BN

Mixed-Methods UX Researcher

Limbo · Stanford Capstone

Limbo

Role
Founding and sole researcher on a 3-person team (one engineer, one visual designer)
Timeline
20 weeks
Owned
All research end to end, from operations and planning to synthesis and insight delivery; every prompt from conception to App Store launch, design guidelines, go-to-market strategy
Methods
Semi-structured interviews, survey, pilot testing, paired-comparison ranking, thematic analysis
Impact
Generative + evaluative research informed platform design & behavior guidelines for Limbo, now available on the App Store.
Four friends at a table, each answering the same Limbo daily prompt on their phone
01Problem

How do recent graduates maintain friendships after losing the physical proximity granted by college?

Limbo is a daily-prompt social app for recent graduates. My goal was to understand how friendships hold up after college, and what makes a digital space feel intimate enough to share everyday minutia, to inform product strategy and behavior design over 20 weeks.

02Methodology

Semi-structured Interviews

Generative · coded thematically

11interviews with recent graduates
Question

How do friendships change after graduation?

What I found

Friendships stall in a “limbo zone” because no one has permission to reach out. People needed:

Structure
A built-in reason and rhythm for staying in touch.

Permission
Reaching out without a big update to justify it.

Randomness
Small, unplanned moments of contact.

In their words
“College is like preschool.” “It felt like daycare.”Whimsy became a design element, and later, play became a reason to open the app alone.
Job, relationship, how life is going.Catch-ups felt like a checklist of the same few updates, so spontaneity became the goal.
03Key Insight
Central insight

Intimacy in distanced relationships and social media comes from the trust implied by exposure to everyday minutia; sharing more than “performance” and milestones reads as mutual confiding.

Triangulated across the interviews, survey, ranking study and pilot, this became the central insight behind Limbo’s product strategy. So Limbo was built to be:

Small by default

A private network with no public follower counts, because private spaces felt more intimate than main accounts.

About the everyday

One daily prompt at the center, instead of a feed of milestones.

Mutual

You see friends’ answers only after you share your own, so inclusion reads as trust.

04Product impact
4behavior principles that became core product mechanics
4+solo-use features added after the pilot
100+users, live on the App Store

This generative + evaluative research informed platform design & behavior guidelines, some of which included:

PrincipleEvidenceShipped
Design for intimacy in 1:1 contexts and play in group contextsThe setting a prompt evokes decides the kind of question that fitsComments are direct DMs, not public; party mode and customizable games in Circles
Increase solo network benefitPilot participation collapsed for people whose friends had not joined yetExplore page, Lightning Round takes, Archive, Personal Scrapbook
Require mutual buy-in to establish trustInclusion in a private space reads as “I trust you”The feed unlocks only after you answer the daily prompt
Subvert expectations for excitementMain accounts rated 3.0 for intimacy against 5.1 for private spacesReactions, not likes; no public follower count; prompts worth reading

Tap a feature to see the research behind it.

Working across functions

Engineering
Our engineer argued for friend groups and I argued for networks, since group chats already serve groups. We kept Circles and centered the individual network, and made data-backed pivots together after the pilot.

Visual design
Co-wrote design guidelines with our visual designer, and wrote every prompt from conception to App Store launch.

05Brand + go-to-market

The identity I carved out through research also shaped how we positioned and launched Limbo.

AI-generated concept imagery of Limbo in the real world: card decks, posters, a subway ad, a phone booth
AI-assistedI imagined Limbo in the real world with AI to align its feel with our engineer and visual designer.
01Naming

The “limbo zone” from needfinding, kept after a session with Google’s former Head of Naming.

02Timing and audience

Launched on campus weeks before graduation, inviting seniors and grad students about to lose college proximity.

03Posters

Each carried a top-ranked prompt type from the ranking study and a QR code.

Limbo on campus: launch posters carrying top-ranked prompts and QR codes
The campus launch: posters, the launch event, and event mode with live prompts.

Want to learn more? Feel free to reach out!

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