Peer IncEarly testing

Making a digital gift feel like a social gesture.

I reframed a transaction-heavy gifting flow around the moment between friends, bringing the in-app economy, motion, and haptics into the social experience.

My role: SENIOR MOBILE LEAD UX DESIGNER · PEER INC · 0-TO-1 MOBILE EXPERIENCE
Scope: A 0-to-1 mobile social product, including its in-app economy, motion, and haptics.
Key decision: Organize gifting around the moment between friends, with transactions explained in context.

Context

A social gesture had inherited a financial workflow.

Peer was building a location-based social world on a 3D map. People could connect, share emotes, and use an in-app currency. Much of the product was still being defined through live discovery.

The gifting flow mirrored the backend: seven steps, wallet verification, and gas-fee confirmation. I needed to give the marketplace a mobile experience that preserved the impulse to connect.

Peer emote purchase flow showing a friend's map, a dog emote, star price, insufficient balance, Apple Pay, and purchase feedback. — 01 / GIFTING FLOW — EMOTE DISCOVERY, PURCHASE, TOP-UP, AND FEEDBACK IN THE SOCIAL CONTEXTView full size

Insight

The intent to give disappeared before the gift arrived.

In early testing, the desire to drop a gift for a friend faded before the final confirmation. The asset’s decentralized architecture mattered less to people than how slow and bureaucratic the experience felt.

That changed the design question: how could the product support a moment between friends while keeping the transaction understandable?

SOCIAL INTENT

Start with the person.

The friend and the gesture should give the interaction its context.

ECONOMY

Make the cost explicit.

Surface the star balance, price, and any top-up at the point of decision.

FEEDBACK

Let the interaction respond.

Use motion and haptics to acknowledge progress without adding more reading.

Decisions

Make connection tangible. Keep the transaction legible.

The designs brought emote discovery and purchase into the map and friend context. Price, balance, and the choice to buy more stars appeared at the moment they were needed. Haptic feedback replaced confirmation copy in the specified gifting interaction.

The same attention shaped adding a friend by bumping phones: looping instructions, a shared confirmation, gyroscope-responsive objects, and soft or medium haptic responses tied to the interaction.

Peer map at Infinite Loop, Cupertino, with a message field and available emotes. — Emote discovery / the friend and map context

Peer friend invitation flow showing bumping phones, animation, a shared confirmation, and adding a friend, with haptic and motion annotations. — 03 / BUMP TO CONNECT — ANIMATED INSTRUCTIONS, MOTION, AND HAPTIC RESPONSES SPECIFIED AS ONE INTERACTIONView full size

PURCHASE

A visible decision.

The emote price and star balance sit together, with an explicit top-up choice when funds are short.

CONNECTION

A shared physical gesture.

Bumping devices leads to a shared confirmation and an Add as Friend action.

FEEDBACK

Designed beyond the screen.

Animation, device motion, and haptic intensity are included in the handoff.

Impact

A social interaction model, specified down to the feedback.

The work made a complex product direction concrete: gifting, emote purchasing, currency top-ups, and physical friend discovery were expressed through connected mobile flows.

Motion, device movement, and haptics were specified alongside the screens so the interaction could be reviewed as a complete experience.

What changed, and where

Impact on interaction, product, and delivery

The work reframed an emerging marketplace around social intent and translated that direction into detailed mobile interactions.

User experience

Early testing insight · design direction

Protect the moment of connection.

Early testing exposed a gifting flow that lost users’ emotional intent before confirmation.
The design direction used emotes, physical bumping, animation, and haptics to make feedback part of the social gesture.

Product model

Documented product flows

Make the economy understandable in context.

Emote discovery and purchase were placed alongside the friend and map experience.
The designs made the star balance, purchase cost, insufficient balance, and top-up decision explicit.

Design delivery

Interaction specifications

Specify how the interaction should feel.

The bump flow documented looping instructions, gyroscope-responsive objects, and distinct haptic responses.
Gifting specifications used haptic feedback in place of confirmation copy and included the return to the social view.

Design exploration and early testing. Post-launch outcomes are not documented.