A calendar-based social platform
7 minute read
Social media is failing as a tool for social connection. Meta admitted earlier this year that on average, only 7 % of the posts an Instagram user sees come from friends. This comes at a time where social connection is increasingly recognized as key to our longevity.
As the sole UX researcher and designer, I spent my Bachelor’s thesis exploring the ways digital social design could better nurture its user’s social well-being, resulting in a calendar-based social platform for social planning. I led the project from concept to validated prototype.
Once centered around connecting with friends and family, the biggest social media platforms have evolved to be optimized for user retention. This shift has primarily been driven by short to mid-form video and personalized feeds. As Meta stated in 2025, only 7% of the content users see on Instagram comes from their friends.
“At this point, you’re just watching TV with a chat function.”
— Eugene Healey
Us in our filter bubbles
Research suggests that the social media experiences most conducive to well-being are driven by intentional interactions, not by filling idle moments with passive entertainment.
With this background, I spent my Bachelor’s thesis in Design exploring the ways social media design could better nurture its user’s social well-being, resulting in a calendar-based social platform for social planning. Since its completion, other social planning apps (Apple Invites and Partiful) have garnered widespread attention, validating the insights and the resulting concept.
As the sole researcher and designer, I drove the project from concept to validated prototype.
Due to the lack of a team, this also limits the cross-functional input and perspectives that we as designers typically benefit from. It also limited the scope of the project to design principles and prototypes.
Desk research
I read about digital social interaction and its potential to contribute to social well-being. This made me focus on social media and social planning.
User research
I gathered qualitative and quantiative data from 30+ people. This included six semi-structured interviews, and surveys asking people to rank social media features based on their perceived contribution to their social lives.
This is synthesized in two personas, a user journey map, and several user flows to gain clarity on typical behavioral tendencies, what pain points exist, and where along the journey they occur.
I should note that I involved this group continuously. This helped me uncover the problem initially, and validate and iterate on the concept later.
Benchmarking
With a solid user foundation, I audited existing tools to identify essential features beyond the feed. I mapped core user flows, focusing on tasks like creating a plan and confirming a date, ensuring each task could be completed with minimal steps.
Iteration
I quickly moved into wireframing to test structural choices, iterating through rapid usability sessions to ensure the design remained aligned with user needs. After confirming the flows I refined the prototype into mid- and high-fidelity versions, continuing usability testing to keep the solution true to user intent.
Brand identity
For the final presentation of the project, I undertook a brand process as well. Muted colors, whitespace, soft motion, and humanitst typography with moderate x-height make Days feel like its at the edge of Silicon Valley aesthetics, making its challenger role self-evident, appealing to the target group by reinforcing the product’s promise.
Despite the inherent benefits of social networks, which often keep users from seeking out alternatives, a growing segment of users has begun migrating to platforms like Mastodon, Telegram, and Bluesky. Alongside this, there has been a rise in 'digital detox' products—apps, extensions, and even a return to analog alternatives like dumb phones—aimed at reinstating user agency in a world where design has reduced our attention spans to an all-time low.
To better understand the needs of users dissatisfied with mainstream social media platforms, I interviewed 6 individuals and designed a survey to explore their challenges and desires.
Several key themes emerged.
- Users experience compulsive behavior, which they attribute to their feed and notifications
- These users value chatting and other direct digital interactions
- Social planning in particular stood out as an essential use case that remains poorly served. Many of these users expressed frustration with how fragmented and chaotic current tools for organizing social events and activities are, especially how many rely on Facebook’s Events—which one user described as a "necessary evil" simply because all their friends have accounts there
Survey results further supported these insights: 68% of respondents ranked chatting and social planning as the most valuable social features, while 72% identified algorithmic feeds as the least useful.
From the interviews and surveys, two key personas emerged, each representing different facets of the tech-averse user segment.
Lidia, 25
Digitally hesitant, avoids social media due to discomfort and distrust.
"Even though it makes a lot of things more frustrating, it's gotten to a point where I leave my phone at home."
Lidia’s Needs
An experience that feels simple, transparent, and trustworthy, allowing her to engage meaningfully without being bombarded
Tools that are easy to navigate and help her take control over her digital experience
Design implication
Design for App Fatigue. Lidia's threshold for downloading new apps is high. She’s hesitant to engage unless the value is immediately clear. This means the platforms Time-to-value (TTV) should be as short as possible without requiring extensive login or long commitments upfront
Herman, 32
Digitally curious but cautious about the attention technology demands. A power user, overwhelmed by constant engagement and distraction.
"I’m curious about technology, but I’m also aware of how it eats up my time. I need tools that help me focus and give me control, not just another distraction."
Herman’s Needs
Solutions that offer real value without adding to his mental clutter
A platform that helps him engage intentionally
Flexibility to control his experience while also allowing for meaningful connections
Design Implication
Focus on purposeful interaction through social planning tools
Allow users to engage at their own pace
Make it clear that the design enhances their experience rather than overwhelms it
Talking with users also let me map out their journey (using a cabin trip as an example), clearly revealing where particular pain points occur, and users face when planning social events on existing platforms. This helped me break down the process of organizing social activities and identify where users encounter friction—whether they are using Facebook Events, WhatsApp, or a mix of multiple methods (which was usually the case).
Given these findings, it’s seems that social planning is an important yet underserviced element of social networks. While not the only positively regarded use case, it’s one that both incumbent platforms and new challengers are failing to prioritize, even though users are actively looking for it. These users want a more cohesive, intuitive way to organize and plan social activities—one that’s free from the distractions of algorithm-driven content.
Based on these insights, I identified some strategic moves to address the problem:
The blockers of social planning are about more than just logistics. It's also about momentum, clarity, and collective commitment. People want it to happen, but the process itself becomes the blocker. Centralizing the scattered process and reducing the logistical steps will help with this. The solution needs to be a central place to gather interest, confirm availability, and track decisions
Extract planning into its own space: Social planning must be liberated from the attention economy and given a dedicated, distraction-free space to focus
Try to keep chat as the primary canvas: Since users already engage in chat to coordinate plans, the conversation thread should serve as the central hub for organizing events. This mimics real-life interaction, where banter and pragmatism blend naturally. Plans should emerge from chats—but persist as structured, visible commitments.
Let plans emerge organically: Plans should be intuitive, evolving naturally from ongoing conversations
Low-friction, account-free invites for people on the fringe of the group. A system that respects the fluidity of planning while reducing the burden on the organizers
Once I knew what qualities to look for in planning features, I began benchmarking direct competitors (social planning apps and reviewed state-of-the-art social media designs. This allowed me to evaluate how well these platforms supported social planning and where they fell short.
With a clear user lens and an understanding of common social planning flows, I audited the content in the benchmarks, listing every screen element and function to understand what actually matters once the feed is gone. I then mapped end‑to‑end user flows for core tasks like “create a plan” and “confirm a date,” making sure each pathway could be completed with as few taps as possible.
Dashboard
The dashboard centers social planning completely, resulting in a lightweight app that promotes physical interaction by making social planning easier.
Loose and Fixed Plans
The top half of the dashboard focuses on immediately upcoming plans, with one prominent button allowing you to quickly add new plans.
Plans are separated into two broad categories. Loose Plans are indicated by dashed lines, and become Plans once a date and time is set, and people are invited.
Every event gets a chat
Outside of physical interaction, planning by chat is the norm among this target group. It was highly rated as a social feature, and it promotes synchronous dialogue, as opposed to one-sided invitations or the slower nature of the wall in Facebook Events. Because of this, every event gets a chat.
Pinned messages
A problem with social planning is that it needs to be both casual and conscientious. It needs to strike the balance between the organic flow of conversation, and the systematic work that is organizing. The Pin Board is promoted heavily, being readily available in the bottom right of the chat bar.
Early prototypes relied on AI by having generated summaries of plan-relevant conversations readily available. But this came at the expense of user agency, something the target group valued.
A note on this feature
There is definitely space to explore this balance further. For most users I think there is space for more autonomous or comprehensive solutions. See for example Slack’s threaded conversations, or Apple Mail’s use of AI to summarize e-mail contents.
Barebones profile section and dynamic notch info, compatible across notch types.
The profile lives inside the extended notch. Including only name and image, it is only enough information to be useful identifier. Purposefully lightweight to avoid social comparison and profile fixation, some of the main aspects of social media associated with negative mental health outcomes.
The extended notch section is a graphical addon to the iPhone notch, accounting for the size variability across models, and bringing "dynamic island" functionality to older models.
Shared Calendar
The Shared Calendar allows users to share availability subtly without sharing every detail of their schedule, and without the need for attention-grabbing design. Inspired by research concluding that even low-bandwidth, ambiguous design interventions are sufficient to effectively induce an immediate sense of social connectedness.
Challenging mental models
One of the biggest learnings was the success of interlocking events and chats. Initially, this decision seemed risky due to its novelty, but after testing, users had an “aha moment” that made the experience intuitive and engaging. This was a reminder that innovative design often requires cognitive effort, but if it’s learnable, it can create impactful moments.
Cross pollination between product/service offering and brand
By working on both the brand and the product at the same time, I noticed how the animations, the visual rythmn, and the UX copy impacted the brand perception as well, not just the user experience with the product.
Coming from a graphic design background, I think an appreciation for brand is helpful when creating products/services.
In some ways this is an obvious overlap, however in practice I my impression is that a lot of companies are keeping brand and product separate, operationally. In reality I think they're concerned with the same thing; the experience people have.
Therefore I think you can get interesting places by allowing the nature of the product directly impact the brand, and vice versa.
Thank you,
Trond Klevgaard, for guidance even though i snuck a product design project into a graphic design course,
Rasmus Fiske, for company during the long nights at campus,
and to the participants, who provided candid, thoughtful feedback. Your input was crucial to the success of this project.
