Featured Case Study · Concept
ConnectSpace
Community Discovery & Connection Platform (Concept)
A community product concept driven by discovery: interviews and a survey with students, families, sports and fitness enthusiasts, organisers and new residents, synthesised into personas and insights, then turned into a defined problem, a product solution and a prototype.
Project overview
- Project
- ConnectSpace — community discovery platform (concept)
- My Role
- Product Manager — research, problem definition, UX, prototype, metrics
- Timeline
- Self-directed product case study
- Tools
- Figma, interviews & surveys, affinity mapping, spreadsheets
- Product Area
- Community · Discovery · Local engagement
- Status
- Concept — no launch, no real-world results
The problem
What are we solving, who feels it, and why does it matter?
Finding a community that fits you is still word of mouth. Groups exist — for a sport, a hobby, a neighbourhood, a life stage — but they are scattered, invisible to outsiders and hard to enter.
Who experiences it
Why it matters
Invisible
Groups exist but are undiscoverable to newcomers
Effort
Joining takes several awkward, manual steps
Fit
Nothing signals whether a group is right for you
User research
Approach, target users, pain points and the insights that changed the direction.
Research approach
- Interviews across distinct user groups: students, families, sports and fitness participants, organisers and recent movers
- A survey covering how people currently find groups and where they abandon the attempt
- Competitive review of social, events and neighbourhood products
- Affinity mapping into personas, pain points and prioritised insights
The College Student
Large campus, plenty of clubs, no idea which fit.
Goal: Find a small group where showing up alone is not awkward.
The New Resident
Recently moved, no local network at all.
Goal: Find something nearby, this week, that welcomes newcomers.
The Family
Wants activities that work for both adults and children.
Goal: Discover safe, local, family-appropriate community activity.
The Sports / Fitness Enthusiast
Trains regularly, prefers company and accountability.
Goal: Find people at a similar level and a repeating schedule.
The Community Organiser
Runs a group and struggles to reach beyond existing members.
Goal: Be found by the right people and keep them coming back.
Pain points
- No single place to see the communities and activities around you
- Group descriptions don't say who the group is actually for
- Turning up alone the first time feels high-risk
- Organisers can't reach anyone outside their existing circle
- One-off attendance rarely turns into ongoing participation
Discovery is the bottleneck, not willingness
Almost everyone interviewed wanted to join something. What stopped them was not knowing what existed nearby.
People need to see themselves in a group before joining
Signals about who attends — level, age mix, tone, whether newcomers are common — mattered more than the activity description.
The first attendance is the whole funnel
Joining online is easy; showing up once is the hard conversion. The product has to lower the cost of the first visit.
Problem definition
Problem statement
People who want to belong to a local community cannot see what exists near them, cannot tell which group fits, and find the first visit too socially risky — so interest rarely becomes participation.
User needs
- See what communities and activities exist nearby
- Understand who a group is actually for before committing
- Make the first visit feel low-risk
- Have a reason to come back a second and third time
Interest and location-based discovery
One surface showing nearby communities and upcoming activity, filtered by interest and life stage.
Fit signals on every group
Who attends, how often, and whether newcomers show up — visible before joining.
A guided first visit
Reduce the social cost of turning up once: newcomer-friendly events and a clear what-to-expect.
Product strategy
Product goal
Product vision
Business objective
User objective
The solution
Proposed solution
A discovery-first community product: browse by interest and location, read honest fit signals, join a newcomer-friendly first activity, then get pulled back by the group's rhythm.
Onboarding captures interests and location. The home surface shows nearby communities and this week's activities, each with fit signals. Joining is one step, and the first activity is explicitly framed for newcomers.
Interest + location discovery
Nearby communities and activities ranked by stated interests.
Why: Directly addresses the bottleneck research identified.
Community fit profile
Who attends, typical size, frequency and newcomer-friendliness.
Why: Answers the 'is this for me?' question before commitment.
Newcomer-friendly first activity
Activities explicitly marked as good entry points, with what-to-expect details.
Why: Lowers the social risk of the first visit — the hardest conversion.
Organiser tools
Create a community, publish activity, and see who is new.
Why: Supply side: organisers were blocked from reaching beyond their circle.
Return prompts
Upcoming activity from communities you attended, surfaced at the right time.
Why: Turns a single attendance into ongoing participation.
Prioritization
Framework: Impact vs Effort
Reasoning
Vertical axis: impact (low at the bottom, high at the top).
Now
Interest + location discovery
The core problem from research.
Community fit profile
High impact, low effort — mostly information design.
Join & attend flow
The conversion the whole product is measured on.
Next
Organiser tools
Supply matters, but a thin manual version can seed the first communities.
Return prompts
Only meaningful once people have attended something.
Later
In-app social feed & messaging
Assumes a network the product has not yet created.
User flow
- Step 1
Onboard
Set interests, location and life stage.
- Step 2
Discover
Browse nearby communities and this week's activities.
- Step 3
Judge fit
Read who attends, frequency and newcomer-friendliness.
- Step 4
Join
One-step join with clear what-to-expect details.
- Step 5
Attend
First activity framed explicitly for newcomers.
- Step 6
Return
Upcoming activity from that community is surfaced afterwards.
Wireframes & prototype
Key screens from the flow. Full-fidelity frames are in the project document.
Interests
Location
Life stage
Onboarding
Interests, location and life stage — the inputs that make discovery useful.
Nearby communities
This week
Filters
Discovery
Nearby communities and activities with fit signals on every card.
Fit profile
Upcoming activity
Join
Community detail
Who attends, how often, and whether newcomers are common.
What to expect
Attendance
Next activity
First visit & return
What to expect before attending, and what's next afterwards.
Analytics
Every metric is tied to the decision it would change.
North star metric
First-time attendances at a local community activity per week
It sits exactly where the product creates value — the moment interest becomes participation — and it cannot be gamed by sign-ups alone.
| Metric | Why it matters | Product decision |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery → community view rate | Tests whether nearby results are relevant enough to open. | Low rate means ranking or supply density needs work before anything else. |
| View → join conversion | Reads whether fit signals are convincing. | Weak conversion means the fit profile lacks the signals users care about. |
| Join → first attendance | The hardest and most important step in the funnel. | A gap here justifies investment in newcomer-framing and what-to-expect content. |
| Second attendance within 30 days | Distinguishes a one-off from belonging. | Low repeat rates shift focus to return prompts and community rhythm. |
| Active communities per area | Supply density is what makes discovery feel alive. | Thin supply means organiser acquisition takes priority over consumer features. |
Experimentation
Showing newcomer-friendliness on a community card increases joins.
- Experiment
- A/B community cards with and without a newcomer signal.
- Primary metric
- View → join conversion
- Expected result
- Higher joins in the variant with the newcomer signal.
- Decision rule
- If flat, the barrier is the first visit itself, not the decision to join.
A what-to-expect screen before the first activity increases attendance.
- Experiment
- Show a short expectations summary to one variant after joining.
- Primary metric
- Join → first attendance
- Expected result
- More joiners actually attend.
- Decision rule
- If unchanged, test a buddy/newcomer-meetup mechanic instead.
Technical thinking
Enough depth to scope feasibility with engineers, without pretending to design the system.
Discovery ranking
Fit signals from real behaviour
Supply seeding
Expected impact
This is a conceptual project. No real-world results are claimed — these are the targets the plan would be judged against.
Join → first attendance
- Baseline
- Not measured — concept stage
- Target
- Directional improvement vs unstructured group discovery
- Why
- Fit signals and newcomer framing address the exact reason people don't show up.
Second attendance within 30 days
- Baseline
- Not measured — concept stage
- Target
- Directional improvement
- Why
- Return prompts tie the next activity to a community the person already attended.
Learnings
What I learned
- Research changed the problem: it was discovery and social risk, not lack of interest
- The riskiest conversion is offline, so the product has to be designed for it
- Supply density decides whether a local product feels alive or empty
What I would improve
- Interview more organisers — the supply side was under-researched relative to members
- Test the fit profile with real community data rather than illustrative examples
Trade-offs I made
- Deferred social feed and messaging in favour of discovery and first attendance
- Chose a single-area launch over broad coverage to keep discovery dense
What I would test next
- Prototype test the discovery and fit profile with new residents and students
- Seed one neighbourhood or campus with organisers before opening consumer signup
Full project document
Product Management Case Study
ConnectSpace — Complete Product Management Case Study
Community Discovery & Connection Platform (Concept)
Full project documentation
ConnectSpace — Complete Product Management Case Study
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