What is OMW?
OMW is an automated scheduling app that removes the back-and-forth of planning a hangout. Users import their availability and OMW surfaces the best times for the group to meet — the host picks one and everyone gets notified.
This project followed the Design Thinking methodology over three months as part of a five-person team — two graphic designers and three UX designers and researchers. My role covered user research, ideation of the core scheduling feature, and designing the mockups.
The person who always ends up making things happen.
Juggling multiple friend groups alongside school and a part-time job made socializing feel like another item on my to-do list. A lot of my time went toward organizing my Google Calendar and tracking down when people were actually free — and even then, plans would still fall through. The more people involved, the harder it got.
A lot of the time, hangouts ended up being whoever was already nearby. Friends who were at home or a drive away would get little to no notice, and more often than not, they just got left out.
A group chat blowing up, everyone throwing out availability, and somehow still no plan.
We've all been there. And it doesn't stop there. When plans change, there's no clean way to keep everyone in the loop. Someone always misses the update. Details get lost, people show up at the wrong place, and others don't show up at all.
Then when you finally try to confirm where you're supposed to be, you're scrolling through a wall of messages just to find the answer.
The data confirmed what we suspected — and surfaced something we didn't expect.
We built the survey around three things we wanted to validate: whether existing platforms were too overcomplicated, whether time-to-confirm was real friction, and whether lack of participation was a group dynamic problem worth solving.
The survey was sent to family, friends, peers and across social media. Before it went out we ran a pilot test with a small group to catch confusing or redundant questions. The final version was anonymous — which we think mattered, especially given what the responses told us about social anxiety.
32 people responded. 91% named scheduling conflicts as their main pain point, 78% rely on group texts, 53% said it takes 3–5 days. And then the unexpected one: 5 out of 6 people who don't actively participate in planning said the reason was social anxiety.
The problem wasn't unique to one type of person.
Our survey pointed to a consistent pattern across different life stages, schedules, and levels of technical comfort. We built three personas to represent that range and keep our design decisions grounded in who we were actually designing for.
What already existed — and where it fell short.
From three features to one killer feature.
Our original solution had three parts: a scheduling tool, an invitation manager, and a voting system. We thought covering all three made us more competitive. Industry feedback changed that fast.
The feedback was direct — three features in three months wasn't realistic, and trying to build all of them meant none would be built well. Focus on your MVP first.
Going back to the survey data made the decision obvious. 91% of respondents named scheduling conflicts as their main pain point — not managing invitations, not voting on where to go. The scheduling tool was the only one that directly attacked the problem. The invitation manager would've required hooking into every messaging platform's API. The voting system just added another layer to a process that was already too slow.
The ones already doing the work of getting everyone together.
OMW was designed for the person who always ends up making things happen. The one who throws out the idea, sends the first message, and then waits. And waits.
One of our own team members, Tina, lived this firsthand. She'd propose something and spend the next several days chasing people down for a response. By the time everyone weighed in, the window to actually make plans had already shrunk. These are the people OMW was built for.
What four industry professionals told us in week 10.
The person creating the meetup does the work once. Everyone else has as little friction as possible.
You open the app and land on your home screen — upcoming events, who you're hosting, pending invites. From here you create a meetup, name it, drop a location, write a description, and choose who's coming. At this point you decide whether to schedule it yourself or let OMW handle it.
A notification goes out to everyone invited asking them to add their availability. They can do it manually by tapping time slots on a calendar grid, or connect directly from Google, Apple or Outlook Calendar. The host can see in real time who has imported and who is still pending, with the option to send a reminder.
Once everyone's availability is in, OMW surfaces the best overlapping times. The host picks one, makes any adjustments, and finalizes. The meetup is automatically added to everyone's events tab and a confirmation notification goes out.
Fun, fresh, and out of your way.
We wanted OMW to feel fun and fresh. Our target demographic is Gen-Z and young millennials, and we wanted the visual identity to reflect that without feeling forced.
The hand-drawn doodle style came from that same place — icons, illustrations, characters, all meant to feel hand-made rather than polished. Purple was a deliberate choice: it reads as creative and imaginative, right for an app built around making plans with people you care about. The darker olive background tones let the purple and brighter accent colors breathe without competing.
Bold typography tied it all together. The weight of the type matched the energy of the branding.
Open the app. Know exactly where you are and what to do next.
The home screen was structured around three button pills — Upcoming, Hosting, and Invites. Enough information visible right away, without the screen feeling cluttered. Splitting navigation this way meant users could get to what they needed without pressing through extra screens.
Importing your schedule was a deliberate two-option decision. Connect directly from Google, Apple or Outlook Calendar for the faster route — or use manual import for users who weren't comfortable giving the app calendar access upfront. The tool needed to work for everyone regardless of how much they trusted it.
The automated scheduling screen is the core. Once everyone's availability is in, OMW generates the best overlapping times and surfaces them clearly. The host gets a separate customization screen to adjust if the suggestions don't fit. The automation does the heavy lifting — the host still makes the final call.
Two things changed as a result.
Before committing to the hi-fidelity mockup, I walked two people through the lo-fi user flow and asked whether the flow made sense and whether getting from screen to screen felt like too many steps.
The manual import calendar was a deliberate decision informed by When2Meet, where you select and drag time blocks. On a phone screen you're limited on real estate, so we wanted an interaction that felt tactile and responsive — not precise tapping on small targets.
Defining what success would look like — before launch.
We defined three KPIs to measure whether OMW was actually delivering on its promise. The project wrapped before any could be tracked in a live environment, but defining them early kept our design decisions grounded in what we actually needed to prove.