Know You+ is a multi-device social game that helps people move beyond small talk through guided questions, shared challenges and gradual levels of intimacy. In testing, all 8 participants said the experience helped them get to know others better and made social moments feel more engaging.
People often want to know each other better, but social interactions can stay superficial when there is no context, gradual vulnerability, or safe structure to begin. Know You+ uses a maritime metaphor to frame connection as a shared journey, inviting people to become sailors and explore questions, games, and challenges that gradually reveal personality, values, habits, and goals. This gave the platform a stronger emotional identity while making the experience feel more playful, immersive, and meaningful across mobile and desktop.
To avoid forcing every interaction into the same level of depth, the experience was divided into three modes, each supporting a different kind of social moment, from light icebreakers to more reflective discovery.
The concept comes to life through three experience modes, each designed to support a different social dynamic, from light play to more intimate one-to-one connection.
Light play
Designed for duos, families, friends, and teams, Floating supports casual social moments that feel easy to join and playful.
Floating drifts through first impressions and light discoveries, helping conversation begin naturally without pressure.
Intimate exchange
Built for more intimate interaction, Deep Dive creates space for two people to explore questions and shared reflection in a more focused way.
Deep Dive moves into deeper layers of compatibility, encouraging more meaningful exchange through questions and reflection.
Energetic play
A more dynamic mode for friends, families and teams, Splash Time brings faster-paced challenges and collaboration into the experience.
Splash Time adds momentum to the experience through faster interaction, shared energy, and more playful collaboration.
After selecting a mode, players move through a clear shared path, from invitation and group alignment to play and recap.
Invite anyone who is online directly or share an invitation link through another channel (Email, SMS or WhatsApp).
Once everyone joins, participants gather in the Crew Lobby to align the group on a shared screen. Each player is identified with a uniquely coloured pointer tag, with voice enabled by default and optional real-time video.
The group selects one of the 8 connection categories. These are available across all three modes and shape the theme of the interaction.
Players then choose the depth of the exchange. Each mode includes the same 3 intimacy levels: Open Waters (light), Under Current (moderate), and Into the Depths (deep).
Before starting, players decide whether they want to keep the camera on during the session.
The experience begins and the group enters the selected game flow.
The shared screen adapts dynamically to the selected mode, category, and intimacy level, shaping the interaction and pacing.
At the end of the session, players receive a short game summary featuring the group connection, Recap Highlights, unlocked badges, and progress towards the next milestone, then choose to return to the Crew Lobby, save a moment, or leave the experience.
Users wanted social interaction to feel more natural, playful, and emotionally meaningful. Guided by that insight, the design process followed a structured, user-centered approach grounded in design thinking. The overview below introduces the main stages of the process, each of which is explored in more detail in the next sections.
| Design Stage | Scope of Work |
|---|---|
| Empathize |
|
| Define |
|
| Ideate |
|
| Design |
|
| Test |
|
Desk research and user research, conducted through focus groups, revealed the motivations, emotional drivers, and friction points behind everyday interactions, highlighting how play can transform small moments into more authentic and meaningful connection.
A focused comparison of existing social and relationship-based platforms helped identify recurring product patterns, competitive strengths, and differentiation opportunities for Know You+.
Multiplayer support and game customization are common across the category.
Most platforms prioritize activity volume over deeper social discovery.
Interfaces are generally clear, playful, and profile-led.
Few products create a distinctive emotional identity through the experience.
Chat, reactions, and lightweight interactions support casual engagement.
Interaction often remains surface-level and does not consistently build emotional closeness.
Freemium models and paid feature access are widely used.
Paid features rarely strengthen the quality of the relationship experience.
Sharing tools and integrations help users bring others into the platform.
Competitors rarely offer a seamless shared journey that evolves over time.
Overall, the competitive analysis showed that the opportunity for Know You+ is not to compete by adding more games, but by creating a more intentional shared experience where play, personalization, and emotional depth work together to strengthen connection.
Using persona and empathy maps centers the user’s perspective, ensuring solutions align with real needs and fit their realities.
Tim is outgoing and dynamic, valuing authentic connections with family, friends, and his partner. Passionate about competitive and collaborative games, fun interactions, travel, and staying active, he enjoys life’s small moments.
Together, the persona and empathy map revealed a clear design direction: people are looking for playful and easy-to-join social experiences that can evolve into more meaningful connection, something current digital interactions rarely support.
These opportunities became the basis for the next phase, helping translate identified challenges into a clearer information architecture, more intuitive onboarding, and a flow designed to support meaningful interaction.
To bring these priorities into one coherent flow, the Main Hub acts as the central navigation point, connecting the five core pillars of the experience: Start Voyage, Crew Mates, Milestones, Sailing Setup, and Docking Point.
Building on the information architecture defined earlier, low-fidelity paper wireframes were used to test navigation, onboarding, screen hierarchy, and the overall user journey across both desktop and mobile before moving into high-fidelity mockups, helping clarify the structural, navigational, and interaction adjustments needed for each format.
This step helped simplify key flows, align navigation patterns across devices, and clarify which interactions should move forward into digital wireframes.
The design phase focused on making the experience feel warm, playful, and easy to navigate across desktop and mobile. A small set of consistent decisions helped balance emotional invitation with clarity.
Lilac tones added calm and emotional depth, while peach and golden accents introduced warmth, energy, and invitation.
A simple hierarchy made headings, actions, and supporting content easier to scan across devices.
Rounded buttons and repeated interface patterns reduced friction and made next steps clearer.
These decisions were translated into desktop and mobile mockups, showing how the product came together from onboarding and profile creation to play and recap.
This qualitative usability round with 8 participants focused on perceived clarity, enjoyment, and social value rather than statistical validation. The test suggested that the experience was clear, enjoyable, and helped people get to know each other, while also revealing a small set of improvements. These changes were incorporated into the next iteration and are reflected in the final mockups and prototype.
5/8 participants found the setup tiring.
8/8 participants found the game fun and intuitive.
Mobile was preferred for everyday convenience.
4 recurring requests appeared across the round.
4 usability issues still needed refinement.
The test suggested that the core game experience was working, but the profile setup needed to be lighter before users reached the most engaging part of the journey.
Testing findings were translated into interface changes across onboarding, profile setup, lobby flow, gameplay, and mobile clarity.
“Removed a low-priority category to simplify choices and reduce friction”
“Reduced the selection limit from 10 to 5 to lower cognitive load and speed up completion”
“Option to play with or without camera, for all users”
“Option to play with or without camera, for all users”; “Remove confirmation dots”; “Remove ‘Random pick intimacy’ option”
“Player photos on answers after multiple-choice questions”
Non-existent screen
“Navigation Plan menu unclear on mobile”
“Onboarding screen not understood and needed more clarity”
“Mobile onboarding was simplified to reduce interpretation effort”
Know You+ showed how shared play, gradual intimacy, and clear structure can help people move from light interaction to more meaningful discovery.
The core game experience was perceived as clear, enjoyable, and socially valuable, validating play as a useful entry point for deeper interaction.
The concept was tested with 8 participants from a narrow age range, and only one Main Hub area was fully explored.
Next, I would test whether a lighter profile setup improves completion, whether the intimacy levels help users progress naturally, and how the experience performs with larger and more diverse groups across remote and in-person contexts.
Validate the concept with broader and more diverse evidence.
Expand the concept beyond the initial hub and game set.
Refine the product across devices and scale the social experience.
Meaningful digital connection is not created by deeper questions alone. It depends on pacing, shared context, and a safe structure that makes openness feel natural.
Empathize
Define
Ideate
Design
Test