MY TIME SELF-CARE APP
Improve your quality of life by reducing busyness & stress and participating in self-care activities.
Overview
The Problem:
An increase in busyness causes stress that can lead to health and relationship problems
The big design challenge was to make the app relaxing, quick, and easy to use so as to not burden or alienate users that are crunched for time and feel stressed.
The Solution:
A mobile app that provides an easy way to learn about, schedule, and participate in self-care
A crazy 8’s design sprint was conducted to get some initial ideas that focused on the brand’s mission and vision, then ideas were sorted and like-ideas were grouped. A self-care mobile app was created.
My Role:
UX Researcher and Designer
I worked as a researcher and designer and was involved in the entire process in the product’s development
Process
Secondary Research
If you ask someone how their day is going, most likely you’ll hear “busy.” Whatever the cause, people are becoming more and more busy. So was I. I felt pressure to get everything done, so I kept myself busy. Then I started feeling really bad anxiety and my heart was racing. My doctor explained that my symptoms seemed to be due to stress and advised me to reduce my stress levels.
This got me wondering. . .
What impact does busyness and stress have on health?
Are other people experiencing these same problems?
I read various articles and listened to talks given by experts to find answers to these questions.
Primary Research
It’s time for me to hear from real people and get insights about their feelings.
I surveyed 24 participants from various walks of life and interviewed 5 of those participants.
24 participants were surveyed from various age groups and walks of life.
83.2% of those surveyed, admitted to feeling moderately to extremely stressed about their busy schedules.
Because I know the impacts of busyness and stress on your health, that number is very concerning to me.
Problem Statements
Empathizing with Users
I synthesized my primary and secondary research. I created empathy maps to get to know my users and help me think about:
What do I want to be accomplished?
What outcomes am I truly after?
Ideation & Design Ideas
Crazy 8’s Design Sprint
What are some common themes here?
How can I narrow this down?
Easily accessible from anywhere
Different ways/ideas to think about self-care
Can fit it into schedules lots of different ways
Program it in
Create quick and easy to use self-care app
Guerrilla Usability Testing
I got 5 participants to test the app idea, give feedback, and uncover potential problems.
These insights led to design improvements from sketches to wireframes.
Sketches
Wireframes
Changes Implemented:
Changed the position of “search”
Added a universal home icon
Added a back arrow
High-Fidelity Prototype
With my busy user and brand’s mission and vision in mind, I created high-fidelity prototypes.
colors that symbolize love, excitement, calmness, and heatlh
gradients to symbolize change
universal, easy to understand icons and text
headings, search, visual spacing make the app straight forward & easy to use
selected images I thought would be inspiring
clean, uncluttered design
flows that allow for quick navigation
inspirational message / thoughtful question greets users
Usability Testing, Results, Insights
Now that I have a working prototype, it was time to test and iterate on the design.
I did 2 rounds of usability with 5 users to identify user preferences, uncover problems with the design, and reveal opportunities for improvement.
“It deals with an emergency. The logo looks like something’s wrong with the heart”
Users also mentioned the distraction of the hard transition.
“It seems a bit dark.”
“It would use brighter colors.”
Users thought the calendar/clock could be better
“The ‘time’ tab has no purpose and is confusing.”
“I would like to connect to my Google Calendar to she what I have already planned and my available free time.”
Users looked for a footbar at the bottom of the page to navigate away & seemed frustrated it wasn’t there.
Before
After
Usability testing results led these: insights and design changes:
added text to help users understand the purpose of the app
added an option use a connected calendar so that it’s easy to integrate.
redesigned the calendar to improve ease of use.
Solution
Now I have a tested and improved prototype.
In using this app, users will improve their quality of life by prioritizing themselves, learning why self-care is important, and doing things they love all while improving their relationships and health along the way.
Reflection
Learning:
Always go back and consider the user. It’s easy to get caught up in the design process, but it’s imperative to always go back and consider if what you’re doing is really what users want and need.
Next Steps:
If I were to continue on the project, I would consider the following:
making the app smart so it can learn users schedules, rhythms, likes, and dislikes. This way the app can recommend self-care activities accordingly and be quicker for users.
adding a goal setter/tracker and journal so users can set goals, monitor their progress, and record how they feel.