Cluttered apps
Participants wanted a cleaner experience that did not overwhelm them with unnecessary features.
Starbound
Making Long Distance Feel More Memorable
Starbound is a mobile app designed to help long-distance friends and partners stay connected through shared memories, friendly calendars, photos, notes, doodles, and playful customization.
View Final Product
The Problem
Long-distance apps often feel cluttered, romance-focused, or emotionally flat, making it harder for users to maintain meaningful friendships and relationships.
The Solution
A simple, playful app built around shared memories.
Starbound turns distance into something users can interact with. Instead of only tracking days apart, the app gives users a shared space for upcoming visits, past memories, photo albums, notes, doodles, and customizable star characters.
Research
Contextual inquiry shaped the direction.
My goal was to create an app that would make long distance easier and more memorable. Through virtual calls with two participants, I found that many people were steered away from existing long-distance apps because the displays felt cluttered and lacked emotional connection.
Friendship focus
Users noticed that many long-distance apps felt romance-based instead of supporting all relationships.
Shared memories
Participants wanted calendars, albums, and playful tools that helped them remember moments together.
Text summary
Goal: Create an app that makes long distance easier and more memorable. Finding: Many users avoid current long-distance apps because the displays feel cluttered and lack emotional connection. Participants included Connor C. from Washington and Samuel W. from California, both age 22, interviewed through virtual calls.
Main Task
Create a long-distance app that is simple, yet meaningful for users.
Empathy Map
Users wanted connection without complexity.
Says
“I find myself having a hard time keeping up with long-distance friends.”
“I wish I could have a shareable album with my friends.”
Does
Flies out to visit, sends photos through messages, downloads tracking apps, and plays drawing games together.
Thinks
Current apps feel too cluttered, and there are not enough friend-based distance apps.
Feels
Sad when unable to keep up with friends, but excited for an app that supports any type of long-distance relationship.
Text summary
Users said they have a hard time keeping up with long-distance friends, want shared albums, and want calendars for visits. They feel current distance apps are too cluttered or too romance-focused. The main task became creating a simple but meaningful long-distance app.
Process
Designing features around connection.
I explored screens that allow users to check in, view upcoming travel plans, receive notes, create doodles, and customize shared widgets. The goal was to keep the experience playful while still feeling useful and clear.
Visual System
A friendly identity with playful illustrated elements.
Starbound uses soft blues, custom illustrated tools, calendars, photos, and expressive star characters to create a welcoming tone. These assets help the app feel less like a utility and more like a shared space between people.
Final Product
A mobile experience for planning, remembering, and creating together.
The final design includes a login screen, upcoming and past visit calendar, shared drawing space, photo memory view, and promotional landing page. The product focuses on emotional connection rather than only counting down time.
Reflection
Research helped turn emotion into product features.
This project taught me how important it is to design around what users actually miss in an experience. Starbound became stronger when the focus shifted from simply tracking distance to supporting memories, anticipation, creativity, and different types of long-distance relationships.