Linked Women

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Inspiration

Linked Women was inspired by the frequent intimidation felt by women on networking platforms due to pre-existing app appearance, male-dominated user demographic, and intimidating/impersonal content. This app is inspired by the desire to combat and dismantle patriarchal systems that exist within social media and the career ladder that continue to exclude women in fields such as finance and tend to underestimate women and their skills in significant highlights of the financial world, such as networking and promotion. Current patriarchal systems held in the workplace confine the ability for young women to achieve effective mentorship, and so this app sets out to break the pattern of women feeling overwhelmed and disadvantaged from the start of their journey in their finance career.

What it does

We aspired to design an app that will encourage young women who may be new to finance (or who are looking to find a welcoming community) to continue to deepen their interest by connecting with other women who are interested or involved in the field. This app has key features, including a Home page, a Resource page, a Chat page, a Networking page, and a Profile page.

The Home page includes posts: photographic, text, or a combination of the two, and allows the user to interact with those in their network. It is encouraged for users to post more personal content to stray from the overcomplication and impersonality of posts seen on other networking applications.

The Resource page includes a variety of resources that the user may utilize to enhance their finance education. Features on this page include:

• An Events tab to seek professional events happening nearby
• A Trending tab to seek news articles about trending topics
• A Bitcoin tab to seek articles specifically related to Bitcoin/Crypto
• An Exchange tab to seek information on foreign exchange
• A Stocks tab to seek activity on selected stocks
• A Finance tab to aid in finance management

The Chat page allows users to interact through text chat, with the option to send photo messages.

The Networking page allows users to search and connect with other users of the app, with an added feature to sync the Linked Women to LinkedIn.

The Profile page allows users to customize their profile and input information on how they would like to be displayed on the app. The profile page displays the users recent posts, as well as their education history and work experience.

How we built it

We used Figma to design the app and to prototype the app.

Challenges we ran into

We faced challenges in initially learning how to use Figma. This was a new application for us, so we needed time to learn how to navigate the software. Additionally, we faced challenges in the ideation process. Our initial idea did not suffice, which caused us to have lost a few hours. However, we were able to move past disagreements from our initial idea and work together to combine our ideas to develop our app design. Our disagreements throughout the project were challenges itself, but through communication we were able to sort out what ideas would be best for our ultimate goal.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud to have been able to create an app design that was aesthetically pleasing. We learnt plenty about aesthetics through this. Additionally, we are proud of our idea proposal and believe that an app geared towards reducing the intimidation male dominated networking apps could truly encourage young women to become more confident and assertive.

What we learned

We learned a lot about Figma and how app design and prototyping works. This was our first time creating a project using Figma.

What's next for Linked Women

We hope to be able to improve the usability of Linked Women in the future in was such as ridding less relevant features and adding accessibility options as well. We also hope to turn this prototype into a running app and learn the programming behind operating a functional app.

Built With

• figma