Welcoming, inclusive, and educational is the ethos of Winq. Sex and sexuality education app for all to discover, learn and practice more self expression, while thriving within their sexuality and sex lives.
“How might I create a safe space for all to feel welcome, seen and express themselves?”
timeline :
September 2022 - March 2023
Role :
UX/UI Designer, UX Researcher
problem :
Sex education, especially for the LGBTQ+ community is either non-existent or stuck in the stone age.
Sex is important. Sex education is vital to the practice of safe, healthy and consensual relationships, and should be available to everyone at any age. Providing a safe space for queer individuals to learn, explore and connect with themselves/others is a new level of sex education that we must champion in our society. Putting the health, safety and community back into the hands of individuals.
process :
solution :
Courses
In-depth sex and sexuality courses allowing users to learn on their own schedule and in the comfort of their own space
Lead by queer sex and sexuality coaches
Explore
Allows users to quickly and comfortably explore all things sex, from toys, to positions, to informative articles
Support
Provides the user with a safe space to get support, support others and learn how to better others within their community
Collections
All access of saved content within one streamlined space
Allows users to collect, return to and even collaborate with others through the save feature
Users & Audience :
Winq’s audience primarily caters to LGBTQ+ individuals above 18, but is welcoming to all gender/sexual expressions and encourages folks outside of the queer community to join as an ally. There is something for everyone here!
Research :
L E A R N
Let’s uncover what people in the lgbtq+ community are missing in their sex, sexual identity, and relationship education. These insights would help generate a better idea of what kind of safe space is missing in queer lives and what specific needs there are among queer individuals.
To begin I conducted secondary research to get a clear read on what resources are currently out there, and who might be utilizing them, in and outside of the education system.
A S K
Up next was to connect directly with the audience through a series of target user interviews. Investigating for behavior, pain points, needs, desires and goals.
Tell me about the first time you knew you were queer.
What triggered that realization?
Did you speak to anyone?
Was it a positive experience, negative?
Did you have someone to go to or any resources that supported you during your time of identification?
Was gender identity and sexuality at all a part of your education growing up and now as a young adult?
How did you first investigate or learn to understand queer sex, either through others or resources?
Are there ways/people/resources you use to continue to learn about sex and become more knowledgable on the topic?
Do you feel supported in the ways to use sex toys for yourself or in your relationships?
L I S T E N
Understanding what questions, curiosities, and lack of knowledge is missing in queer sex ed showed a more clear picture of where our current system is failing a vulnerable population. This research provided a direction on how specifically to fulfill that need, and to what extent we need to be empowering more queer youth, adults and people close to them with proper knowledge.
“ There are aspects of sexuality that I am still somewhat blind to, even though I do think I have a wide breadth of knowledge ”
“ I think there’s so much nuance in gender identity and sexuality…I should be better at knowing what peoples options are and what they are doing ”
“ I mean there is always more to learn on it, to understand people and myself, that’s forever ongoing”
“ We are living in a world that is ever changing and ten years ago I didn’t know half as much as I do now, and another ten years from now who knows where we will be ”
“ When I was older her entire sex ed was based off of abstinence until marriage…I felt pretty shamed to want to explore my sexuality ”
Synthesis :
After taking stock of all that I had heard and learned from my interviews, it was time for me to synthesize. In order to give life to this idea I gathered my data points, notes and quotes to create my affinity maps, user personas and their empathy maps.
affinity
empathy
personas
journey
Redefine :
Once all my research had been laid out and properly combed through, I started to see where some of the cracks lie. Back to the drawing board for some redefining of my problem in order to best reflect all that I had learned from my audience and empathy exercises.
My refined goals were now defined as :
User task flows :
It’s all about the journey, so after redefining my goals I began to dive into user flows to reveal the minimal viable product (MVP). This MVP included :
taking courses / exploring sex resources / getting & giving support / saving and sending everything you learn to a personal collection
Design :
Bringing it all together.
And so the UI fun begins! Combining the products key components, information architecture, user red routes and flows, I could then at long last, bring the pen to paper.
I began with sketching the initial screens, and testing those sketches before moving onto wireframing.
Utilizing Figma I was then able to transfer my sketches into low fidelity wireframes.
Style guide :
high fidelity :
Usability testing :
What is creativity and design without a good critique!
Eager to see how my prototype would fare in the hands of users, I conducted two rounds of usability tests. Meeting with 5 participants per round I tasked them each with goals that fulfilled my user red routes, while asking questions along the journey to gather the most feedback possible.
Turns out critique is everything! Coming across some issues that my eye didn’t initially catch, I was able to pull a range of critical and non critical issues from the tests that would be valuable for revisions.
Insight 1: Wording
Confusion surrounding correlation between wording and content of a major section in menu bar. Brainstorm a new term to use for that section and consider it for the landing space.
Insight 2: Content
Rethink about what one major sections is offering, and consider if it’s adding or taking away from the goal of a safe space.
Insight 2: Landing
Reconsider what is the most important information to present the user with right when the app opens. Is it landing in their own space or within a space that gets them curious right away?
Learnings :
The journey with Winq was one of peaks and valleys, which is a true sign of a design backed by hard work and dedication. I am confident in the apps success in delivering a strong solution to the initial problem facing the sex-tech industry. I learned so much from not only the design practices and principles, but from the users themselves by listening with empathy.
Winq’s warm, inclusive and welcoming environment takes the taboo out of sex education and puts the power of knowledge back in the hands of individuals. The app is encouraging to those who are excited to learn, and leaves them with a stronger sense of sexual confidence.
DESIGN
Designing starts with inspiration. Inspiration can come from anywhere, and in all forms. I learned early on the value in browsing and even downloading new apps to pull ideas from.
For Winq especially, my biggest design accomplishment was to nail down the colors and imagery. This kept me on my toes when putting a mood board together and then placing each image in its spot with the design.
This exploration served me well once it came time to piecing together my designs, with the confidence that design is ever-changing and that is a great thing.
TEST
Critique, critique, critique!
The tests I conducted with the two rounds of users was one of the more unexpectedly valuable and satisfying stages of Winq. The insight, reactions and overall feedback was not only constructive, but very validating to the initial research I had done from the beginning. Feeling as if I was hitting the target for solving the initial problems I had come across during interviews.
The things that are most satisfying about the design process only become even more validating once seen on the faces of my users. That is something I will take with me from this experience and into all future projects.
GROW
It’s all a part of the process!
There were times during this project that proved to be messier than others and left me somewhat lost in the sauce at times. Pushing through to be able to step back and see the project as a whole took time, but was incredibly worth the hard work. I can see very clearly now how every stage was a building block to Winq’s success.
I grew along side this project through a constant and steady cycle of researching, ideating, testing and designing.
