UX/UI Design of Chillax
Laurent Romulus — 40099600
Badr Saidi — 40098327
Understanding The Problem
In modern times, where everything is easily accessible through their electronics, humans adopted a bad habit of spending a lot of time in front of their screens. This habit causes people to be more sedentary and practice less activities which makes them more vulnerable to health issues such as obesity and diabetes. With the unexpected arrival of the novel virus Covid-19, an increase in the amount of time spent on the phone has been seen among the population. People are using apps to communicate with their friends, family, staff members at work. Apps such as zoom have seen millions of new users using their platform. The new “normal” is what we can describe as a place where everything is virtual, the interactions are made virtually, the work is done remotely, classrooms are created virtually. Due to these new accommodations, people are spending more time in front of a screen whether it is communication through the screen of a computer or the screen of a tablet/phone.The result has been more people are feeling stressed, anxious and depressed. How long will it take for the people to adapt to this new lifestyle behind a screen? What are the long term effects mentally for the one who cannot adapt? Will the people remove this habit of using their devices after the pandemic, those are the issues that we must try to answer.
Solution
With our app, users can have an ecosystem of healthy habits and lifestyle that would change their life if they choose to follow its recommendations. The user, upon logging in, will have a full insight of his weekly screen time, thus helping him visualize and realize if he is on the right track regarding his electronics usage. Plus, the user can create his own exercise plan or follow the apps recommended daily exercise challenges. Regarding the diet, the user can keep track of the nutritional facts of his meals and of the caloric intake of the day. The user has also access to many types of music depending on the activity the user wishes to perform while listening and many more features. This app is designed to be simple and user-friendly.
Research and Analysis
There are many apps that help control screen time. These apps offer insights of the user’s screen time statistics to help him visualize it and make him acknowledge if he is in excess regarding screen time. Some of these apps also offer to take control of the device in case the screen time limit has been reached, used mainly by parents trying to limit their children’s daily screen time. This feature notifies the user that their daily limit has been reached and locks off the device until the next day. On another hand, there are apps that encourage a healthy lifestyle by rewarding the user when he is performing a physical activity such as walking or running.
Examples
OurPact :
OurPact is a mobile parenting app that allows parents to manage app access, monitor location & device usage, and filter web content on children’s iOS and Android devices.
Achievement :
The Achievement app encourages an active and a healthy lifestyle by rewarding its users for walking, biking, swimming, and other exercises as tracked via the app. A user can earn up to 80 points per day for exercise activities and six points per day for logging food, sleep tracking, etc. The earned points can be exchanged with real-life money.
User Research
Survey
Based on the data that the team has been able to collect through this simple but very informative survey, we have been able to create different charts that have been able to help us analyze and criticize the answers collected. This survey can be found here.
The chart where we collected the data about whether or not the current pandemic has affected the screen time has helped the team understand that people have been using their devices more than usual. The fact that the novel virus makes socializing less possible, people have been forced to use their electronics to keep in touch. Among the users, we have been able to understand that a lot of young users are spending days on their devices for surfing on the web, communicating via social media or for entertainment such as watching movies.We have been able to get an idea about the addiction or dependence of the user for his phone. Half of the users that answered the survey have said that they are using their phone immediately after waking up. Phones are becoming an essential item for their users and by giving them the habits of using it consistently, they are becoming dependent on that bad habit.
Personas
We created three personas based on the results that we have collected using the survey. Those three personas are typically users of the internet. They use their electronic devices to help them in their daily activities.
The first one is Max Dejoie. Max is into fashion, which means that he’s always browsing the internet to find new ideas to help him create a new collection. Max is an influencer on social media, he typically interacts with his client through zoom due to the pandemic.Since meeting in person is not possible Max finds it hard to leave his phone for a couple of seconds.
Charlie Delta is a web developer. Charlie loves everything related to the technology, at a young age he was always trying to fix the computer of his parents.Charlie is constantly using his phone and laptop to be able to work remotely.Charlie is someone who likes to hangout with friends and family but because of the pandemic, he spend more of his time being a screen.
Justine Messi is a hairdresser. She uses her social media platform to promote her skills and to keep in touch with her friends and family. Because of the pandemic, Justine is adapting herself to the idea of being less physical with her client. Instead, she is trying to use her presence on social media to be able to sell the products from her brand. An ecommerce is not just the typical online store it’s a full time job where the owner has to present to respond to the needs of the customers.
Journey Map
The journey map is a process where we create different outcomes or scenarios where the user interacts with the application. The purpose of a journey map is to be able to be in the user’s place to think like a user instead of a developer, thus it helps create a more intuitive app for the user.
Sketches
We created a few sketches to have a better visual of what the app would look like.Those sketches will guide us through the development of the actual app that the user will have to interact with.
‘
Wireframes
From the sketches that we have created we were able to create a few wireframes to be able to see what the UI on hands would look like. The user will have to do the process of creating an account in order to have access to the entire application. From the registration the user will have an account with all the services provided.
Color Palette
We chose to have simplistic colors that are not too dim nor too bright, and that would make the user experience a calm friendly one. The selected colors below were the ones that best fitted our minimalist design choice.
Typography
We used calibri for its simplicity to make the app more accessible and easily readable.
The app:
The first page of the app is the “Login” page, where the user can authenticate himself by entering his email and password. If the user does not have an account, he will be redirected to the “Create account” page where he is asked to provide his full name, phone number, email address, password and to check the terms and conditions checkbox to be able to create an account.
Next, after either logging in or signing up, the user is brought to the “Home page” page, where he can visualize his weekly screen time insights, he can click on the profile icon that would take him to the “Profile” page, on the open door icon to sign out, on the Screen Time option to go to the “Screen time settings” page, on the running man icon to go to the “Activities” page, on the music icon to go to the “Music” page, on the heart icon to go to “Health” page and on the utensils icon to go to the “Nutrition” page.
On the “Profile” page, the user can check and edit his personal body information and can also delete his account if he wishes to.
On the “Activities” page, the user can see the daily challenges and choose to do some or all of them.
On the “Music” page, the user can pick to listen to a meditation type of music if he wishes to relax physically and mentally, to listen to an intense type of music if he wishes to do an activity or to any other type of music.
On the “Health” page, the user can either check his heart rate or track his daily, weekly, monthly and even yearly steps.
On the “Screen time settings” page, the user can check and edit his screen time limit, a limit that if reached, locks the phone until the next day. Also, the user can set each app’s screen time limit. Finally, the user can have screen time control over his family’s electronic devices.
Conclusion
The objective of this project has been to create an application that helps The user to minimize the impact of screen time. By practicing healthy habits, the user will be more involved in outdoors activities.The main purpose of the app is to minimize the screen time of the user, to educate them about healthy habits and to provide a peaceful place for everyone who is considering using the app.
References: