Project Overview

I was challenged with creating a minimum viable product for the National Wellness Institute regarding clients who wish to reach their wellness goals. With this task, my design partner and I created an app that would enable users to adopt and maintain a routine that enhances their overall well-being. As we had to choose one specific area of wellness, we landed on the topic of focus and mental stimulation. More specifically, we looked to build something that would benefit those who suffer from focus-related disorders such as ADHD. As part of this project, it was essential for our prototype to include profile creation, progression tracking, and the ability to share stats with contacts such as coaches and family.

Role Duration Team
UX/UI Designer 1 week Lisa Veenstra (UI/UX)

User Research

We conducted a survey, as well as interviewing 5 individuals diagnosed with ADHD to gain a detailed insight into the ways in which they struggle to focus and its causes. This allowed us to better understand more general issues amongst a larger group of people, as well as detail on personal experiences from individuals that I could empathise with.

From our 5 interviews, we gathered invaluable insight into how those affected by a lack of focus suffered, and the affect this had on their mental wellbeing. All 5 interviewees attributed their lack of productivity to their “easily distracted” nature, and the negative impact this left on their mental health.

Persona

I developed a user persona based on my findings to represent the needs and characteristics of my primary user. This way, I could empathise with Sophie’s paint points and personal experiences, and visualise exactly the type of user I was designing for.

User Journey

With my persona in place, I mapped out Sophie’s journey to illustrate each stage in her current user experience. This allowed me to picture a scenario, understand where in the scenario causes Sophie trouble focusing, and recognise how these distractions she encounters can be minimised to provide her with a clear headspace.

User Flow

Through my research, it was revealed that ADHD sufferers primarily struggled with their ability to organise, and keep on top of important objectives. With this in mind, I knew I had to create an app that assisted users in maintaining their focus, as well as keeping on top of deadlines and other organisational matters. I created two user flows that demonstrate the user’s ability to fulfil both of these needs.

Firstly, I created a user flow for task creation. In this section, users can digitally note down any tasks they have to complete, as well as receive alerts for the completion of their tasks. In just a few simple steps, to avoid unnecessary complication and confusion, users can name their task, add a description, and decide whether they would like to set an alert or breaks for this task.

As displayed in the flow above, setting an alert is optional - it alerts users when their task’s start time is ready to commence, so that they don’t forget. Users also have the option to apply breaks, which allows users a 5-minute break for every 25 minutes of studying they complete.

This user flow demonstrates the ability to set deadlines for all study-related assignments and tests. This feature is designed to maintain user awareness of important assignments, as our research showed that ADHD sufferers tend to forget, or lose track of these deadlines. Once again, we made sure that this process was simple and to the point. It also follows a similar structure to the “Creating a task” feature, to maintain consistency within the app’s design.

Site Map

To help plan out our app’s structure, we built a site map to sort the different sections and pages within the app. This was particularly useful for organisational purposes, as we could visualise how a user would navigate through different sections of studysuite, and where they would go to receive the information, or reach the service they required.

Testing & Iterations

We conducted usability testing using a mid-fidelity version of our prototype to observe how users would interact with our concept. This was invaluable in our process of refining this product with improvements in our mission to create the best possible experience for our primary user. We tested 5 students diagnosed with ADHD, who despite being overall satisfied with the concept, were met with moments of confusion during testing.

When assessing how users fared with dashboard interaction, 4 out of 5 users took unnecessarily long to understand the separation between different segments such as daily tasks and deadlines set. They expressed that the lack of clear division between separate tasks was a large cause for confusion when trying to differentiate tasks from one another.

Going into our high-fidelity prototype, we iterated on this point made by users by dividing tasks with lines, as well as adding contrast behind these segments to create a clear distinction between sections. This way, users would have no trouble deciphering which start time belonged to which task. Upon conducting usability testing with this high-fidelity prototype, users navigated through the app significantly quicker than before.

During usability testing of our mid-fidelity prototype, a majority of users were often confused by the profile icon, assuming it was an “alternative” Home button. When instructed to return to the dashboard, they would often press this instead of the Home button in the navigation bar. This cost users time and caused unnecessary stress when navigating through the app.

In response to users dissatisfaction, we opted on a full redesign of the navigation system for our app, converting to a hamburger menu rather than a navigation bar. Here, we could incorporate the profile button within this menu, as oppose to separating it from the rest of the page buttons. This change also allowed for a larger area of content visible on users’ screens, and made greater use of the unnecessary space consumed by the original navigation system in place. Upon conducting usability testing of our high-fidelity prototype, this was no longer a cause for concern amongst users, who also made positive comments regarding the hamburger menu’s strong visual appeal.