Juse
Digital Wellbeing for the Family
The User Experience design process may be new to many industries but has been established through decades of trial and learning from error. It is also fitting that trial and error is essentially what the UX process is. For this particular project, I set out to solve a problem that is evident in our community but I made sure to approach it with an open mind and to intentionally be receptive to feedback. Here is the process for an app I am designing called Juse.
Research
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PROBLEM TO IDENTIFY
Many children today spend their time playing on digital devices and lack the time playing outside or with peers. The goal of this research is to explore a parent-approved tool to generate improved digital wellbeing for children in North County San Diego to enjoy. SECONDARY RESEARCH
PRIMARY RESEARCH
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SECONDARY RESEARCH
Device overstimulation in children causes: • Brain hyperactivity & thinning of the cortex • Increased risk-taking & reduced impulse control • Stunted development & lethargic imagination • Sleep loss Damaging effects from censurable content include: • Increased aggression due to violent content • Higher risk of sex at an earlier age due to exposure to sexual content. A major contributor of these negative effects is an inadvertent result of parenting. Parents are being informed of the negative side effects of overstimulation and have started to respond. SOCIAL CONNECTION The social connection apps and services provide ways for parents or children to find other children to play with. A few services allow monetary incentive to host more playdates as well. DEVICE MONITORING Device monitoring services or apps are designed for parents to set up parameters for their children with limitations including defining what apps a child can use, how long these apps can be used, total time on the device, as well as content filtering. |
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COMPETITIVE COMPARISON
Apple Screen Time
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Google Family Link
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Amazon Free Time
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PRIMARY RESEARCH
Screener Surveys
Interviews
Screener Surveys
- 87% primarily use devices for entertainment for their children
- 30% said their children had 2 to 3 hours of device time per day (14 to 21 hours per week)
- 100% said their biggest pain point is the fit-throwing when taking a device away from their child
Interviews
- 60% said their children had over 2 hours of unnecessary device time per week on average
- 100% said they thought their children spends unhealthy time on devices
- 100% said their biggest pain point is the fit-throwing when taking a device away from their child
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Quotes from Interviews
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It was at this point in the process that I discovered that the solution from secondary research was not going to solve the biggest pain point expressed by users in this primary research phase. I was at a fork in my road here to continue down the path of assumption or the path of observation. The path of assumption is assuming what users want or need and taking the risk in providing a service for them that has not been expressed. The path of observation is taking data points established in primary research to provide a service for users that they are expressing they need. This is the perfect example of why the User Experience Design process is important and although at this point in the process, I cannot show you actual user satisfaction, I can confidently move down the path of observation knowing that it will lead to more satisfied users.
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PROBLEM IDENTIFIED
The target psychographic is parents seeking a tool to support creating better digital well-being for their child(ren). Based on research, we have discovered specific needs on how to achieve this that beg the following questions:
The target psychographic is parents seeking a tool to support creating better digital well-being for their child(ren). Based on research, we have discovered specific needs on how to achieve this that beg the following questions:
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How might we relieve these parents of their primary pain point of the fit throwing from their children when transitioning away from device time?
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How might we relieve the secondary pain point of creating a way to track and monitor device usage across all platforms (Google, Apple, Amazon, and TV)?
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How might we provide a solution that does not sacrifice functionality for ease of use for a full range of tech-savvy users?
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Applying the Research
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Affinity Map
Taking the data from the surveys and interviews and grouping it into an affinity map like this one helps to identify common pain points and allow trends to surface that may otherwise get lost in the mix. It's in the process that the team is especially looking for insight. This affinity map as well as the empathy map will help keep the design of the solution focused on meeting the users' needs. |
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Empathy Mapping
After gathering and grouping the data, two primary archetypes stood out, Parent A and Parent B. Parent A is the personification of the data that pointed towards parenting styles and children who primarily use technology as a form of education or learning. Parent B is the personification of the data grouping that pointed towards parenting styles and children that primarily use technology for entertainment. The similarity between the two, as evident in the research, is that both parent types share the pain point of their children's adverse reactions when they take the device away.
After gathering and grouping the data, two primary archetypes stood out, Parent A and Parent B. Parent A is the personification of the data that pointed towards parenting styles and children who primarily use technology as a form of education or learning. Parent B is the personification of the data grouping that pointed towards parenting styles and children that primarily use technology for entertainment. The similarity between the two, as evident in the research, is that both parent types share the pain point of their children's adverse reactions when they take the device away.
Personas
Using the empathy map, analyzed data, and the affinity map as reference, a more detailed personification of the main two data groupings are created. These two fictitious people will dictate the site map and design of the product. Alex is our fun guru that sticks with what she is comfortable with as far as allowing the device's tools to monitor content or usage. and Kris is our educational opportunist who uses technology more regularly making her mroe comfortable with trusting the device's tools that she has set up to help her achieve better digital well-being for her family.
Using the empathy map, analyzed data, and the affinity map as reference, a more detailed personification of the main two data groupings are created. These two fictitious people will dictate the site map and design of the product. Alex is our fun guru that sticks with what she is comfortable with as far as allowing the device's tools to monitor content or usage. and Kris is our educational opportunist who uses technology more regularly making her mroe comfortable with trusting the device's tools that she has set up to help her achieve better digital well-being for her family.
Journey Map
Now that these two personas have been defined, I came up with a journey map informed by the interviews to paint a picture of a common situation with the pain points that this project may be able to provide a solution to. By putting ourselves in their shoes, we can better understand how they will potentially use the tool I am creating to help relieve some of these pain points.
Now that these two personas have been defined, I came up with a journey map informed by the interviews to paint a picture of a common situation with the pain points that this project may be able to provide a solution to. By putting ourselves in their shoes, we can better understand how they will potentially use the tool I am creating to help relieve some of these pain points.
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User Stories
The personas and journey maps helped create a backbone for the structure of the design of the project. Keeping usability heuristics in the back of my mind, I used post it notes to create a red lines for a more developed structure to the design of the app. The one in this picture is highlighting how a child user will interact with Juse for a regular daily session. The flow goes from top to bottom and left to right. Card Sorting It also during this phase of the project that I sought outside perspective on the organization of the structure flow through card sorting. Without giving influence to the process, I sent out an exercise for people to sort cards by intuition and how they thought they related to each other. By referring this to an outside group with some distance to the project, we can inform the organization of the structure with the result is an easier navigation for first time users. Site Map It's also during this step that I can explore the structure of the project to make sure that user's journeys to send them on longer experiences than they need to be. A good rule of thumb that I used for this is making sure that the majority of the navigation is no more than pages away from the main page. |
Ideation
Now that research has been analyzed, a strategy has been developed, and structure for the project has been set up, it's now time to start designing wire frames for the app. Starting with mobile first, I quickly build out a loose wire frame for testing and we will begin a cycle of testing, listening, and refining.
Usability Testing
At this point, Juse is in the early design stages. After completing a handful of initial in-person guerilla usability tests, we have discovered that there were some critical errors that needed to be updated. Particularly, we found that we need to rephrase "carer" to "caregiver" and rethink the design of graphs. After these findings, we started another more thorough usability test to ensure that the updates that were made to the design test well with the users as well as uncover any new usability issues. Participants were recruited from a local school's online community and interviews were set up for in-person, video chat, and unmoderated user testing. The users were given the following tasks and asked these two general questions:
- Redline task 1: Set up your family on the app.
- Redline task 2: How would you check your and your family’s digital wellbeing?
- What interactions can be simplified?
- Can you think of ways to improve the design to make it more clear?
Findings
User Feedback
After interviewing the users, I asked for their feedback and these are their suggestions:
My Observations
While observing the users, I found these areas that could use improvement:
After interviewing the users, I asked for their feedback and these are their suggestions:
- Users wanted to see more color
- The family page, users want to see a card per user in addition to overall family usage
- The word “continue” when adding a family member is confusing
- The family page viewport seems too generic and users want to see all family members as well as information
- Users wanted to see options for personalization
- Users want to see ideas for what to do for recommendations (Ex: Board game)
- Users want to see more details on the time graph
- Add fingerprint sign in
My Observations
While observing the users, I found these areas that could use improvement:
- The Juse and device graphs are still confusing and need improvement
- The tutorial progress dots are not noticeable
- Tapping the confirm button on the success notification seems redundant
- There isn’t direction on what a user is to do next when finished with onboarding
- There isn’t confirmation when the user finishes onboarding
- Users did not know that the bar graphs were clickable for more details
- Add age for initial sign up
- PIN sign in
- Empty states for onboarding process
- New family member invitation sent
- Swipe to edit family member and button to add family member
Priority Issues
Issue #1
The primary pain point of my users is to reduce the intensity of the fits that their children throw when taking a device away from a child. I have not created a feature in the app yet that has yet to address this pain point.
The primary pain point of my users is to reduce the intensity of the fits that their children throw when taking a device away from a child. I have not created a feature in the app yet that has yet to address this pain point.
Recommendations
- When a child nears his/her Juse limit, they will receive a notification
- When a child runs out of Juse, they will receive a notification with the following options:
- Request more time
- Redirect activity
- Rewards
- Create an option for parents to set up redirects
- Add this feature in the tutorial
Issue #2
The secondary pain point of my users to have a cross-platform wellbeing tracker. I have not created a feature in the app yet that demonstrates the cross-platform functionality of Juse.
The secondary pain point of my users to have a cross-platform wellbeing tracker. I have not created a feature in the app yet that demonstrates the cross-platform functionality of Juse.
Recommendations
- Devices section of the menu will allow parents to add/remove devices.
Issue #3
After the onboarding process is complete, users are not notified that they have completed the process and the app is set up. Not only that, but some users were also unsure what to do once the onboarding process was finished. Users did not notice the progress circles in the onboarding process except for one user that noticed them in the final step of the process.
After the onboarding process is complete, users are not notified that they have completed the process and the app is set up. Not only that, but some users were also unsure what to do once the onboarding process was finished. Users did not notice the progress circles in the onboarding process except for one user that noticed them in the final step of the process.
Recommendations
Create better empty states so users are aware of their onboarding process
- Family member icons when invited
- Change the order of the onboarding steps
- Step 1 of 3 - Create Family Name
- Step 2 of 3 - Add Members
- Step 3 of 3 - Tutorial
- Notification after onboarding is finished that tells the user that they are done setting up their family.
Click for Prototype
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High-Fidelity PrototypeOverall, the feedback was very positive and the higher level satisfaction in the user’s experience was dramatically better than the previous round of testing. One user said, “I didn’t have any problems figuring it out even though I’m not good at technology.” These are good words to hear especially when the goals are achieved of supporting better digital well-being for families, having a feature that relieves a child's fit throwing, and creating a cross-platform dashboard. This prototype version answers the “how might we” statements that initiated the design phase.
This is currently the stage of the process that I am in and I will continue to update this page as more unfolds. If you are interested in financially backing this project for development, please reach out to me. Importance of UX DesignSpecifically for this project, the importance of user experience design is evident. Many companies publish a design without user experience testing and work out the problems based on user reviews and customer service feedback. This approach will lead to a diminished product and a smaller number of satisfied users. With Juse, integrating the user experience process into the design of the product provides the greatest experience for users. Ultimately, this increases user satisfaction fueling better reviews and customer trust. There may be more effort on the front end of the user design process compared to a design-and-launch process but the user satisfaction is the payoff.
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Tools used in this project: Adobe Xd, Adobe Illustrator, Invision, Optimal Workshop, Google Forms, Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Meet, Zoom, pencil, pen, sticky notes, and patience.