Moyeora
Moyeora proposes the simplest way to engage with your neighbors, nurturing community bonds through Korea's cultural and traditional neighborly connections.
Co-founder / Product designer
2021 - 2022
Web-App released
Hyori Lee (Co-Founder, Designer), David ji (Developer), Haein Hong (Marketer)
Role
Period
Outcome
Team
The idea was born in a class project. Our team, passionate about community and sustainability, initially addressed the digital exclusion of older adults. Expanding our view, we recognized social division as a widespread issue. With $70,000 in funding from the Korean government, Moyeora evolved into a business, successfully releasing its beta version.
Background
Social conflicts in Korea come to the surface
Hidden social conflicts in Korea have long been overlooked due to their invisibility. However, recent data has revealed the severity of these issues, highlighting the urgent need for solutions.
“All we need is contact”
“…contact between two groups can promote tolerance and acceptance, but only under certain conditions, such as equal status among groups and common goals.”
Problem
Limited chances to meet and mix with people from different background
In Korea, people rarely engage in small talk with strangers, often sticking to those with similar backgrounds. Online, social media platforms reinforce this by recommending connections with similar interests, limiting opportunities to interact with diverse groups.
Solution
Reviving community bonds through neighborhood interactions
Moyeora creates opportunities for diverse individuals to interact by embracing traditional Korean neighborly practices. By focusing on the common ground of ‘Neighborhood,’ Moyeora revives and modernizes offline interactions, fostering stronger community bonds.
Bridging Online Communities:
Drawing Inspiration from Offline Interactions
Building trust
In real life, seeing each other's faces helps us get to know our neighbors and establish trust.
Offline
👉 Online feature
Address Verification
Offline
Starting Conversations
Asking questions initiates interactions, sparking community engagement.
👉 Online feature
Q&A with neighbors on a map
Sharing foods
In Korea, sharing dishes with neighbors builds bonds and trust.
Offline
👉 Online feature
Sending a gift
1. Creating safe place for interactions: Address verification
2. Interactive content: Neighborly Q&A
3. Building bonds: Sharing small gifts
Ideation
How might we increase interaction between different cultural groups through common grounds?
Once we identified the problem, we explored ways to foster connections between different cultural groups. Our ideation process centered on discovering common grounds that transcend cultural differences and facilitate easy conversation. We found that ‘Neighborhood’ and ‘Food’ were perfect starting points for interactions across diverse backgrounds.
Hypothesis
An online service focusing on ‘neighborhood’ and ‘food’ will encourage interactions across diverse cultures and backgrounds
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Research
The workshop demonstrated how neighborhood and food foster cultural understanding 👇
To test our hypothesis, we organized a workshop for neighborhood residents. Six participants of different ages and backgrounds brought photos of their meals. During the workshop, we observed how sharing these photos allowed stories from various cultures to mix, fostering mutual understanding.
Insights
1. The conversation, which began with ‘food’ and ‘Neighborhood’, spread out to various topics, breaking the ice between strangers.
The subjects played a role as a catalyst and a boundary for the conversation. Everyone could join the conversation easily and the conversation didn’t leave anyone out.
Since everyone lived in the same neighborhood, everyone was interested in the conversation, especially helpful information. For example, information about market delivery services or good restaurants nearby.
2. People broke their stereotypes and enjoyed learning new things from other cultures
The conversation, which began with food, let people know about others' lifestyles, breaking cultural stereotypes and helping them learn new tips.
For example, an older person, who thought that young people hate to cook, actually learned recipes from young people. In Korea, where generational interaction barely happens, it was a very inspiring conversation.
3. However, there was still a limitation in offline interaction between different cultural groups
Koreans usually respect and obey older people, which sometimes makes a huge barrier between younger and older people. In the workshop, we observed that older people talk freely while younger people couldn't.
1st Prototype
Moyeora has a map-based layout that shows contents on the location of the map. By checking where the contents are related, users can easily get useful neighborhood information. Furthermore, by scanning the contents on the map around their address, users' can feel an attachment to neighbors' stories.
1. Meal picture, a good ice breaker
Users can easily start a conversation with their neighbors by replying to meal pictures. They can also easily check ingredient sale news of a nearby market.
2. Ask your neighbors any questions
Users can place the question above the relevant location. Other users can easily check the location and answer them.
3. Do various activities with your neighbors
Users can gather nearby neighbors and do activities that are difficult to do alone, such as workshops and group buying.
Before making the design as a real service, we had to validate if our assumption that we set at the first iteration was right or wrong. MVP tests were done in various forms to confirm one by one.
MVP test
MVP test - Design Validation
“Is the map-based layout appropriate for the main service?”
To validate the main design layout with a minimum asset, we made an interaction billboard that can test the main UX design to users. The billboard was placed at the entrance of an apartment building for 10 days. About 12% of residents used the billboard and were satisfied with using it.
One interviewee who used the billboard said “I didn't know where and whom to ask about some information about this apartment. But with this billboard, I could ask anyone freely.“
In addition, we surveyed 300 people about the design prototype. 64% of people gave 5 out of 5 points in the necessity category.
MVP test - Market Validation
“Do people need a communication channel with their neighbors?”
To validate a market, we tested the main concept with SNS advertising. To specify what users need, each feature of the first prototype was divided and advertised - Q&A, Food, Gathering.
As a result, having Q&A between neighbors turned out to be the most popular function.
14% of people who visited the landing page, conversed in signing up.
Beta Version
Below GIFs are records of a real beta version
Make your own avatar
Explore your neighborhood
View your neighbors’ stories
Beta test
Beta test was conducted on about 200 people for about 2 weeks. 60% percent of testers scored four out of five in terms of satisfaction.
Expected Results
Users used the main functions well without any hurdles. (eg. posting, making an avatar, confirming address verification code)
Users asked neighbors about nearby stores or recommended restaurants.
Decorating their avatar function motivated users to make a post.
Unexpected Results
Users expected the features that they’ve used in other SNS
- Majority of users wanted to get useful information automatically like other SNS rather than asking to neighbors.
- Rather than focusing on each posts through swiping, they wanted to scroll through several posts at once.Rather than asking a question or starting a conversation, some users liked to inform others of his or her favorite place on the map.
Reflection
Why the business has failed?
Tried to serve two masters never works
This project has started with a big dream to make a better world. It was quite different starting point from other projects that starts from a specific users’ pain points. As a UX designer I had to meet what users needs, but as a citizen I also wanted to make the society better. Yes, I tried to serve two masters. As a result, it didn’t work.
The features that contains the company’s values sometimes made useres uncomfortable with. We wanted to make a community that doesn’t have provocative features such as following systme or scrolling addiction. However, users expected features that they were used to in other social media platform. Therefore there was a big gap between company’s values and users’ needs.
Things I’d do differntly next time, I’d focus more on meeting users needs first. Even if a company’s vision is precious, It can’t be achieved without users. As a UX designer, I learned how much important it is to see in point of users’ view.
Learned how to handle with abstract problem, and how to reflect abstract values in design
When we decided to solve the problem, culture wars, we literally did not know what to do. It was too gigantic problem for us to solve by design. By tracing back where the problem came from and by applying the problem to our daily lives, we could find a clue. The experience of specifying abstract problem helped us a lot - designing a workshop, defining hypothesis, validating assumptions, expressing our vision into the design and making our dream into a company. It is still hard for me to define a problem and create a solution, but with thse experiences I believe I can handle it better next time