CIRCLE — Designing a dance community platform

A community without a central home online

My bachelor's thesis focused on the European hip-hop dance scene — a community that has received far too little attention in academia so far. Social dance scenes live on word-of-mouth, flyers and fragmented Instagram stories. Finding a beginner class, a local event or a trusted teacher often means knowing someone who already knows.

I set out to design a platform that matched the basic digital needs of said community. The result is a final concept for an app specifically tailored to the needs of the European hip-hop dance community.

Gaps to close

• Fragmentation. No centralised platform tailored for this community: events, classes and partners existed in parts across Instagram, Facebook, word-of-mouth and some very specific websites.
• Logistics. Gaps in practical support: dancers travelling to events lacked ride-sharing or accommodation coordination within the community.
• Trust. Teachers and organizers lacked a lightweight way to build credibility beyond social media appearance.

Five interviews, a benchmark analysis, and 32+ survey responses

The Goals were directly linked to the research questions and therefore being able to answering them. Following the research questions throughout the thesis’s work, multiple smaller goals and requirements arose. Research questions were as follows: Challenges in Events and Community: What difficulties do European hip-hop dancers face in organizing and participating in dance events and within their dance communities? Platform for the Scene: What functions and features would be most useful for a platform dedicated to the European hip-hop dance scene? Events and Networking: Can such a platform support the organization of dance events and networking with local communities. I conducted 5 qualitative interviews, a comprehensive benchmark analysis, and sent out a co-designed survey from which I received 32+ responses. Often I got the same feedback: "I wish we would have a better overview."

AOF method: activity, objects, features

I used card sorting and the AOF method to structure the design. The primary activity was defined as: exploring, creating and acquiring information on dance-related events, communities, and training locations — with "dance" as the central social object.

Circle — A Centralised Mobile Platform for the European HipHop Dance Community

I designed Circle to bring event discovery, training location search, workshop listings, and local community connection into one focused platform, structured around three core areas (Search, Dashboard, Profile) and built around a clear primary activity: exploring, creating, and acquiring information on dance-related events, communities, and training locations. My focus was on keeping the featureset lean and intentional, prioritised through user research and the AOF method, so the app complements existing channels like Instagram rather than competing with them, while addressing the community's real pain points around fragmented information, newcomer accessibility, and local community building.

A tested prototype and a system behind it

A total of 7 members of the targeted community underwent 30–45 minute user testing sessions via Microsoft Teams. Testing employed affinity mapping and the UEQ (User Experience Questionnaire) metric, yielding refinements including messaging services, updated terminology, and interface adjustments.

Limitations and what I'd do differently

• Sample size and representativeness five interviews and 32 survey respondents can't represent the entire European HipHop dance community.
• Not being part of the community it was both a challenge and a way to avoid bias, and I suggest more in-person co-design as future work
• Scope reduction accommodation, carpooling and other ideas/features were dismissed to keep the prototype manageable.