Originally designed to support the Huyou Beauty Contest, this project evolved into a broader exploration of how digital platforms can enhance talent competitions. While traditional competitions offer structured performances, they often lack real-time interaction, limiting audience engagement beyond passive viewing and simple voting. To address this, we propose a metaverse-inspired social media app that transforms talent competitions into an interactive experience. By integrating real-time engagement, exclusive content, and monetization opportunities, the platform aims to strengthen audience-contestant connections and modernize competition formats for the digital era.

To redefine audience engagement and contestant experience in talent competitions, this project addresses key challenges through a metaverse-inspired social platform. The following sections outline the core problem, mission, and design goals guiding this initiative.

Through surveys, interviews, and competitive analysis, we identified key user needs and market gaps to create engaging solutions that would effectively promote talent competitions.

1 / Survey: To better understand the engagement dynamics of talent competitions, we conducted research on both contestants’ and audiences’ experiences.

Key Insights:
• Both audiences (35%) and contestants (40%) prioritize real-time interaction, indicating a need for live engagement.
• 50% of the audience and 25% of contestants are open to financial support, suggesting virtual gifting opportunities.
• Contestants (35%) struggle for attention, while 30% of the audience seeks exclusive content, pointing to behind-the-scenes access.
• 40% of contestants and 50% of the audience are open to digital monetization, but need education on these features.

Design Strategy:
The design strategy focuses on real-time interaction, virtual gifting, and exclusive content. It aims to improve engagement by offering live features, enabling financial support for contestants, and providing behind-the-scenes access. Additionally, educating users on digital monetization options like NFTs will enhance the overall experience for both contestants and audiences.

2 / Personas and Questionnaire: Creating personas and conducting a questionnaire were essential to understanding the needs and pain points of both contestants and audiences. These insights helped guide design decisions and ensure the product met user expectations in the context of talent competitions.

Pain Points:
• Lack of Real-Time Interaction: Both audiences and contestants struggle with limited live engagement during competitions.
• Difficulty Gaining Attention: Contestants face challenges in standing out and attracting audience attention.
• Limited Monetization Options: Contestants and audiences are open to virtual gifting or digital monetization.
• Demand for Exclusive Content: Audiences seek behind-the-scenes access, and contestants need better ways to engage with their followers.

Design Strategy:
The approach aims to enhance real-time interaction between contestants and audiences, offering features that allow contestants to capture attention more effectively. It also introduces opportunities for virtual gifting and digital monetization to facilitate financial support. Additionally, exclusive behind-the-scenes content is integrated to deepen the connection between contestants and their followers.

3 / Industry Trends: The Metaverse has emerged as a key driver of innovation in digital spaces, with industries exploring its potential to create immersive, interactive environments for users. As the technology continues to mature, its applications are becoming more varied, from entertainment to commerce, shaping the future of virtual interaction.

Key Insights:
The expansion of virtual and augmented reality experiences is increasingly influencing how audiences expect to interact with content, creating an opportunity for talent competitions to integrate new forms of engagement and enhance participant-audience connections in digital spaces.

4 / Competitive Analysis: An analysis of platforms like Twitch, Patreon, and StageIt revealed key insights into engagement and monetization strategies in live entertainment. This helped identify opportunities to enhance the interaction and sustainability of talent competitions.

Opportunities:
• Leverage structured audience interaction, including voting and real-time feedback, which most platforms lack.
• Focus on a dedicated talent competition format, differentiating from general live streaming.
• Build a strong virtual economy, combining fan engagement with monetization strategies.

Challenges:
• Competing with established platforms in terms of user acquisition.
• Balancing structured competition with the organic nature of social media engagement.
• Developing a scalable content moderation system to ensure quality and fairness.

During the ideation phase, user flows were developed to outline key interactions for both the audience and contestants. These diagrams illustrate the app’s structure, highlighting critical touchpoints and ensuring an intuitive and engaging experience. They serve as a foundation to map each group’s journey, helping refine functionality and user engagement.

Below are the user flow diagrams for both the audience (left) and contestants (right), detailing their respective interactions within the app.

To bring a fresh perspective to talent competitions, the “Close to Me” project leverages the metaverse to enhance audience and contestant interactions.

The metaverse offers a new frontier for talent competitions, allowing for more immersive, interactive, and dynamic experiences. It bridges the gap between digital and physical spaces, creating opportunities for deeper engagement, global reach, and innovative monetization. By tapping into this technology, talent competitions can elevate both contestant and audience experiences in ways traditional formats cannot.

The first phase focuses on promoting the talent competition through an engaging AR poster campaign. Users can scan the poster to experience a personalized AR preview of the contestants, sparking interest and encouraging app downloads. This phase aims to generate excitement and drive initial engagement, setting the stage for the deeper interactions in the next phase of the competition.

During the process, we conducted prototypes and user testing for the "Close To Me" app. Challenges arose during the process due to the project's dual focus on both contestants and the audience. While testing was primarily conducted with the audience, real contestants were not available for participation. To address this obstacle, I successfully collaborated with my undergraduate school's student union. They assisted in reaching out to contestants from their previous campus talent competitions for user testing, effectively overcoming this limitation.

Here is the Final Design of "Close To Me":

Leveraging Motion Capture and AI-driven voice responses, the app brings contestants’ daily routines to life within the metaverse. This advanced technology enables real-time interaction between contestants and the audience, creating a more immersive and dynamic experience. By bridging the physical and digital worlds, the app enhances engagement and fosters a deeper, more personal connection, allowing users to interact with contestants in ways that traditional formats can’t offer.

After finalizing the sketches and wireframes, usability testing was conducted to ensure the app met user expectations and functional requirements. This phase aimed to identify usability issues, assess satisfaction, and validate the user experience. By observing real users interacting with the prototype, we gathered valuable feedback to refine design elements and improve accessibility, navigation, and performance.

Usability Testing 01 - Audience

Test Objective:
- The objective of the usability testing for the audience is to evaluate the ease of use, navigation, and interactivity of the app’s audience-specific features, such as scanning the AR poster, engaging with the contestant’s daily routine, and scheduling calls or participating in activities.

Test Participants:
- Participants: 10 tech-savvy individuals aged 18-35
- Experience: Regular social media users, familiar with digital interaction platforms.

Usability Testing 02 - Contestant

Test Objective:
- The objective of the usability testing for the contestant is to assess how easily the app allows contestants to create and customize their avatars, manage schedules, upload content, and interact with the audience.

Test Participants:
- Participants: 10 aspiring performers aged 18-30
- Experience: Familiar with apps for scheduling and interacting with fans.

The iterative process was crucial in refining the design based on user feedback and testing, allowing for continuous improvements in both functionality and user experience. By focusing on real user needs, we were able to enhance the interface and ensure it was intuitive and engaging, ultimately shaping a more polished and user-friendly product.

A key challenge was to keep users engaged with the app’s features without losing focus on the competition. To address this, a notification feature was added, sending timely reminders about key moments and voting opportunities to ensure users stay focused while interacting.

Launch of Close to Me, a Metaverse-inspired social media app with dual users: contestants and audience.

For contestants: The contestants can customize their avatars, manage their schedules by choosing time and location for events, and utilize motion capture and AI technology to precisely document their daily activities. They also can communicate through messaging and edit their profiles as well.

For audience: The audience can select a contestant and potentially invite others to join them in spending time with her. The contestant's daily routine is displayed, including scheduled calls with the audience. The audience can participate in various activities with the contestant, such as practicing dancing in the provided video. The app also features messaging functionality and user profiles.

In this project, a closer connection is fostered between contestants and audiences in talent competitions through the establishment of a mobile app platform, ultimately achieving the goal of promoting the competition. There are two key strategies to achieve this:

Firstly, opportunities are provided for app users to earn points by completing tasks such as interacting with contestants. In return, these points can be redeemed for competition tickets and additional voting rights. This initiative aims to encourage audience participation, transforming them from passive spectators to active contributors.

Secondly, users can share links from the app to various social platforms, inviting others to join our project. As a reward, they are provided with point incentives as well. This strategy is aimed at expanding our user base, thus amplifying the reach of the competition.

Bonus Effect: Mutually advancing in a win-win - The audience can not only judge the contestants in more aspects, but also learn how they achieve that. At the same time, the contestants can also get more comments to improve themselves from the message board.

In this App, this is part of me, but also all of me. Just be close to me.