Onchain social apps have struggled to convey a value proposition transformative enough to convince the masses to switch from established social media to social apps of the future. The average user doesn’t care enough about the underlying technology or the ideology of the user owning their data – not yet, that is.

How could Orb convince its users to take the leap of faith: to leave behind the familiar social apps used by their friends, colleagues, and grandmothers?

Social media market leaders with a similar concept to Orb – posts with a mixture of text, images, video, and audio, with a strong incentive to socialize – established their majority market share over a decade ago. They entered the market with a novel offering: staying in touch “in bulk” without the commitment and labor of phone calls or in-person meetings.

Today, all social media look the same: the user experience is satisfactory, and interfaces are vapid. The market leaders don’t have to reinvent themselves for their users to stick around; leaving would mean sacrificing already established social circles.

To drive a wedge in the established power relations, Orb needed to exceed the expectations of what social media is supposed to feel and look like. In reimagining the Orb user experience, our task was to match the underlying ideology (“power to the user”) and a burn for creativity with equally disruptive features and interface design. We sought to make Orb not only a place to monetize one’s creative output but also a place to immerse oneself in creativity, whether through solitary exploration or sharing joint passions with others.

Orb became a creative social app – creatively built, for creatives. The goal was to make the experience itself inspiring and to launch the user into a creative binge.

If every person is original, why shouldn’t their social media profiles be? At a glance, the profile should look like its owner, from the vertical, full-screen cover image (!) to the creative output the user feels defines them.