Team Members: Anjali, Dorien, Ellington, Ji Hong, Karson
Welcome to FocusFund
Figma Clickable Prototype: LINK
January 11, 2023 – March 18, 2023
Team Members:
- Ji Hong Ni – UI/UX Designer
- Anjali Sukhavasi – UI/UX Designer
- Karson Lippert – UI/UX Designer
- Dorien Simon – UI/UX Designer
- Ellington Crevier – UI/UX Designer
Project Summary
Focus Fund is an application that reduces screen time. We wanted a social way to motivate users to stay off their phones. We used money being donated towards an opposing political campaign as the motivator and the ability to share your screen time challenge with friends to up the total donation. This seemed to be something that users responded well to based on our experiential prototyping of this idea. Many users enjoyed betting with their friends and didn’t mind losing or donating small amounts of money.
Problem Finding (The Challenge)
Justification
As a team, we started thinking first about what problems we had that directly impacted our overall health and moods. We went around as a group and shared various habits and behaviors that we didn’t like. Some of the behaviors were not getting enough sleep, exercise, water, etc; however, we all had a common theme of being distracted by our phones. So we started brainstorming different ways to combat the distraction. As we went through the class, we learned about different methods of changing behavior and became excited about how we were going to design our app to genuinely change users’ behavior to curb distraction time. Additionally, we were all very excited about introducing some sort of social element to solve this problem and so we settled on our problem space relatively quickly.
What is known about the problem/challenge?
Everyone wants to be efficient with their time. It sucks feeling rushed by procrastination because you’ve been too distracted by your phone. After running our own study on users who reported their screen time use during the week and their progress during their work, even our participants who reported being productive still wasted HOURS on social media.
Literature has shown that phone use is a clear distractor. It causes stress, disengagement, and lessened productivity. Even the existence of the phone nearby will make a user lessened focused despite them not actively using it. It’s evident how impactful the device is on our lives. Many of the apps that tried to combat the issue we’re tackling weren’t very social. They were easy to get around and weren’t eliciting intrinsic motivation from the user to improve. Our edge was to address these two shortcomings in our intervention. You can read about the rest of our exploration of this research in our past blog post.
Baseline Study & Synthesis
Our target users are college students. Based on our shared experiences as college students trying to balance school with other obligations and rest time, we decided to monitor how many times students picked up their phones in a day, what apps they were most likely to visit, and how much time students spent on their phone total.
We found that students were likely to be distracted by social media and video streaming apps. Students would open these apps, often intending to take a short break from work, but would end up being drawn into spending extended amounts of time on the app. This leads to diminished productivity and disrupts time management. An inability to aptly reduce screen time in order to balance obligations with tasks required for wellness such as exercise and sleep leads to low mental health. This manifested a continuous loop in which students were more likely to get distracted and turn to social media as a coping mechanism to escape increasing amounts of work.
Students also reported that completely deleting distracting apps was not an apt long-term solution because they eventually felt like they were out of the loop on social happenings. Therefore, we decided to study the effects of reducing screen time during the specific periods when students needed to be focused.
Personas & Journey Maps
We chose to focus on 4 different personas. The first was a senior undergraduate that was trying to reduce their screen time on youtube and Netflix. They tried to solve this issue by going on walks to cope with the stress and anxiety. The reason for this issue in the first place was they would feel anxious about the work they have to do which leads to excess phone usage. The second persona was a professional golfer who wanted to improve their skills in golf but would find themselves getting distracted on their phone before the start of rounds or starting a different part of the practice. They tried to stop this bad habit by creating a schedule to stick to as well as quitting apps they were using excessively cold turkey. The third persona we used was an undergraduate student who wanted to spend less time on social media. The motivation was to be able to keep up with work better but at times they would feel out of energy and needed time to recharge. The final persona was a master’s student who wanted to spend more time studying and reaching the required hours for their therapy license. The main distraction was Youtube and this person tried combatting it by going out for a cup of coffee.
We chose to focus on these personas because they were all unique personas with unique issues and goals. The diversity that the mix of these three different personas provided for us allowed us to have a wider target audience. Although each persona was different from the next, we were able to identify that a large portion of unwanted screen time was occurring right before they were going to do something. For the golfer, it was before practicing and for the students, it was before beginning a work or study session.
Here is a link to view the journey maps that were created for each of the four different personas. For the three students, all of their journey maps included parts that highlighted what they did before work, during work, and after work. For the golfer it was similar but rather than work it was practice. Creating these journey maps helped us to identify what part of the day led to the most distractions from phone usage. As mentioned above, we were able to identify that the period of time before working or practicing was when people would get most distracted.
Solution Finding
Intervention Study
Our intervention study was inspired by our literature review readings. Some of the relevant literature that aided in the creation of the intervention idea include:
- “How to reduce smartphone distraction at work and home” provided valuable insight on how to decrease mindless smartphone usage through stringent usage settings, scheduled focus usage, and learning about usage patterns.
- “Attention or Distraction? The impact of Mobile Phones on Users” helped to highlight the negative effects of smartphone distraction and suggested that attention control could curb cognitive emotional preoccupation and increase mental health overall.
- “The Mere Presence of a Cell Phone may be distracting” assisted by showing the negative impact that the presence of a mobile device has on attention and cognitive performance.
When designing the study, we aimed to prevent smartphone distraction by intervening at the moment when users are most likely to get distracted by analyzing their screen-time patterns as discussed in the first literature review. We also provided two methods to promote focus and productivity: a competition with friends and timing how long one can stay focused, which we brainstormed after our first round of user feedback and reviewing literature review #2.
After some final deliberation, we all decided that our intervention study will consist of 2 different methods:
- the user doing a focus competition with a friend.
- timing how long they were able to stay focused and productive.
Throughout the process, we noticed that people are distracted by their phones most often right before beginning a work period. We found this to be the case for a number of different reasons such as people procrastinating because they will have enough time to complete their work, or feeling overwhelmed and trying to take a quick break before beginning all of their work. With this information, we decided to try to intervene at this moment and prevent them from getting distracted.
The idea of the competition with a friend is to have the user study or do work with a friend and see which person can last longer without picking up and going on their phone. The idea is that the aspect of the competition will encourage people to stay focused longer and get in the habit of completing their work without getting distracted at any point in the process. We decided to add the other option of timing if someone doesn’t like working with others but it still allows for the competition aspect, it’s just against themselves.
Link to all intervention ideas: https://highercommonsense.com/cs247b/synthesis-proto-personas-journey-maps-and-intervention-idea-team-7/
Research Question and Hypothesis
We created a google form that we had participants fill out every day. The google form was simple with 4 questions:
- Which intervention did you do? (time focus or friendly competition)
- How long did you stay focused for?
- How did the intervention help in keeping you focused?
- Why didn’t it work?
We selected a few participants who were in our baseline study as well as a couple of participants who were completely new. We wanted to use participants who had issues staying focused or who already studied with friends.
For the participants who did the competition-based focus protocol, they usually made wagers when they were competing against each other. They would bet money, a Jamba juice order, or anything else that’s low stakes they could afford. They said it worked super well and it was fascinating that they added that unique twist to it without us even asking.
For the participants who did the time-based focus protocol, we found that they too also had heightened focus. They reported being more aware of how they were spending their time and what things were distracting them.
In terms of time spent focused, participants in the competition category spent an average of 42.5 minutes studying, while the other group spent an average of 77.5 minutes studying. The medians of the groups were identical with 52.5 minutes of focus.
Key Insights
From the data, we found that competition allows for fun wagers with friends, and timing yourself allows users to better track what pulls them away from work. After seeing the positive increase in users focusing more on the focus protocol, we began pivoting toward a solution that integrates competition in some regard. We weren’t 100% sure how we wanted to involve competition, but from the studies, we were able to validate that it will statistically help users focus for greater intervals.
While we did start out firmly embedded in the research, we iterated away slightly by focusing more on the competitive aspect of behavioral change. Ultimately, the research supported our invention by mitigating the use of screen time, particularly the article “How to reduce smartphone distraction at work and home”, and how resource binding (blocking the device with a running app) can help users focus more without a smartphone.
Design Architecture
We did a couple of different things to help us formulate what we would want our solution to be and look like. We started off by creating bubble maps where we identified the main components of our product and how important they were as well as how they connected to each other.
As seen above, there were a number of different aspects that were critically important such as social competition, money, politics, improved life, etc. These bubble maps were extremely useful for our team since they focused on different aspects. The map on the left highlighted the main design components we would need to consider while the map on the right helped illustrate the goal of the app and the importance of the experience that the user has. After the bubble maps were completed and reviewed, we created a system map with some of our personas as seen below.
This system map helped our team notice what different factors were at play when considering whether our users would reach their goals or not. The system map helped us to identify the different feelings and distractions that got in the way of reaching their goals. Our personas would often find themselves feeling tired, overwhelmed, or stressed and it led them to consequently think about and use their phone. This made us realize that we had to find a way to eliminate this phone distraction entirely.
Assumption Mapping and Testing
The assumption that we were testing was that people were willing to bet money. We assumed people would be willing to bet any amount of money, small or large, to show that they are able to stay focused and achieve a focused goal. Another bit assumption we made was users would have a clear political party affiliation and were passionate enough to donate money towards that cause.
We tested these assumptions by taking users we had to do our experiential prototypes and asking them if they had a political affiliation and if they would be willing to bet a $1 on a focus challenge. We learned people were willing to make bets even after they lost money. We also found a large number of participants who did have strong political affiliations. Below you can review our assumption mapping to see how we came to choose these assumptions to test.
Our assumption tests weren’t flawed, but we can only test if this idea would truly work if an app is built and we can ensure our friends aren’t appeasing us. A big assumption that may remain for us though is if people would be motivated enough to do this with strangers instead of their friends (or if they don’t have any).
Building a Solution
Wireflows to sketchy screens
In our final wireflow before the figma prototype, we wanted the timer to be the core flow that the user focuses on. This includes the challenge aspect of the app as we believe that this was the happy path of our product.
In this sketchy screen, we take a deeper look into the social aspect of the app as we believe that people motivate people. Since this was the initial look of the challenges screen, the final figma prototype deviated from this to fit our apps overall aesthetic. For more sketchy screens, the link is here.
Branding — Mood Boards & Style Tiles
We wanted our app to be clean as it is here to help users focus and concentrate on whatever task they are trying to accomplish. We want users to not have a hard time using the app since that might prevent them from even trying it out. Another aspect of our app since it’s based on political identity is that it will maybe also stresses users out as the consequence of not focusing is donating to the opposing political party. We want our image to be a serious app where folks come here to really get things done since the repercussions are just as severe.
This was the ultimate color and font we decided to go for in our app. It stayed relatively the same as our final style submission but just with some additional neutral colors.
Usability Testing
We wanted our users to be able to set their profile settings, start an individual focus timer, and start a group timer with a (proxy) group of friends on the app. The first issue was that the payment information system seemed too complex for users. To make inputting payment information easier for users, we would partner with 3rd-party payment systems such as Apple Pay or PayPal. The second issue was that users preferred to not give personal information like a phone number unless it was essential to use the app. To solve this issue, we would delay requiring a phone number until users wanted to invite friends to timers, in which case contact information is necessary for the functionality of the app. The third issue was that users preferred to donate money to more generalized causes rather than feeling pigeonholed to only donate to political parties. To solve this issue, we would expand the offerings of “parties” our users can donate to civil rights, human rights, and animal rights organizations. Another idea, since the app caters to college students, is to allow university organizations to apply to be a part of the app offerings that users can donate to as an incentive to stay focused.
Moving forward we also want to take into consideration the flow of the app. The first issue was that our app was not informative enough to lead a user through the app the first time to navigate starting a focus session timer – we overestimated how self-explanatory the various aspects of setting a timer would be. The second issue was that the users were confused by the concept of inviting a group of friends to a timer; did the friends necessarily have to hold divergent political ideologies? How long were invitations to timers valid for? These issues can be solved by improving the flow of our app interface. In addition, we can give users the opportunity to navigate through a demo when they first enter the app that will explain the components of the app in detail before they start using the app unassisted for the first time.
Prototype
Figma Clickable Prototype: LINK
Onboarding Flow:
In our onboardng flow, the biggest suggestion we received was having users insert their banking information this early on in the process could scare them into not using the product. Therefore, we pivoted into adding some other methods of payment (as suggested during our tests) to expedite users onboarding process if information is stored elsewhere on their mobile device.
Profile Screen:
For our profile screen, users commented that it should show personal information about the users focus times in addition to other changeable information (like profile picture, name, political affiliation, etc). While the settings component is not fully fleshed out at the moment, it doesn’t impact the core themes of the app as the only things that would go in there are log out functions, FAQ, Help Center, etc.
Self Study:
For the self study feature, it was really straight forward so we focused on what the main attributes are of this task and streamlined it so it wasn’t cluttery for users. Overall, we received positive feedback from our testers!
Challenge/Social Feature:
This task flow was probably the most commented on as the original screens had a lot of holes in transition. Users asked about where we input information, how we can invite friends, how the money was divided and so much more. This was the most confusing task flow but after revamping it with feedback, we managed to include a bunch of the comments left for us during the usability testing and science fair to make the final product a lot cleaner.
Ethics
In the design of our application, we took advantage of nudging and manipulation, rewards, and interface design. We know that nudging is a great way to pull users back onto an application. We allow users to share a link with their friends to join their challenge instead of using some button in the app that would trigger a notification banner. We want the interactions to be very organic and direct. We hope that this gets around the ethical issue of nudging.
We have a reward/punishment system for our users in terms of donations. We aren’t promoting addictive behavior through users racking up points, streaks, or karma. We keep it simple with them donating money towards their political affiliation. This keeps us ethical within the rewards framework.
Finally, we have designed our application to be used for the sole purpose of setting focus goals. Our design is very minimal. There are not a lot of moving parts and we want to keep the user focused on staying focused, not focused on our app. Our white and tan color scheme allows for the app to be more or less unappealing and keeps a user’s time on it limited. This is how we are compliant with interface design ethical concerns.
Our application will break the chain of wasted time and overuse of mobile phones. Due to the social nature of our app, it will slowly spread across the nation like wildfire. Productivity will skyrocket after its launch. Not only will more innovation and work get done with this solution, but there will be fewer mental health issues induced by social media as well. The more we keep people off of their phones, the less likely they are to engage with platforms that promote body shaming and racism. Our application may be the only thing that saves Gen Z from collapse.
Conclusion
Overall this was a great learning experience for everyone on our team. Throughout the quarter we went through the process of interviewing, testing and designing a product for a target audience. We learned how to best analyze and make use of the information that we obtained through interviewing testing and prototyping on participants. We learned how to design creatively and put ourselves in a position to think critically and come up with a great solution. The different assignments we completed throughout the quarter helped us grow into better, more organized, and more efficient designers. Additionally, working in a team taught us a lot about how to disperse work, set boundaries and norms, and how become better communicators.
We would like to develop the idea of donating to any organization further. Since our style tile’s color palette was based on political parties’ associated colors, we would likely revamp our style tile. Rather than the stiff neutral background of our app, we would be in favor of colors that are more playful and engaging. Furthermore, we would like to develop an interface for additional organizations to apply to be featured on the app or for users to petition for organizations they are interested in to be featured on the app.
For our next behavior design effort, we would like to use the methods learned in this class to execute our plan. From user and field research to persona and solution building, all types of information gathering and synthesis would be fruitful in any of our future endeavors.
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