Building the Social Layer of a Digital Library
Domain:
Social Networking
Role:
UI/UX Designer
Team:
Product Manager · Developers · Designers · Stakeholders
Duration:
6 months
Platform:
Ios, Android
Note : This project was designed for a pre-launch product. Product branding and selected screens have been modified due to a non-disclosure agreement. Designs were refined through stakeholder reviews before engineering handoff.
Challenges
The existing Recent Activity page did not include group updates or activity filters. Users also needed a clear place to access their joined or created groups, review membership requests, and invite new members.
Because the product was pre-launch, I validated the designs through stakeholder reviews, interactive prototypes, and iterative feedback.
My Contribution
I designed key community experiences across the platform, including:
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Redesigned Recent Activity
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Added group activity to the feed
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Designed activity filters
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Designed Groups Home
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Designed Group Details and Group Feed
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Designed the Group Requests page
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Designed the Group Invitation flow
Group Creation, Post Upload, Group Gallery, and earlier Recent Activity designs were created by another designer.
Design Evolution
Every feature began with low-fidelity wireframes to explore layouts, navigation, and information hierarchy. Through stakeholder feedback and multiple iterations, these concepts evolved into the final product experience.
Key Design Initiatives
This project consisted of three design initiatives that supported the platform's transition into a community-driven experience.
01-Recent Activity
Problem Faced:
The original feed relied on text-based updates, making it difficult to quickly understand activity and discover community interactions.
My Approach:
I redesigned the feed with visual content previews, contextual metadata, activity filters, and integrated group activity to create a more discoverable and scalable experience.
Outcome:
A modern, content-first feed that improves discoverability, simplifies navigation, and establishes reusable patterns for future platform growth.
02-Groups Experience
Problem Faced:
As the platform evolved beyond a digital library, a new Groups feature was introduced to help users connect around shared interests. The challenge was to design a simple and engaging experience that made communities easy to access and interact with.
My Approach:
I led the design of the core member journey across Groups Home, Group Details, Community Feed, Group Requests, and Group Invitations. The experience was built around familiar social patterns, helping members quickly access their communities, stay engaged with discussions, and manage group interactions with minimal friction.
Group Creation, Post Upload, Group Gallery, and Group Settings were created by another designer.
Outcome:
Established a centralized community experience that was refined through stakeholder feedback and prepared for engineering implementation.
03- Group Invite System
Problem Faced:
The existing invitation flow was designed to invite users to the app, where sending individual invitations made sense. However, group invitations introduced a different use case—members typically invite people they already know, making the existing workflow unnecessarily repetitive for inviting multiple contacts.
My Approach:
Instead of replacing the existing invitation system, I designed a dedicated invitation experience specifically for Groups. Members can invite others by generating a QR code, sharing an invite link, or selecting multiple contacts to send a single group invitation through native messaging. This approach aligns with how people naturally invite friends, family, or colleagues into a community while keeping the original app invitation flow unchanged.
Note : The existing invitation flow remained unchanged for app invitations. A dedicated workflow was introduced only for Groups, where inviting multiple known contacts through native sharing better matched user expectations and the intended use case.
Outcome:
Designed a dedicated invitation workflow for Groups that simplifies onboarding while preserving the existing app invitation experience.
04 — Designing for Scale
To support future community features, I created reusable components and interaction patterns that ensured consistency across the entire Groups experience.
Impact :
Built reusable components and interaction patterns that support consistency and future feature expansion.
Project Outcome
30+
Production-ready Screens
20+
Reusable Components
4
Design Initiatives
8+
Design Iterations
1
Scalable Community Experience
Conclusion
Designing for a pre-launch product required balancing evolving business goals with intuitive user experiences. Working closely with stakeholders helped shape a scalable community foundation that supports future social features while maintaining a consistent product experience.
