In essence, Atlis brought word of mouth recommendations to the digital space by rewarding quality interactions from its users with cash, status, and most importantly a trustworthiness score.
When I was first approached by the founders of Atlis, that product vision had not yet been created, or in better words, discovered. The story of our partnership is a journey that includes the creation of a product, a brand, and a new behavior through constant iteration, testing, and deployment.
Central to Atlis was its mobile app, the main platform on which community members ask for advice finding businesses or respond to others with their own recommendations. As a concept the experience design was simple: A flow to ask for advice, a flow to view and respond to other users’ asks, and the necessary user and business profiles.
The visual design was kept intentionally spare as well in order to ensure that the community conversation remained the focal point. A primary red-orange hue was complimented by a flexible palette that embraced warm tones for casual communication and cooler shades for more serious messaging.
The typeface was selected to convey approachability while embodying Atlis's core principles of democratization and trust. Initially, Proxima Nova was used, but Circular by Laurenz Brunner was ultimately chosen to anchor the content-rich interface, and lent a touch of typographic sophistication to Atlis's friendly demeanor.
My work earned two FastCompany Innovation By Design awards, one in the UX category, the other in Product Design.
What started as a simple task of designing a somewhat basic mobile app developed into an approach of constantly iterating to optimize interaction and effectively display large amounts of supporting information.
This iterative approach enabled Atlis to expand from its origins as an iOS app to a comprehensive platform which offered native and web experiences that catered to both desktop and mobile users.
#AskAtlis was a term coined early in the project that embodied the ease by which users would seek information. Our job was to deliver on that promise of ease by making the Ask flow as effortless as possible.
In early versions an Ask was just one step. The user would define what type of business they were looking for, write a brief supporting question, and confirm the preferred location all at once. While this seemed easiest we found that breaking that process into three focused steps resulted in a greater number of Asks and better insight into specifically what users were looking for.
Atlis began as a mobile app, but was designed for desktop as well. Rather than simply scaling the experience, each flow was addressed individually to produce the most efficient user experience.
The Ask flow is encapsulated into a single view, offering the same great experience and speed as the Atlis mobile app
Asking is only half of Atlis’s equation, and our main concern when testing the concept was that no one would respond as those Asks came in. Our approach was to make responding just as easy as asking, but with the added support of contextual information.
When users opt to provide a recommendation, Atlis suggests businesses that they have previously recommended or visited aided with additional context clues such as time of day, current location, and how long ago their last visit was.
Atlis can suggest potential responses based on past recommendations to similar Asks in nearby locations.
Those places are immediately accessible when making a recommendation and noted with a heart to indicate that this place is on that the responder has previously recommended.
In addition to the value of crowdsourced, real-time responses, Askers' behavior is encouraged via a system of points that they can accumulate and redeem for various rewards, both weekly and instant.
The response flow on larger screens makes use of added real estate to reveal conversations around recommendations as well as additional information about each business.
In addition to the value of crowdsourced, real-time responses, Askers' behavior was encouraged via a system of points that they could accumulate and redeem for various rewards, both weekly and instant.
Custom badges indicate progress and status within the community. Each design is thematically linked to a neighborhood archetype, such as "Newcomer" for new users, to "Legend" for those who really know their local hotspots. Every level came with its own set of rewardable actions, as well as new opportunities to hasten advancement to even higher status.
With a platform for recommendations involving status and cash we soon found it necessary to develop a means by which users could evaluate the advice from others. Were users thoughtfully suggesting businesses or were they recommending a place that they figured the asker would visit for other reasons? We wanted to create a democratized system in which users held each other accountable for good advice and where trust is earned through positive engagement with the community.
A simple thumbs up and down system encourages users to give their opinion as to whether advice is relevant to the asker’s intent. Users who give thoughtful advice increase their trust score, those who try to game the system will see it decrease, simple as that. Trustworthiness scores follow users around the platform, making it easy to determine whether their advice can and should be acted on.
We needed to cater to everybody, from longtime Atlis community members, to newcomers, to business owners claiming their profiles. This means that Atlis takes on many formats and exists in various contexts throughout the course of a single day or a single user's journey.
A full application suite served this purpose, including a responsive web product, mobile apps, marketing landing pages, and soon more. For the web, every element is fully responsive with content and interaction models that adapt to contextual information including location and time.
Atlis is extraordinarily beneficial for its users because they can finally get real recommendations from locals and friends who know their neighborhoods. The value that Atlis created was proof that there is a more positive ecosystem for businesses than star-based ratings.
My close partnership with Atlis resulted in a consumer brand and product suite with wild initial success. It demonstrates that an approach of honesty and mutual respect with clients leads to work that engages users and encapsulates the brand’s ideals.