Overview
Phone Booth is a journal-based voice prompt application for Generation X individuals navigating major life transitions such as empty nesting, retirement, or divorce. It redefines digital connections by prioritizing meaningful, voice-driven interactions over image-based profiles.
Technologies Used
My Role
Lead Developer: Set up the environment for IOS app development, and coded in Audio Playback Functions and UI Coding for the front end of the app.
Research Process: We went through multiple affinity clustering sessions based on our focus groups and SME (Subject Matter Experts) interviews.
Design Process: Each of us came up with our own flows and designs and sketches, and then we decided on how to combine them for our final app's flow.
Personal Achievments
Self-learned SwiftUI in a span of 3 days and developed the Audio Recording and Playback parts, as well as the chat feature of the app.
Ran focus groups and performed Subject Matter Expert interviews to get feedback on design and make improvements
Try it yourselves!
Click on this link to try it in your web browser: https://appetize.io/app/b_r5n7zeknexcw4sjdp4vcq2zqau
Key Features
Voice-first profiles.
Users record responses to reflective prompts promoting authentic connections.
Listen to Stories
Voice-first chat.
Social Media-addicted GenX-ers
Source: Nielsen
As a team of GenZ HCI practitioners, we noticed that our GenX parents have a high screen-time average. We did some research, and found statistics that showed that social media consumption is very high among GenX-ers. So, we talked to GenX-ers to find the root cause of the issue.
Interviewing GenX-ers about their screen time habits through an exercise
We realized that GenX-ers after a major life change (like retirement, empty-nesting etc.), turn to social media to fill the void. They have a hard time meeting new people and forming genuine connections, and try to find a connection through social media.
Helping form connections through a voice-based approach
Through our interviews, we realized a lot of our research participants had difficulties in connecting through picture-based dating apps and other similar social media. So, we decided to test out voice-based approaches like voice-profiles, where users would record their personal stories, or opinions, and broadcast it to the world. Users record responses to reflective prompts like "What is your favourite childhood dish?" or "What is your earliest childhood memory?", which promotes authentic connections by focusing on the tone, emotion and voice of the person rather than just the physical appearance.
We decided to show voice-only profiles in the application, which people can play and listen to. Users connect with other people by listening to snippets of others' stories. Categorized prompts and filters enhance compatibility. We used AVFoundation to create a modular audio player system for playing pre-recorded audio clips.
Our chat features were also voice-based, where users can listen to other's recording and talk via a voice message themselves/
Credits
I was incredibly lucky to be able to work with such talented people, and this project was the result of our hard work!
Development Leads: Aarnav, Evolone
Design Leads: Chance, Hedy
Project Manager: Lucy
Research Lead: Sanjna
Aarnav Sangekar 2025