The goal was to reach and connect people through emotion and make them feel their bond is truthful.
Once users have paired their devices and set up their profiles, they will be able to view their connections and see their most recent touches. This provides a quick and easy way for users to keep track of their interactions and stay connected with their loved ones.
Who
Bond Touch Product
When
2019 - 2023
Role
Design direction
Design management
Product designer
Team
Gerda Gruzauskaite, Designer
Carlota Gregório, Research
Raquel Félix, Research
Simon Tadeu, Project Manager
David Ponches, Project Manager
Rita Carmelo, QA
Nuno Sota, QA
A world connected by healthier, happier relationships.
Bond Touch specialises in emotional wearables designed to keep couples, friends, and family connected in a secure and engaging way. All physical products connect to a mobile app that helps users communicate and express themselves with their loved ones.
To inspire Bond Touch’s audiences, customers, community and partners. We always searched for something to identify with and represent diversity and inclusivity.
Problem
Although the Bond Touch app was designed to support the company's wearables, its initial features were not valuable enough to encourage users to use it regularly. How can we enhance user engagement and increase retention rates?
Goal
We aim to identify features that significantly improve the user experience, which results in increased app usage over time.
Continuous Improvement
Empathise, Conceptualise, Design, Repeat.
Empathise
Through user research, we have established the three main subjects to guide our work and prioritise features and ideas.
Connexion and Togetherness
Users have shown a lack of interest in using Private Space (chat), as research and quantitative data have revealed they’ve have established communication channels outside of the app. Many of our users are in long-distance relationships (LDRs), so it is crucial for them to keep things engaging and fun, while also reassuring their love and keeping communication open.
Safe and Healthy
Due to their demographics (16 - 26 years old), Bond Touch users tend to look for guidance on relationships and how to create healthy ones. It is important for users to feel safe, reassured, and supported when dealing with specific situations.
Break ups and Community
Our target audience at this age is mostly impulsive, and break-ups are common. We believe that making the 'Unbonding' process more emotional can help our users understand that such important decisions need to be thought through carefully to avoid hurting the other person. Business-wise, break-ups and 'Unbonding' present an opportunity to open up space and embrace the Bond Touch community.
To create a truly meaningful experience for users, we work to provide features that foster emotional connections and enable them to express themselves in non-traditional ways, such as through non-verbal communication.
We aimed to provide Bond Touch users with the right tools to communicate and express themselves effectively, in order to strengthen their relationships, build trust, and create memories.
Conceptualise
At Bond Touch, human relationships are at the heart of everything we do. Every problem we solve and every story we tell is for the benefit of our users.
Home screen
More people added
Spontaneous memories
Timeline
Connexion and Togetherness
Features and ideas
Bond Touch More: Allows users to add up to three people to their bracelet connections (launched).
Touch Love: Add meaning to touches by sequencing taps and swipes (launched).
Togetherness: Gamify activities that users can do together even apart, such as a counting steps competition, creating a duet video, or sharing daily video check-ins and moods (tested).
Spontaneous memories: Instead of a chat, create a timeline of memories (photos, pop quizzes, cute motivational messages), some triggered by notifications and others by habits (tested).
Safe and Healthy
Features and ideas
Safety: Detect verbal violence in chats using specific keywords, and provide advice and quick help information (tested).
Touches Stats: Provide data visualisation of the relationship through touches, such as total touches exchanged, number of days bonded, distance between partners (miles/km), and number of days since the last encounter (prototype).
Bond Touch Lite: Expand the Bond Touch product family by allowing users to send touches through Apple Watch without buying a pair of wearables. This will require a subscription-based model (prototype).
Break-ups and Community
Features and ideas
Touch of Kindness: Share your struggles and receive support through touches (prototype).
Love Train: During special seasons, we give back by counting all the touches sent worldwide and converting them into donations (prototype).
Bond All: Open up and exchange touches with strangers in the community.
Results
In three years, we have reached 1 million users connected to each other in non-verbal communication devices. They have shared 2.5 million touches, and the longest distance recorded between two users is 120,267 miles. The mobile app retention had a 15% spike with the Touch Language feature compared to the bracelet retention.
Shorting the distance through [digital] touch
Design
Home Screen
Once users have paired their device and set up their profile, they will be able to view their connections and see their most recent touches. This provides a quick and easy way for users to keep track of their interactions and stay connected with their loved ones.
Colour wheel
Establish the app’s accent colour
Tutorials
Lights and Vibration
Home screen
No people added
Home screen
People added
Touch Language
Adding meaning to touches
Touch Language
Selecting touch’ colours
Touch Language
Meanings library
Private Space
Encrypted chat and secret gallery
App's evolution
Home screen showcasing