circle — Reoccuring Prompts for Closer Friendships
A daily question for the friend-circles: Answer first, then consume.
'circle' is a private-circle app where you answer one daily question before you can see anyone else's answer, grounded in a psychology technique for building closeness through structured self-disclosure. A two-week self-test suggested it sparked deeper conversations than weekly meetups or group chats.
Overview
This was our project in the course Praktikum Social Interactive Systems led by Prof. Dr. Sven Mayer.
Mainstream social media optimizes for reach and passive scrolling. circle does the opposite: small private circles answer one curated question a day, and you only see others’ answers once you’ve shared your own. In a five-person team.
The Concept
The rule is simple — answer first, then see — grounded in Aron’s closeness-generation model, a psychology technique for building closeness between people through structured self-disclosure.
Field Test
A two-week self-field-test with five students suggested that even short daily exchanges sparked deeper conversations than weekly meetups or WhatsApp, often carrying over into offline talk.
