In our exploration of the assumption map and assumption tests, one key insight that emerged was the prevalence of screen usage in the context of entertainment. Our hypothesis for why this could be happening is that if people spend a specific time on “entertainment” every day, the time they would have spent reading in the time before phones and other electronics has gotten largely replaced with time on phones. Especially with the advent of addicting, habit-forming social media apps such as TikTok and Instagram, it is incredibly easy for a busy college student to rely on their phone for easy, dopamine-boosting entertainment instead of opting for the higher commitment of a book.
One strategy we ideated on to increase the stickiness of a reading habit is habit stacking, which correlates with our first assumption test. We were inspired by James Clear’s concept of habit stacking (source) from his book Atomic Habits. If our hypothesis that habit stacking works is true, that means habit stacking is a viable way to help people read more, which we can use while building our solution.
Another key insight that emerged was that users (college students/young adult) prefer reading to feel like they’ve accomplished something, rather than reading for pleasure. This insight emerged through our interviews, and we thought it was important because the result of our hypothesis would impact how our app is structured; either users read primarily because they crave the feeling of accomplishment, or users read because they want to feel release and relaxation.
The third key insight we identified was that users often feel too tired at the end of the day to prioritize reading or feel motivated to read. This implies that many users aim to read at the end of the day, which could be because of the high level of time pressure users feel during the day itself because of the social and academic pressures of being a college student or young adult. By trying to identify a specific time span to target reading in, our aim is to further narrow down our focus and gather as much information as possible in the process.
