A Third Space For Shared Interests
For the spaces where connection begins.
role:
Product Designer
Project Manager
timeline:
July 2025 - Sept 2025
team:
5 Designers
Project Manager (me!)
skills:
Product Design
User Research
Prototyping
Usability Testing
overview
How do we spark a third space where curiosity meets community and shared interests become something real?
Mesh is a concept app designed for young adults who struggle to find local hobbyists and build real community, whether new to a city or simply craving connection. As project manager and one of five designers, I led product vision and research to reimagine what a community-building app rooted in shared interests could be. In 8 weeks, we took Mesh from concept to functional prototype and walked away with something unexpected: an audience eager to see it become real.
the problem
Turns out, the hardest part of having a hobby is finding others who get it
Finding a connection feels straightforward until you're down a rabbit hole lost in endless tabs and communities that are almost right, but not quite. Add a niche hobby, and finding passionate locals at a similar skill level costs far more time, energy, and patience than it should.
Finding Third Spaces
the current space
Today's community-building tools and apps are often impersonal, inactive, or disconnected from what's happening locally
Existing tools have yet to deliver a community-building experience that feels personal, active, and truly connected.
Apps like Meetup, Facebook Groups, Luma, Reddit, and Instagram were designed for broad audiences, everyday socializing, and event promotion. And while they serve those purposes well, the hobbyist gets left behind. Niche interests and local discovery are usually never part of the thought process. And that gap, small as it sounds, is what makes finding a community feel so out of reach.
solution
Introducing Mesh: where niche passions stop being a solo pursuit and start becoming genuine, real-world human connections
Mesh creates space for intentional local discovery, while tailoring every experience to your unique hobbies, alignments, and preferences — so the right communities don't just exist nearby, they surface naturally. The goal was to design a platform rooted in the hobbyist experience, one that understood the search, the frustration, and the joy of finally finding people who just get it.
01. Onboarding
Know exactly what community you’re looking for
Onboarding in Mesh sets the stage for real connections, defining your hobbies and community style upfront so every recommendation feels personal from the start.
02. Events
Discover events with confidence
Browse recommendations or filter to find your match. Every event surfaces what matters most by time, place, and admission, so you always know what you're walking into.
03. Groups
Join the groups where you mesh
Scan recommendations or filter to find groups that align with you on every page, surfacing upcoming events, galleries, and admin info so joining feels informed and intentional.
research
Understanding what hobbyists need
When we first kicked off our concept project, we explored three user journeys to understand the emotions, needs, and friction points involved in finding a community. Each of us had our own take on mapping and found a common barrier across all:
Core research findings:
Curiosity leads hobbyists to a group, but without the right details and dynamic, the decision to join rarely follows.
From the hobbyists themselves
We took our research further by interviewing hobbyists themselves for deeper insights.
Key Insights
→ Hobbyists want to connect offline but lack a trusted way to do it
Scattered resources and unreliable platforms hold back even the most eager community seekers.
→ Belonging matters more than expertise
Feeling welcome, seen, and socially comfortable is the real deciding factor — not skill level or technical focus.
→ Transparency builds the trust to join
Knowing who's behind a group and what to expect from reliable schedules to real profiles is what turns curiosity into commitment.
→ Casual touchpoints are what create lasting community
Low-pressure entry points, informal hangouts, and post-event connections bring people back and increase attendance retention
ideation
The concept behind the product direction
Before aligning as a team, we each independently explored what onboarding and joining a community could look like through mood boards, crazy 8s, and low-fidelity wireframes — landing on a 5-step flow that would shape our design direction.
Ideation Phase
branding
Creating a playful, friendly visual
Finding the right visual identity took extensive exploration. A bright yellow and black palette with carefully chosen typography hit the mark, feeling modern and approachable for a younger audience without losing warmth. That energy carried through every component for a cohesive, accessible result.
prototyping and testing
Prototyping for community-building
We pushed each concept direction as far as we could with our areas of focus. These are some of the concepts that emerged:
Your Interest Snapshot
Shaping the personalization around profile building to discovery
Expansive Exploration
Crafting a discovery experience rooted in relevance
Refining the experience through user testing + feedback
To validate our explorations, we put our prototypes in front of real users, observing how they moved through the experience and their overall feelings, and listening closely to the feedback that shaped the design decisions that followed.
Key User Insights
→ Recommendations that resonate
Users leaned toward browsing over actively searching, placing the most value on recommendations that felt personally relevant and effortless to act on.
→ Transparency and clarity mattered in the details
Full, transparent details in events and groups didn't just inform users — they gained trust and interest in joining.
→ The right words for the right audience
The way Mesh speaks to its users has to feel as personal, intentional, and belonging as the experience itself.
design decisions
Clarity through inclusive language
In a platform built around belonging, language matters as much as experience. While #Vibe tags initially felt trendy, testing revealed they were too vague and felt exclusionary. We’ve switched to #Community tags better to honor the diverse identities and cultures on our platform.
It’s all in the details
To ensure users feel informed before committing, we designed event and group pages with full transparency. Testing showed that while details are essential, clarity is what truly helps users find the information they need without having to chase it.
Relevant recommendations
Starting with just search and filters, we realized we were funneling users into a single path on a platform built around personalization. Adding recommendations to the explore page opened up discovery, and testing confirmed it: users preferred browsing and responded positively to recommendations that reflected their interests.
reflections
If given more time…
I would have pushed avatar creation and onboarding further by crafting a profile experience that felt deeply personal and an onboarding flow that went beyond preferences to understand what each user needs from their community, genuinely. We tiptoed around the potential future opportunity of implementing it as a social app where users can interact and be matched based on profiles and compatibility.
Facilitating is hard, and having a clear PRD helps
Stepping into my first project manager role taught me more than I anticipated. A clear roadmap proved essential for keeping the team aligned and the project moving, though working without a budget as students made our tools harder to maintain consistently. Looking back, establishing a clear PRD from the start would have saved valuable time spent realigning direction and identifying constraints, especially on a tight timeline.
thank you
My 8-week summer with Mesh
As part of an industry-focused design lab, my team took on a challenge that genuinely resonated with us: helping people find community through shared hobbies, without the frustration of endless searching. We spent several weeks moving through research, ideation, and iteration. I focused on user research, wireframing, and user testing, and had a hand in shaping how we surfaced recommendations and made sure the right details came through at each step of the flow.
We wrapped up by presenting to our class and a panel of designers, which pushed us to sharpen both our thinking and our solution. A huge thanks to Kura, Fia, Erin, and Sharfalie, as their commitment and energy throughout made this one of the more rewarding projects I've been part of.
