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team
1 product designer (myself!)
skills
visual design, user research, prototyping
duration
6 hours
Project context
this was a project i completed when i competed indivdiually at a designathon.
this project was awarded first place!
Prompt
Build a prototype that allows users to add and track habits, while also keeping them accountable. The overall goal here is to get users to start and stick to their habits. Think about how we interact with our various devices during the day and where you could input your prototype.
My role(s)
since i was competing individually, i built this app from scratch.
i was also responsible for creating the pitch deck during the presentation of the project.
The solution
a time scheduling and habit exploring mobile app that imitates social media
Defining the problem
Revenge bedtime procrastination
Knowing that there are a million distinct habits in the world, given the short time constraint (6 hours), it was difficult to generalize all the crucial needs, behaviors, and motivations of potential users. As a result, I decided to focus on one specific habit - Revenge bedtime procrastination.
Research
Research objective: why do people engage in rbp?
to better understand the problem space, i conducted secondary research to understand why people engaged in rbp.
People are stressed during daytime, and they want to prolong nighttime through not sleeping
Nighttime is their only time to relax due to their busy day schedules
Research objective: what are the attitudes and behaviors of students towards rbp?
in my project, i want to focus on a student demographic.
hence, i conducted primary research to find out the behaviours and motivations specific to students.
questions i asked:
what do you do before sleeping?
How do you feel about delaying sleep for leisure activities?
have you tried getting rid of revenge bedtime procrastination? if so, how? if not, why?
i gained some really interesting insights!
first of all, it seems that 75% of respondents regretted rbp! in total, up to 77.8% of respondents indicated that they were willing to get rid of rbp.
surprisingly, even though the majority of respondents indicated that they are willing to get rid of rbp, only 48% actually initiated some kind of action!
and even so, among those who did actually try to get rid of rbp, 80% rated the effectiveness of methods used as neutral or worse.
User journey: identifying potential opportunities
as an attempt to synthesize and better understand the interesting research insights, i developed a user journey map.
from this user journey map, i found two opportunities!
increase opportunities to relax during the day
prevent user from engaging in additional leisure activities past bedtime.
Revamping user journey and ideation
using the two opportunities identified, i designed another proposed user journey map.
Competitive analysis: evaluating what features work and don't work
to understand why the effectiveness of methods used to comabt rbp was so low, i tried to conduct competitive analysis on existing products.
much to my surprise, i could not find any other mobile apps that tackled rbp!
looking back into my research findings, i noticed that the majority of people who tried to stop rbp relied heavily on placing their phones manually away.
this method requires a lot of self discipline. my research suggests that this method is not reliable.
Design Decisions
Habit incorporater
since one of the opportunities is to encourage users to destress during the day, this design allowed users to be able to select their interests and incorporate them into their daily schedule.
this effectively tackles one of the core causes of rbp.
Habit explorer
according to the questionnaire that i sent out, 80% of users scroll through social media before sleeping. it can be inferenced that most users destress by going through social media.
there are many scholarly articles about how social media is negatively correlated with mental health. this suggests that the habit of scrolling through social media is enforcing a negative cycle of rbp.
the objective of this design is thus to utilize the attractiveness of social media to encourage users to discover healthier habits.
Phone lock
last but not least, the final design is to lock the user's phone, preventing them from using it past their bedtime.
as mentioned before, the most common way of tackling with rbp is to manually put the phone away. however, the low effectiveness rating suggests that a more efficient method is needed.
the insights noted above suggests that intrinsic motivation is not enough to overcome rbp. with the addition of extrinsic motivation provided by the design, users are able to held more accountable and move towards stopping rbp.
Reflection
Research and design goes hand in hand
one of the most important feedback i got from this competition is to continue doing the extensive amount of research i showcased while pitching my idea. in fact, the judges told me that the major reason i stood out was because my designs were supported by insights, and not based purely on my past experiences.
while the final deliverable is important as well, it is ultimately the insights gained from user research that drives the quality of the final deliverable.
Never be afraid of asking for feedback
during the competition, i was very nervous about presenting in front of all the competitors and judges. not only was everyone older than me, i was also just starting out in design. i felt doubtful about whether i was qualified to actually present my work, and was stressed about making a fool out of myself.
i mustered up the courage to present my work at the end, and unexpectedly received a lot of encouragement and amazing feedback!
through the feedback that i got, i was able to gain additional insights on how to improve my design process. always keep in mind that everyone has been a beginner before, and most people would be more than willing to lend you their experience.