The effort to complete a goal is made an average of ten times before it is successful. This statistic can be attributed to various factors, although it all leads to the maintenance of motivation. In the creation of Habbit, our team investigated exactly what it is that maintains high levels of motivation in users and designed a mobile application that promotes the achievement of goals through the construction of relevant habits.
View Live Prototype54% of people who make the decision to change their lives fail within the first six months. When coupled with the fact that this behaviour is generally repeated ten times over without success, it became clear that an issue was present in regard to the average person’s ability to maintain a transformation, our goal was to create a product that would work to create long-term changes and support the achievement and prolonged maintenance of these goals.
We wanted to create something that went beyond the current notion of a goal tracking app and to do so we used a revised rendition of the double diamond framework to help us define the scope of the project as well as root out the specific issues we needed to combat in our final product. We spent the first of our three days conducting research, which allowed us to prioritize benefits sought that would contribute to an ideal solution; this same solution answers the following question:
Our ability to conduct in-depth interviews was limited due to our allocated timespan and so we gathered our user data by reaching out and surveying peers and colleagues. The beauty of the situation was that the problem itself was so universal that almost anyone could’ve been an ideal user. We analyzed the responses we received and filtered them into the following key insights.
We proceeded to analyze these responses and charted the ones that were the most prevalent in our user research onto an empathy map in order to represent what was likely a majority of our users. Mapping this below allowed us to design around the majority first, solving issues that were highly likely to be encountered.
Goals are more likely to be achieved with plans made up of small changes in everyday habits rather than a complete overhaul of lifestyle.
This collective research allowed us to generate two user personas of individuals with varying motivators and behavioural traits. Designing for varying users allowed us to create a more inclusive final product in regard to the types of goals that could be achieved through the use of the app.
Keeping in mind the main takeaways from our previous research, we focused on incorporating these principles to improve engagement and the overall user experience.
Keeping in mind the physical limitations users may face helps create a product that is universally inclusive and beneficial to everyone.
Giving the user control over their experience to reduce the chances of errors occurring.
Designing with character creates a more empathetic experience and therefore a deeper level of engagement. This builds a connection with the user — crucial in this context, as some goals can be highly personal.
In order to maintain efficiency while collaborating virtually my team member and I compiled a style guide to reference while creating our initial wireframe prototypes.
After planning out the problems our product needed to solve we started wire-framing some prototypes. In order to adequately conduct user testing, we drew these prototypes based off of the site map below.
At this point we were on our second day and had developed various prototypes on paper, but as designers we struggle with seeing products the way users do, this meant usability testing was absolutely necessary. As a result of the limitations placed on social circles during the pandemic, we stayed within our households and tested the designs virtually.
An advantage that occurred due to the fact that we were confined to our own households is that we had access to people with varying about of experience with technology as a whole, something our final product substantially benefitted from. Depicted here is an example of our initial design for a homepage, iterated three times over to create what ultimately became the final product.
A major issue we ran into was that our information hierarchy in the product was lacking some clarity, specifically in reference to similar information appearing on several pages.
In response to this we further separated the purposes of each page and ensured the present information was suited to its location.
Initially, the app was named after an illustrated rabbit that acted as a guide during a user’s onboarding experience. He progressed into a motivator available to the user. Additionally, the copy is written in his perspective, providing user feedback and direction throughout the design.
The personal nature of the app requires a higher level of agency allocated to the user in order to build trust. Users are able to define their experience through selecting goals and what motivates them.
The user is able to see how far they’ve come since the beginning of their journey in a weekly report provided to them by Habbit himself.
The secondary research we conducted dictated a lack of accountability as the culprit behind failed goals. Habbit combats this by providing the user with an accountability buddy chosen based off their preferences.
An area of growth we found while working on Habbit was in regard to the importance of applying user research to a product in a method that didn’t feel sterile to users. We had statistics that allowed us to pinpoint what features were needed for goal achievement, however, it was difficult to implement these features in a way that supported a deeper level of engagement.
In the future, we’d like to further develop the group feature of the application in order to further improve goal achievement rates.
Here’s some more of my projects to explore!
Designed with ♠ by Jasmine Bhogal