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Spotted
As proud Albanians, our mission is to preserve the Albanian DNA by building strong, healthy families. We are dedicated to protecting our values like Besa, our traditions, and our language, empowering Albanians to reach their full potential.
For dua.com, I designed a Spotted feature that helps users connect with people they encounter in real life. The challenge was creating a seamless, intuitive experience for discovering and interacting with like-minded individuals without feeling intrusive.
By enabling GPS tracking in the Dua.com app, users can see others who have been at the same places at the same time, opening opportunities for real-world connections.
My Role
Head of UX UI Design
Project type
Mobile App
Year
2024 - 2025
Tools
Figma, FigJam
Client
dua.com
Objective
I focused on designing features to:
Reconnect with familiar faces: Easily find people who frequent the same spots and share common interests by using GPS of the phone without sharing the privacy.
Build meaningful connections: Enables users to start conversations and build relationships with nearby, like-minded individuals.
The goal was to make the experience smooth, intuitive, and valuable for users.
Ideation and Iteration
The design process went through many rounds of iteration, starting with low-fidelity mockups and evolving into high-fidelity prototypes.
Throughout this phase, I worked closely with my project manager, developers, and company stakeholders. We followed a feedback-driven process, using insights from user interviews as the foundation for our design decisions.
Challenges
One of the challenges was keeping the GPS active at all times without requiring users to keep the Dua app running in the background. We tested several approaches, from mobile dialogs to interactive notifications, and ultimately chose the default mobile dialog because it aligned better with OS guidelines and provided users with clearer information about location settings.
Another challenge was addressing privacy, as it was difficult to convince users to enable a feature that continuously tracks their location in the background. Based on competitive analysis and research, we decided to use a mobile dialog here as well, to ensure full transparency with users regarding privacy.
User Research
To ensure the Spotted feature worked correctly and respected privacy requirements, I analyzed competitors with similar features by testing their apps and creating a detailed competitive analysis to determine the best solution. I studied Happn, Crosspaths, and Lovo, and found that the main differentiator among them was how they handled privacy, which is the most important factor for users to feel comfortable enabling this feature. Ensuring user privacy was my primary focus during the research phase.
All my research was organized on a whiteboard (FigJam) to clearly present findings to the product owner and stakeholders.
Outcome
The Spotted feature launched successfully, receiving very positive early feedback from both users and internal teams.
It was one of the most challenging parts of the app, introducing a dedicated page, a full map displaying groups of spotted people, and a list view with options to like and start conversations. Despite the complexity, the feature delivered a smooth user experience and effectively enabled real-world connections.
