Prototype: Create tangible representations of the potential solutions to test and refine.‍
• Test: Evaluate the prototypes with users to gather feedback and identify areas for improvement.‍
• Iterate: Refine the design based on the test results and repeat the process as needed.

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Key Principles of Human-Centered Design

• Focus on the people: Always consider the people who will use the product, service, or system. ‍
• Find the right problem: Ensure you are addressing the actual problem, not just a symptom. ‍
• Think of everything as a system: Understand the interconnectedness of different aspects of the design.
• ‍Always test your design decisions: Continuously evaluate and refine designs based on user feedback and testing

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Benefits of Human-Centered Design

• ‍Improved user experience: Solutions are more likely to be usable, enjoyable, and intuitive. ‍
• Increased user satisfaction: By understanding and addressing user needs, you can create products and services that users love. ‍
• Greater innovation: The process encourages creativity and exploration, leading to more innovative solutions. ‍
• Better business outcomes: User-centric designs can lead to increased sales, higher customer retention, and stronger brand loyalty.

Design Solutions

Prototyping & User Testing

After research, I created five low-fidelity prototypes using sketching and digital tools. The wireframing process emphasized key features essential for relationship building. I then developed a clickable prototype for testing, which involved:

• ‍Pre- and post-surveys to understand user expectations.‍
• Iterative testing cycles to refine usability and functionality.‍
• Feedback loops that led to innovative feature enhancements.

Next Steps

The testing phase resulted in overwhelmingly positive feedback, with valuable suggestions that spurred new design iterations.

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Status

• ‍High-fidelity clickable prototype completed, but under construction
• Future development planned for full-scale app implementation

This project remains a work in progress, with the next phase focused on further development, deployment, and user adoption strategies.

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