Alex is busy, gets distracted easily, but thrives in short, focused study bursts. He receives a push notification for a live AP Physics Study Party and taps into his phone. Immediately, he is dropped into a room where he can choose to keep his camera or mic off. He dives right into personalized questions without waiting for others . Along the way, Alex might send an emoji reaction, say hi in the chat, or shuffle to another room if their match isn’t engaging.

He racks up coins, builds a streak, and when they click with another student, he sends a friend request. At the end of the session, he gets a recap of progress and a small dopamine boost from his streak. Later, when a friend invites them to a Precalc party, Alex jumps right back in.

This journey highlights how Study Party blends independent learning with optional social interaction, gamified incentives, and smart reengagement, all designed to make studying feel less like a chore and more like a community.

Early on, I saw a pattern where students would open a room, feel unsure or alone, and immediately exit.

To tackle this, I sketched out a few ideas and quickly tested lo-fi prototypes. First, we removed any friction and loaded the first question immediately. It drastically reduced early dropoff and made entry into Study Party feel more intentional and less awkward.

This design was from December 2021. Study Party isn’t just about putting students into a room, it’s about making that experience feel welcoming, efficient, and optional in the right ways.

The biggest challenge was making video chat with strangers feel safe. We gave users full control over audio and video, and used small touches like emoji reactions and gifts to make the first moments easier.

We also saw high drop off in the first 10 seconds. So we restructured the experience to show a question instantly and let users shuffle between rooms instead of feeling stuck.

And finally, we knew not every user wanted to chat. So we made the default flow asynchronous, and only offered social syncing as an opt-in feature. This let users learn at their own pace, while still leaving the door open for connection.

Throughout the design process, we ran multiple rounds of playtesting, both internally and with real high school students. One major insight came from how awkward first impressions were in the room; people would leave right away. As I said earlier, we introduced pre entry camera/mic toggles and match previews to give users more control and saw early exits drop.

Another common frustration was waiting for others to answer. That led us to shift to an independent study model: keeping the social presence, but letting each student move at their own pace. Between concerns about mismatched subjects to discomfort with being on video, every feature we launched was rooted in real-world tension. Iterating quickly in lo-fi helped us respond fast, and by the time we got to high fidelity, we were solving those problems, not just guessing.

Ultimately we found that users just didn't feel comfortable being on camera or even talking with strangers. They did however still want to study with them.

To sustain motivation, I designed three leaderboard layers:
Overall Leaderboard: global rankings to showcase top contributors.
School Leaderboard: see how you stack up against peers at your school.All-School Leaderboard: friendly competition between schools.
If a student hasn’t entered their school yet, they’re shown an empty state prompting them to add their school and year, turning a blank screen into an onboarding opportunity.