As a part of the Indiana University Grand Challenges, we created a solution that helps to quit smoking cigarettes through a social collaborative plarform.
User Research & Analysis, Ideation, Low Fidelity Prototypes, Visual Design, Interactive Prototypes & User Testing
2 months (Fall 2019)
Class Project (3 Product Designers with shared roles)
Overview of the problem
Cigarette Addiction is a critical global issue. Most people smoke cigarette as a way to socialize with friends and family. Due to this, most of them have difficulty to quit smoking. Others have a hard time quitting smoking due to their urge of smoking.
We created an IoT and service-based ecosystem, called
Laundry-as-a-Service (L-a-a-S), that focuses on creating a better laundry experience for University Students and Property Managers, while also creating a service-focused business strategy for GEA.
What is we-Quit?
weQuit is a mobile application that provides a Social Platform, where people can collaborate and help each other quit smoking through Accountability Partnership, Professional Help, and be informed about their health status through periodic Medical Reports.
We created an IoT and service-based ecosystem, called
Laundry-as-a-Service (L-a-a-S), that focuses on creating a better laundry experience for University Students and Property Managers, while also creating a service-focused business strategy for GEA.
Features of weQuit App
The app allows users to track when they smoke or crave. Using this data, the app generates insightful health reports based on user inputs.
Users can add accountability partners to prevent each other from smoking by setting goals together.
Users can also track their health status progress in the journey of quitting smoking.
To motivate the users, the app provides a reward on reaching a milestone. Also, the app offers professional counseling to help quit smoking.
The Challenge
Cigarette Addiction is a global issue. Among millions of people who die every year due to cigarette addiction, majority are aware of the risks and health issues caused due to its consumption. How can we help people quit smoking?
The Design Process
User Interview & Field Observation
We conducted semi-structured interviews with 7 participants of different age groups to understand the problem space. This helped us delve deeper into the reasons due to which people are facing difficulties quitting smoking.
Next, we did a real-world observation, where we were able to observe several instances, which portrayed passive smoking as a trigger for smokers to start smoking. We found that a bunch of people tend to smoke after their office hours. We kept field notes while observing.
Secondary Research
We gathered information about the technologies used on University Housings, Adjacent Industries (Hotels, Resorts, Senior Living Communities), and Vertical Industries. We further researched current IoT Trends and smart systems created by GEAs’ competitors to gain inspiration and uncover GEA opportunities.
Affinity Mapping, Empathy Mapping & User Personas
We used Affinity Mapping and Empathy Mapping to synthesize the data that we collected from these interviews. We crafted 2 User Personas to summarize our research.
Now let's look at the user personas that we crafted from the affinity diagram and empathy mapping. Personas helped us summarize our goals and identify pain-points.
Key issues
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Most users are passive smokers. They feel a sheer pressure to smoke around friends who smoke.
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Users smoke when they are tensed. For example, family problems, examinations, financial problems.
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Some users want to quit smoking but their urge to smoke can't stop them from avoiding cigarettes.
Brainstorming ideas to identify the feasibility
We conducted 4 sessions for brainstorming. We had gathered numerous ideas from our first session, but many of them were not technologically feasible. The Brainstorming Session 2 exposed us to ideas from other people outside our group, which broadened our perspective on different ways to approach the solution. The Brainstorming Session 3 was most productive; we had more consolidated ideas, most of which seemed structured and technologically feasible and qualified as stand-alone solutions. We derived the final three ideas on our third brainstorming session.
Storyboarding
Based on the ideas that we generated and filtered from the brainstorming, we created three storyboards that define the core features of our solution.
Identifying the opportunities based on the key issues
Need for a Social platform to motivate avoiding smoking
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Create a platform to build a civic community where people support each other in their journey of quitting.
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Build a community where public/social smoking is discouraged.
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Setting goals and providing rewards to users on reaching a milestone.
Periodic health status updates and professional support
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Make smokers aware of their individual health risks that they are susceptible to.
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Booking time with Doctors to help users who seek for professional help.
Building the sitemap
Low-fidelity Screens & Think-aloud Sessions
With the help of features identified from brainstorming, I created the low fidelity designs using Invision Studio.
Think-aloud Session:
We conducted six think-aloud sessions where we asked the users to perform the following tasks:
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Track the data whenever they smoked or are craving for smoking in a day.
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Check the health insights .
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Check the accountability partner.
We identified the following issues from the think-aloud sessions:
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No place to track the missed input for smoking.
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Users are unable to add new friends to accountability partners.
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Health report on the dashboard is not clear.
Visual Design
Visual design inspirations for the app
Since I had comparatively more experience and familiarity with the features of design tools, I single-handedly took the full responsibility of the high-fidelity prototyping. I used Sketch to create high-fed designs.The metaphors for the visual design include: user-friendly, readable, positive, light, motivation.
Visual Styles
The final interactive design prototype is given below. Please click anywhere to begin interacting. :)
Product Evaluation: Heuristic Evaluation & Cognitive Walkthrough
We conducted two think-aloud sessions for the high-fidelity designs followed by two evaluation methods: Heuristic Evaluation and Cognitive Walkthrough. The overall experience of the app was good to the users. However, there were few issues that we identified from the evaluations which are listed below:
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The app prototype does not contain an onboarding page to introduce the core features of the app.
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Users were confused by the arrow button, that is used to claim rewards, on the rewards section of the dashboard.
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The star buttons used on the goal card is used to define which goal has a minimum time remaining to finish. However, users get confused if the star icons are used to add goals to favorite.
Here is the final presentation of the project:
Constraints
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Time was the most significant constraint for this project. We had only 2 months to conduct research, analyze, and come up with the final solution. If we had more time, we would have conducted UX Benchmarking to calculate the time on task and make iterations until users are happy and satisfied.
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Likewise, if we had more time, we would conduct more interviews with our target users.
Learnings
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I learned how to conduct a real field observation and take notes effectively.
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Task prioritization and division is another thing that I learned, especially in projects that have a limited time.
