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Case Study

NextBestie.

Find a bestie for every occasion.

A personality-first friendship app for people who actually want real friends, not just more followers to scroll past.

Role UI/UX Designer
Platform iOS & Android
Category Social App
Download on the App Store Get it on Google Play
NextBestie App Mockup
Personalized Matches
Secure Chatting
Bulletin Board
NextBestie App Mockup
The Problem

Making friends as an adult is broken.

Most people lose touch with their friend group at some point. You move, jobs change, people just grow apart. Suddenly you're surrounded by coworkers and acquaintances, but nobody you'd actually call up on a random Tuesday.

None of the apps out there really solve this. Dating apps assume you're looking for romance. Social media just gives you an audience to scroll past. And matching people because they live nearby or work down the hall rarely turns into anything real.

"It's hard to find someone who gets you — same vibes, same values, without the extra drama."

No dedicated platonic platform

Every big app out there is built for dating, networking, or posting for an audience, not for just making a friend.

Surface-level compatibility

Matching people just because they're coworkers or neighbours rarely turns into a friendship that actually sticks.

Disconnected after relocating

Move to a new city and your whole friend group disappears overnight, with no real way to build a new one on purpose.

Star Martin
"

Star Martin, a filmmaker and artist, moved away from East St. Louis and the best friend she'd had for twenty-plus years, and the loneliness that followed is what pushed her to build NextBestie. She wasn't trying to launch a startup, just an easier way to make friends who stick around.

Star Martin Founder, NextBestie
The Idea

Friendship, made intentional.

Instead of leaving friendships up to random chance, NextBestie starts with a quiz about who you actually are, then matches you on that instead of just how close you live.

01

Take the Quiz

You'll answer questions about your personality and how you communicate. Be honest, it changes who you get matched with.

02

Meet Your Match

You get matched with people based on who they are, not where they live. Scroll profiles, filter, and message whoever feels right.

03

Build Together

Message safely, drop into the Bulletin Board when you want company, and flip on Travel Mode if you're ever somewhere new.

Core Features

Built for real
human connection.

01

Personality Quiz Matching

The quiz asks about your actual personality and how you communicate, not just your interests, so your matches feel like people you'd actually click with, not random names on a list.

Matching
02

Encrypted Messaging

Every chat is end-to-end encrypted, and no algorithm is scanning your messages to sell you ads. It's just you and the person you're talking to.

Privacy
03

Bulletin Board Community

There's a shared space with weekly newsletters, forums, and topic boards, for when you want more than a one-on-one chat but still want to feel like you belong somewhere.

Community
04

Travel Mode

Moving cities or just travelling for a while? Turn on Travel Mode and it'll surface people nearby wherever you land, so you're never starting from zero.

Location
05

Post-Meetup Reflections & Safety Tools

After you meet someone, you can leave a quick note on how it went. Over time that feedback quietly shapes better matches and helps flag anyone acting shady before it becomes a real problem.

Safety
Who It's For

For the soft girls, big dreamers,
and creative loners.

✈️

The Relocator

Landed in a new city not knowing a single person, and actually wants to build a real friend group this time.

🎨

The Creative Soul

Makes art, writes, or shoots film, and just wants friends who'll actually sit through the long conversations.

🌙

The Introverted Extrovert

Happy to be social, just not with fifteen people at once. One real chat beats a loud group any day.

💫

The Intentional Connector

Tired of conversations that go nowhere and wants to actually get to know the people they're talking to.

User Research

Understanding the people.

I ran interviews and a survey before designing a single screen, and it changed some of my assumptions.

Key Insights

People are glued to their phones all day and still feel alone

Nobody trusted a friend-making app that didn't show who they'd actually be meeting

Almost everyone said they'd rather be matched on personality than looks

User Survey 47 respondents · 2026
Still feel lonely even though they're constantly online 89%
Feel weird using a dating app just to make a friend 74%
Would rather be matched by personality than by photos 91%

Interviews plus an online survey with people who'd actually use the app

User Persona

Designed for real people.

Sarah

Sarah

Graduate Student · Age 21–28

  • New York, USA
  • Female
  • Young professional
  • Recently relocated to a new city
The Explorer

Interests

  • Always down for a gallery opening or a cultural event
  • Wandering into new neighbourhoods, cafés and bookshops
  • Photography, journaling, any creative outlet she can find
  • Joining random workshops or interest groups just to meet people

Motivations

  • Wants real friends in this city, not just acquaintances
  • Someone to lean on who isn't just a coworker or classmate
  • People who actually get her, not just small talk
  • Less scrolling, more actually hanging out with someone

Pain Points / Frustrations

  • Swiping like it's a dating app just to make a friend feels weird
  • Following someone online never actually turns into a friendship
  • Everyone she meets already has their friend group figured out
  • Most apps care more about someone's photos than their personality

Needs / Expectations

  • Something built just for friendship, not dating in disguise
  • Matched with people based on how they'd actually get along
  • An easy way to break the ice without overthinking every message
  • Wants to know it's safe before agreeing to meet someone in person
User Journey

From first tap to first bestie.

01

Onboarding

App introduction and value proposition

02

Personality Quiz

Interest and value selection

03

Match Discovery

System suggests compatible friends

04

Connection

User sends friendship request

05

Chat

Conversation begins safely

06

Friendship

Long-term bond and community

NextBestie User Flow Diagram
Wireframes

Early layout exploration.

Before touching any visuals, I sketched out rough layouts to lock down structure and flow, then used those to guide the high-fidelity screens.

NextBestie Low-fidelity Wireframes
Design Decisions

Every choice has a reason.

None of this was random. Most of these calls came from watching people struggle with earlier versions, not from what simply looked nice on a mockup.

Soft Colour Palette
→
People open up faster around soft colours than sharp, loud ones
Rounded UI Elements
→
Sharp corners felt cold, so I rounded almost everything
Card-Based Matching
→
Cards let people skim profiles fast without feeling buried
Minimal UI
→
Less clutter meant people focused on the person, not the app
Design Iterations

Refined through each version.

V1

Basic Layout

Initial structure and core navigation — establishing the foundation

V2

Improved UX Flow

Refined onboarding and matching — based on early user feedback

Final

Polished UI

Full visual system, motion design, and feature completeness

NextBestie Before & After UI Comparison
Testing & Feedback

Validated by real users.

01

Most testers gravitated toward matching by shared interests rather than looks or how close someone lived

02

Once we softened the emotional tone of the UI, people just stuck around longer without us asking them to

03

Cutting onboarding down to a simpler flow stopped so many people from bailing in the first few minutes

"

Just moved to London and knew literally no one. I wasn't expecting much honestly, but the app put me in a group with two people who are just as obsessed with vintage cameras as I am. We still meet up most weekends.

P
Priya M. 26 · London, UK
"

I'd deleted every dating app I've tried because something about them always felt off, like everyone had an angle. This one didn't. My best friend right now? I matched with her on day two.

J
Jordan T. 23 · Toronto, CA
"

Honestly went in pretty skeptical about the quiz thing. Turns out it wasn't nonsense — my match gets my sense of humour in a way that normally takes forever to find in a stranger.

A
Aisha K. 29 · New York, US
Outcome

Friendships built on intention.

Improved Social Discovery

Clarity in how people find meaningful connections — no more guessing or awkward cold outreach

Meaningful Friendship Building

Focus on deep, personality-matched connections that last beyond a few exchanges

Reduced Digital Loneliness

Designed to turn online interactions into real-world bonds and genuine human warmth

What I Learned

Lessons that shaped me.

01

User Psychology in Social Apps

I used to design for function first, but I learned people stick around for how an app makes them feel, not what it does.

02

Designing for Emotional Comfort

Colour, spacing and tone aren't decoration to me anymore — they're what earns someone's trust.

03

UX Flows are as Important as UI Visuals

A gorgeous screen doesn't matter if getting through it leaves someone frustrated or lost.

Get the App

Your next bestie is waiting.

Available on iOS and Android. Free to download — because great friendships shouldn't cost a thing.

Download on the App Store Get it on Google Play

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