TLDR;

I created an app concept called “Spice of Life” to help users plan and execute upon their life goals within a gamified, low pressure environment. As a UX team of one, I took the project from discovery and market research through to design, testing, iteration, and custom illustration.

CLIENT — Passion Project

TIMELINE — 10 weeks

TEAM — Team of one

ROLE — UX Research, UX, UI, Illustration

TOOLS — Sketch, Invision

Challenge

As a part of my UX Design bootcamp with General Assembly, my fellow students and I had the opportunity to design a mobile or web application of our choosing. Amid the struggle to balance life priorities like work and friends, I started with a goal that was personal to me - helping users find the time and mental space to pursue their hobbies.

Being a passion project, this project posed few constraints except for time. But ultimately, with the foundation of market and user discovery research as my guide, what started as a hunch around self-care evolved into Spice of Life, a gamified life goals planning app.

RESEARCH

METHODS

Coming into the problem space, I wanted to understand the habits of young professionals around personal hobbies, especially within the context of pursuing life satisfaction. I conducted quick discovery research with 4 people from my target audience, leveraging a research plan describing key project details and an interview script of open-ended questions.

Once I’d conducted and synthesized findings from my discovery interviews, I researched the landscape of self-care to continue building a research story. I put together a couple of personas to bring some human definition to the problem I aimed to solve, and arrived at a central problem statement. I then conducted a range of quick competitive analyses to identify a market gap in the self-care space.

FINDINGS

I found in my discovery research that while 100% of users were concerned with personal fulfillment, 100% also experienced stress, exhaustion, and burnout that kept them from pursuing their interests. Their limited free time was dedicated to socializing & engaging in career-boosting activities they felt they “should” be doing.

Turning to market research, I found that studies indeed show high levels of stress in US adults, with the highest levels found amongst millennials and Gen Z. Stress levels were so high, the American Psychology Association came to refer to it as a public health crisis.

In aggregate, these findings brought me to the central problem I wanted to solve.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Young professionals need a way to find time and mental energy for their personal interests, because on their own, social and after work routines don’t adequately manage their stress or result in optimal life satisfaction.

Honing in on self-care, I found the competitive landscape meeting a range of needs - habit trackers for those seeking a regimen, virtual vision boards for the dreamers, and interest-based social media platforms for outgoing folks. But nothing seemed to make life goal setting the priority in a low-pressure environment. Nothing mirrored the fun that this pursuit is meant to embody, while still making the end goal explicit: the challenging, energizing, rewarding pursuit of one’s personal passions. And what could be more appropriate to this end than a clear metaphor in the form of a game?

This is where Spice of Life came in, an app concept where users can fill up their plate with personal experiences and associate a deadline by which to achieve them. When a goal is complete, the metaphorical appetizer is consumed, nourishing the avatar’s soul. The app leverages gamification and enticing food visuals to create a low pressure, but sticky platform for users to plan and work towards personal goals – a place where users can self-motivate to start tasting the spice of life.

INITIAL DESIGN

I started concepting with pen and paper exercises, including crazy 8’s and paper wireframes. I decided that for the MVP phase, there was a core set of features users would need to set, track, and complete the goals on their plate:

• “Plate” interface with preset appetizers

• Hungry monster

• Set timeline and experiences

• Indicator of target date

• “Complete” function

• About and Contact Us sections

TESTING

Having landed on a concept, I tested in several stages of the design process. I started with virtual card sorting to hammer down the information architecture. This would later help in mapping out the user flow. After informal hallway testing of my paper prototypes, I iterated on the designs and moved onto low fidelity wireframes. Finally, I conducted usability testing of a mid-fidelity prototype with a handful of users and iterated once again to land on an MVP.

PROCESS DEVELOPMENT

Testing was conducted in several stages of the design process, including card sorting, testing of informal paper prototypes, and usability testing with key task scenarios.

ITERATION

The initial Spice of Life designs featured a single timeline and a holistic plate. Based on card sorting results, a separate tab was created for users to configure their goal settings. Later on, in hallway testing of the paper prototypes, several users indicated that they needed help coming up with goal ideas. An “Explore” section was added in the low fidelity wireframing phase for users seeking inspiration.

Arriving at a mid-fidelity prototype, more formal usability testing revealed key opportunities for improvement to the app.

FINAL DESIGN

NEXT STEPS

This design process was admittedly brief, and there are a few near term edits that would ideally be made before the app made its way to the real world, for instance:

Expand functionality of “explore” section
Audit for accessibility
Introduce animations into prototype to breathe life into essential monster interactions

Some longer term nice to haves might include allowing users to customize their monster, interface and share with friends, and select and/or upgrade their appetizers.

KEY LEARNING

Even the briefest user testing can move a design concept forward by leaps and bounds.

LESSONS LEARNED

As my first UX project, I probably learned too many lessons to count throughout this process. But beyond learnings like how to conduct discovery research or build a prototype, one huge takeaway was in how even the briefest user testing can move a design concept forward by leaps and bounds. I also came to realize how collaborative product design is - an aspect to this discipline that I am hugely passionate about.