Loneful — the app that gives a positive spin to your loneliness (Part 1: UX)
The second project of my Ironhack Bootcamp was to create a tracking app for wellness or sport.
The first challenge that we're doing individually! Super scary, because they cut our timeframe in half since the first project: do all the UX research and design within one week.
The Challenge
Create a tracking app within the sport and wellness field. Nowadays there is a tracking app for everything: tracking what you eat, tracking your habits, tracking your sleeping pattern, tracking your mood, the list goes on.
Context
When I moved to Amsterdam two years ago, I was super excited to be in a new city, meet new people and start my new life. When I finally moved, it turned out it wasn't so easy to meet new people and I was too busy with my new job to really put in an effort. I started to miss my friends and family and, as an introvert, went back into my shell. This is when I started to experience loneliness.
Loneliness is something a lot of people experience, and nowadays they experience it more than ever. This is why I wanted to take this opportunity to do my bit towards the topic of loneliness.
Phase 1: EMPATHIZE
The first step was to find apps to compare their brand and features.
There were no apps that focused on loneliness, this is why I decided to choose apps that focused on happiness and mindfulness.
Brand Comparison
The direct competitors had a slightly different goal, Youper was more focused on the pursue of happiness, happify on taking control of your emotions, and Headspace on meditation and making your mind healthier. The user could use a part of all the apps for free but had to pay to get full access.
The indirect competitors were a bit different. The Replika app was a super interesting app that would be there anytime you needed someone to talk to. TalkLife offered more what of the same, a platform to see messages of other people to see that you're not alone.
Feature Comparison
Because there was a big difference between the goals of the direct and indirect competitors, there also was a big difference between the features that the apps offered. The feature comparison will make it easier later on in the process to see what features a new tracking app would need to have.
The second step of the Empathise Phase was to find out who my future users were and what problems they were experiencing.
Lean Survey Canvas
After doing some research on other apps, it was time to find out who is the user and what is their problem. To understand what I needed to learn about the user, I used the Lean Survey Canvas. After filling in the canvas, I used Google Forms to create my survey. When it was finished I shared it on all my socials (Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram etc) to get responses. While my survey was running, I also interviewed 3 respondents to get more in dept answers.
I got 39 responses to my survey, these were the most interesting findings:
37/39 respondents have felt lonely
20/37 Sometimes felt lonely
14/37 missed the people they love when they felt lonely
29/37 said it was normal to feel like you’re missing out on anything
The most interesting quote from the interviews:
“It’s normal to feel lonely sometimes. It’s a natural human emotion.”
Phase 2: DEFINE
Affinity Diagram
To make some sense of the collected data, I used an Affinity Diagram to find similar topics and design opportunities. The blue/greenish post-its were from the interviews, the beige post-its from the survey, and the orange post-its from desk-research.
The most important parts were circled. The fact that 54% felt lonely sometimes, that there aren't many apps focused on (the psychology behind) loneliness, that acceptance and equanimity are factors people should practice when experiencing loneliness, and that loneliness isn't a feeling that should be completely stopped or blocked.
Looking at the Affinity Diagram I decided on some How Might We-statements:
How Might We- statement
- How might we change people's mindset on loneliness?
- How might we make people accept their state of loneliness?
- How might we make people associate more positive thoughts and feelings with “loneliness”?
By making the HMW-statements, it was easier to create a problem- and hypothesis statement.
Problem statement
Eve needs a way to learn to associate positive thoughts and feelings with loneliness because it will help her accept her loneliness/FOMO so that her overall happiness and self-acceptance will improve.
Hypothesis statement
The fitting hypothesis statement was: We believe associating more positive thoughts and feelings with loneliness for people who feel lonely/Eve will achieve less anxiety about loneliness. We will know we are right when positive thoughts and feelings about loneliness increase by 20% within the first 4 months of use.
The next step was to create a persona.
My persona is called Eve Gilmour, she is 26 and works as a Custome Designer. She sometimes has the feeling of standing still when the rest of the world is moving and makes her feel like the odd one out. She works a lot and can't hang out with her friends a lot. This makes her feel lonely from time to time.
User Journey
The user journey follows Eve's scenario: Eve is at home. It’s around noon and she has to work later that day. She knows her friends are going to a party that evening and already feels sad that she can’t join them. Eve is also struggling with the feeling that she hasn’t achieved as much as her peers. This also gives her a feeling of missing out.
Phase 3: IDEATE
Now that all the problems were defined, it was time to come up with solutions!
Brainstorm
First, I came up with different ideas that would solve the user problem and would be an asset to the app.
MoSCoW
Then, I added the ideas in a MoSCoW, to prioritize them. I also added the most important features from the feature comparison. For my first prototype, I decided to focus on a loneliness guide, emotion tracker, statistics, and different kinds of practices.
After deciding the MVP, it was time to work on the sitemap and to create a user flow.
Sitemap
The sitemap shows the different parts of the app and what the user will find in which part. When the user opens the app, they start with a dashboard that shows a quote and the progress of last week. From there the user can go to the Guide, where they can do practices or get inspired, to Track, where they track their feelings and thoughts, and Profile, where their information is stored and they can see their overall progress and change settings.
User Flow
The user flow decides what the prototype is going to show. For my prototype, I chose the scenario of tracking your mood, practicing, and tracking your mood again. This flow will show best what the app is able to do for the user and how it will work.
Phase 4: PROTOTYPE, TEST & ITERATE
Paper prototype
After finishing the sitemap, I started making a paper prototype to test out how the information and the features should be presented. Paper prototyping allowed me to quickly change things around and find the best possible solution.
User Testing
Using Figma, I uploaded my paper prototype and made it clickable because I wanted to do some user-testing before starting a mid-fidelity prototype. I managed to do the user-testing with 4 respondents, which gave me a lot of great insights into my first concept.
The most interesting findings were that users:
- Wanted a pop up that asks them if they wanted to practice after filling in their mood
- Wanted a more simple way of tracking mood
- Wanted feedback on their experience with the different practices
- Weren't sure if the logo suited the app
- Wanted the app to give them nice feedback on how they were doing and to recommend different practices
Mid-Fidelity Prototype
Because of the short timeframe, I wasn't able to put all the feedback in the mid-fidelity prototype. Click on the link below to see the mid-fidelity prototype in action.
Next Steps
The biggest next step would be to work together with psychologists to get the app to the next level. Another next step is to add the rest of the user feedback from the user testing to the prototype.
In a future article, you will find the UI part of this project.
