*** We typed out our test and learning cards since there was a lot of text/information 🙂
Participants
- CW: college freshman, avid Fizz and BeReal user hoping to free up more time to finish the quarter well and improve her sleep schedule
- EK: college sophomore, spend a lot of time on YouTube but generally very worried about efficiency and productivity due to a very busy schedule with classes and extracurriculars
- DY: startup founder whose time is very valuable, recently felt the need to purchase a subscription to the paid version of OneSec which helps with lowering screen time of specific applications
Step 1: Hypothesis
We believed that presenting users with alternative activities tailored to their preferences and location would cause users to stop scrolling and thus reduce screen time.
Step 2: Observation
We observed the following:
- People were confused by the “Explore” button and what it meant, but intrigued
- All three participants clicked the “Explore” button instead of the “Keep Scrolling” button
- All three participants clicked the “Try something new!” button instead of “Work on my goals!” button
- On the Recommendation page, all three participants clicked the “Nature” button instead of the “Food and Drink” button and the “Attractions” button
- Users inputted a variety of goals to work on with the time they would gain from lessing their scrolling time:
- Sleeping / napping
- Hydrating
- Praying
- Hanging out / reaching out to friends
- Exercising
- Writing
- Exploring their surroundings
- Eating
Step 3: Learning and Insights
- From that we learned that, people were more inclined to be recommended an alternate activity (either their own goals or activities near them) than keep scrolling after their screen time limit expired.
- We also learned that people were more interested in exploring new activities in their area than in being prompted to spend time working on the goals they had set out for themselves when onboarding.
- There is some allure in the phrase “Explore” even though they were confused about what exactly it meant. Obviously, if they continued to use the app, the only confusion would be during the first use.
Step 4: Decisions and Actions
- Therefore, we will:
- Have a dynamic list of alternate activities presented to the user when they choose not to continue scrolling
- Change the “Explore” button to clear up confusion while still providing intrigue and mystery to inspire the user to click this button as opposed to continuing to scroll
- Instead of making users choose between “Work on one of my goals” and “Try something new near me”, we will combine both the user-entered goals as well as the location-based recommendations into one list that will be updated / changed each time they decide to do an alternative action instead of scrolling
Participants
- RS: college age, user of social media such as Instagram, recently got rid of screen time limits but doesn’t allow herself to use social media during the weekdays to prevent wasting time, very much values spending time with people
- DY: startup founder whose time is very valuable, recently felt the need to purchase a subscription to the paid version of OneSec which helps with lowering screen time of specific applications
- EK: college sophomore, spend a lot of time on YouTube but generally very worried about efficiency and productivity due to a very busy schedule with classes and extracurriculars, very much values spending time with other people
- VA: coterm student, very active Instagram user, but tries spending less time on social media because she has so much work to do.
- ZK: senior, spends a lot of time on Instagram reels, checks her screen time everyday to try keeping it below a specific amount. (These are real people but I wanted to give them anonymity.)
Step 1: Hypothesis
We believed that when users were presented with the choice of forced movement to “unlock” more scrolling time and simply getting off their phone, the users would more often than not decide to stay where they are and end their scrolling session. We believed this friction introduced with a “Wait Until Free” model would lead to lower screen time for users.
Step 2: Observation
We observed:
- On a lazy Sunday afternoon, 6 out of 8 people would rather stop scrolling than go on a walk to keep scrolling
- On a weekday afternoon outside their dorm, 5 out of 8 people would rather go anywhere to keep scrolling
- On a weekday night in their dorm lounge, 4 out of 8 people would rather stop scrolling than go to a concert at the Arbor to keep scrolling
- On a Saturday night, 4 out of 8 people would go to a meet up with their friends to unlock scrolling; the other 4 felt neutrally or would lay in bed and just stop scrolling
- In between classes, 5 out of 8 people would go anywhere to keep scrolling
Step 3: Learning and Insights
From that we learned that the users’ decision to move somewhere to “unlock” more scrolling time truly depends on their current environment / setting, who they are with, time of day, and exhaustion level
Step 4: Decisions and Actions
Therefore, we will integrate our “forced movement to unlock more scrolling time” feature with specific combinations of time of day and location. We could “push” the user into forced movement when we know that they’re in a particular location at a given time of day where they truly feel like there’s nothing else to do and they have the energy level to move around. We will also begin considering how to potentially gauge a users’ energy / exhaustion levels since this plays into the users’ decision to move around to unlock scrolling.
