For this case study, I followed Stanford D School’s Design process.
As mentioned earlier, our original 8 weeks went down to 6 due to some unforeseen circumstances. We were restricted with time and the developers required at least 4 weeks to develop our MVP. This meant I had the challenge to complete the design process cycle within 2 weeks. With that in mind, I had to make some adjustments and go lean with the design process. Read on to learn more on how I handled this:
To understand the behavioural patterns and motivations surrounding smartphone use, phone notifications and game motivation, I kept in mind the following questions during my research:
I conducted secondary research to understand Text Neck, which is a health condition that may affect people who have prolonged, improper posture during smartphone use.
Presenting the findings to my team helped us develop a clearer idea of the topic and direction of our problem space. Some key research findings include:
While secondary research, I noticed that many of our competitors were:
- Health focused; beneficial and the main goal for users, but in turn, slightly difficult to identify strongly with.
- Expensive; high initial investment barrier with a wearable or in-app high-spec features. This requires a high upfront commitment from new general users who may just want to explore solutions.
Seeing that most apps in the current market were within these two categories, we saw an opportunity to address this for users who were interested in health but may require a more fun, economically friendly, and attractive solution.
To learn more about our users' motivations and thoughts on smartphone use and posture, we conducted remote, moderated user testing over Zoom with 9 participants aged 25-55. As our plan was to build on the iOS platform, we selected participants who used Apply smartphones.
Once the interviews were completed, I t the information into virtual sticky notes and began clustering similarities.
I presented and updated my team with the following key findings:
Taking into account the key findings from the secondary research and our users so far, I broke down each category further in Chloe's persona profile below:
Chloe is a Millennial who cares for her health but would rather not disrupt her usual routine with new inconveniences. Keeping this in mind, I focused on ways to address her frustrations and jobs to be done.
For one of our team meetings, I facilitated a Crazy 8's brainstorming session over Figjam. Each team member wrote down their ideas in their virtual post it notes, and then we discussed and voted on the proposed solutions.
Once the features were determined, I created the main task flows for our MVP. I presented them to the team and clarified any questions the developers had to ensure we were all on the same page.
I began sketching out ideas for the app, keeping in mind 4 main screens: Splash screen, Home, Health Guide and Settings page.
Why Fufluns?
The app's name is Fufluns, inspired by Fufluns the Italian Roman god of Nature, Growth, Health and Wine. We decided on this name as it was unique, sounded playful and represented well the idea of health, plants and growth.
Fufluns also became the inspiration for our mascot and the guide in our app.
In order to meet our deadline of completing the MVP in 8 weeks, my developers needed a month to create the MVP. With this in mind, I made the decision to skip over the mid-fidelity mockup and straight to high-fidelity prototype. I was able to conduct usability tests and pass on the prototype to the developers on time.
I conducted virtual, moderated usability tests over Zoom with 5 participants, 25-55 years old. Users were able to complete our tasks successfully and liked how friendly the app was.
We completed our app MVP by the end of 8 weeks and could be showcased to our cohort and peers.
Flexibility: Over the six weeks, I was able to adjust my design to the capabilities of the team to ensure we still retained the look and feel while working around the roadblocks faced.
Prioritizing Features: While working with the team, I was able to synthesize user research and build out activities to help prioritize our features to ensure we deliver the most impact to our users.
Collaboration: Working with a team helped me realize that varying perspectives bring new insights to a problem and usually results in an idea which goes beyond the initial requirements.
Future of Fufluns: Our team has decided to continue with the development of the application, with the goal of shipping it live in the App store. We continue with our work cycles and meet weekly for scrum and updates. Current status: On Hiatus, picking up in December 2022.
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