INTERN PROJECT
Snapchat Communities: Growth Circles
Building a Snapchat feature that fosters inclusive communities and social consciousness.
Overview
As part of a 2-week sprint at Snapchat, I worked with a team of designers, engineers, and marketers to build Growth Circles, a prototype feature expanding Snapchat’s ephemeral connection into spaces for belonging, mentorship, and growth.
Company
Snap Inc.
Role
Product Designer
Project Manager
Team
2 Product Designers
2 Developers
2 Marketers
Timeline
2 weeks
August 2025
THE CHALLENGE
Turning Snaps into Lasting Impact
Snapchat has always centered on playful, authentic sharing. But as social media increasingly shapes social consciousness, users are seeking ways to engage more meaningfully.
My team was tasked with designing a prototype for a feature addressing racial injustice during a two-week sprint, challenging us to build on Snapchat’s strengths in privacy and self-expression to create a product experience that empowers action.
EARLY INSIGHTS
Needfinding to Uncover Key Barriers
To make the challenge of addressing racial injustice tangible, we set up a call with program managers from EXP, a Snap-partnered nonprofit focused on providing equitable access to education, mentorship, and career opportunities.
We revealed key barriers BIPOC students face in career growth and community:
Confidence & Voice
Many internalize systemic barriers; building confidence means visibility and belonging.
Lack of accessible spaces
Formal environments feel out of reach; casual spaces allow student engagement.
Weak mentorship pipelines
Mentor relationships often fizzle out, with no sustained method for connection.
Gaps in digital engagement
Orgs lack a way to utilize existing social behavior in students for ongoing support.
Humanizing Our Target User
Combining the insights we've collected from EXP with Snapchat usage data, we humanized our target user into a persona:
REFRAMING THE PROBLEM
BIPOC students need spaces where growth feels organic and achievable.
We initially focused on gaps in mentorship and career resources. As we dug into our insights, a pattern emerged: students disengage when they feel isolated or unwelcome—making even the best opportunities feel out of reach.
“How can we leverage Snapchat's impact in storytelling to build spaces where connection and confidence grow naturally over time?"
SYNTHESIZING INSIGHTS
Affinity Mapping to Unify Themes
After solidifying our understanding of the problem, we ran an affinity mapping exercise to organize and define our research finding into visible opportunity areas for our feature.
Brainstorming Key Implementations
After refining opportunity areas, we decided on several themes which aligns engagement and empowerment with Snap values and product goals, reflecting our vision of Growth Circles as a cohesive Snap-native feature.
Here are key implementations we focused on as a starting point:
01
Casual & Interest-Based Circles
Users can explore communities centered around personal or career interests in a non-professional and accessible way.
02
Safe, Moderated Spaces
Circles are moderated by Snap-partnered organizations and My AI for trusted user participation following Snapchat Community Guidelines.
05
Gamification for Engagement
Users can participate in Circle-exclusive events for a chance to earn decorative Badges & Roles to display on their Community Profiles.
06
Personal Privacy
Users have the option to hide or show personal information such as usernames, and only users over the age of 18 are allowed to view other member profiles.
DESIGN PROCESS
Informing our Design Strategy
To focus our design strategy for our feature, we relied on three major guiding questions throughout the process:
How does this prototype feature enhance the experience of or drive awareness to a Snapchatter?
How does this scale—nationally, globally, or to other topics or themes?
How does this tie into Snapchat's core value point of friendship?
Creating the Information Architecture
To ensure the feature felt intuitive and aligned with existing Snap user behavior, we began by mapping the core user journeys. Our structural framework focused on two main areas:
Entry Point
Proposed an expansion of the existing communities feature, providing multiple entryways working around the main camera landing page for exposure to maximize discoverability.
Verified Onboarding
A multi-step onboarding flow that emphasized a layered verification process and explicit agreement to community guidelines, ensuring user safety.
Early Concepts & Prototypes
In the early prototyping stage, I created sketches and low-fidelity wireframes to establish the layout and user flow, mapping out key screens before developing high-fidelity iterations. My design decisions aligned with Snapchat’s existing design system to ensure visual consistency and maintain the integrity of the brand.
USABILITY TESTING
Iterating on Feedback from the Snapchat Team
After concept testing, we got to pitch our prototype and meet with the C-Suite executives and core product team at Snap to get their feedback on the feature. Here are the most prominent iterations that we made based the feedback:
Emphasizing user safety as moderation.
Snapchat's integrated AI feature, My AI, will moderate all public community chats for violations of community guidelines.
Communities will be managed by Snap-partnered organizations to maintain a trusted space.
Improved community compatibility using metadata.
Hashtags as a form of metadata categorize content,
allowing relevant communities to be more discoverable to users.
THE FINAL SOLUTION
Introducing Growth Circles
Growth Circles reimagines how communities exist on Snapchat, highlighting the platform as a purpose-driven and structured tool for community-based empowerment.
I created high-fidelity user flows for several key sections to represent the core functionality of the feature:
A Secure Onboarding Experience
A multi-step onboarding process emphasizing a layered verification process and explicit agreement to community guidelines, ensuring user safety.
Snap-native Central Hub
The main community story allows familiar and casual sharing, making role models and opportunities feel accessible and relatable.
Badges & Roles Reward Participation
Milestone badges and exclusive roles rewards user participation, builds confidence and incentivizes engagement.
Organized & Relevant Chat Interactions
Topical chat threads allow users to easily find conversations relevant to their needs, and enables mentor users to focus needs. Lightweight message reactions keep chat interactions snappy and fun.
REFLECTIONS
Key Takeaways & Next Steps
Learnings:
Leveraging Native Behavior
The biggest learning was the necessity of designing with platform constraints, not against them. Our success was contingent on integrating new features in a way that felt like a natural extension of the camera-first Snap experience built around friendship.
Balancing Safety and Access
We faced the challenge of balancing robust user verification with low-friction entry. We concluded that for sensitive topics like career growth, trust is a non-negotiable feature, justifying the slightly higher friction in the onboarding flow.
Future Iterations:
A/B Testing Gamification
I would propose A/B testing different implementations of the Badges and Roles system to measure their true impact on users.