ELEVATION
[ RESEARCH / VISUAL & INTERACTION DESIGN / PROTOTYPING / USABILITY TESTING ]
Project Timeline: 25 Oct — 13 Dec 2022
The Design Team
Paul Miranda, Lindsey Slutz, AJ Mitchell
What is ELEVATION?
ELEVATION's mission is to help people regain and maintain balance in the most critical facets of their lives—work, family, personal, and self-care. A healthy work/life balance leads to a productive work life and a happy, fulfilling personal life.
Problem Statement
The COVID-19 pandemic changed everyone's lives in one way or another. The influx of people working from home has led to people working longer hours, and developing poor self-care habits and time management, leading to an unbalanced life.
“How might we enable and empower people to live a balanced lifestyle?”
Research
Research Goals
Our research study aims to understand how users find balance in their lives and uncover personal goals and pain points in maintaining balance in their lives.
Research Plan
Research Questions
User Interview Screener & Guide
Conduct User Interviews
Competitive Analysis
Secondary Research
Research Analysis & Summary
User Interviews
Interview Dates: 4-6 Nov 2022 over Zoom
Patterns from our User Interviews
These are the themes we uncovered during our user interviews, which is where our solutions will be focused on. People want:
Focus
Structure and Boundaries
Personalized Support
Planning
Positive Outlook
User Interview Key Insight Details
✔ The line between work and personal is blurred or doesn’t exist when working from home; work cuts time out of personal life.
✔ 100% of interviewees reported feeling lonely due to working from home; they missed in-person interaction's emotional and social aspects.
✔ Current tools in the marketplace are segmented and don’t feel personalized enough to the individual user and their lifestyle; using them can be a job in itself.
✔ Users have an idea of balancing different aspects of their life but have difficulty finding the time and achieving them.
Key Interview Quotes
"We often use all these tools, and it’s telling me how I should be!”
"I want to go back to doing things I used to, like gardening and other activities with friends and in the community.”
"Balance can make or break your life.”
Competitive Analysis
Purpose
Focus and Time Management, Planner, Wellness, Health, and Fitness
Key Features
Customizable and personalized strategy, Goal setting, progress tracker, integration with user's existing tools, Podomoro method, notifications
Opportunities
Many products focus on different facets of life balance—work, self-care, and time management—but we found none that integrates all of them. This is where our opportunity is that separates ELEVATION from others.
Secondary Research
Source: Tech Jury
Key Secondary Research Insights
✔ Having an accountability partner increases success by 70%
✔ Most people take 66 days to change a habit
✔ Reminders of a new habit engender 12% more completed goals
✔ Habits—start small, identify excuses, enable new ones, ok to fail
✔ Dividing work and life: clear boundaries and priorities
Personas
Age: 32
Job: Data Analyst
Partner, Kid, Pet
Riley the Hybrid Worker
He doesn't have a set schedule for going into the office, so he often works long hours from home. Riley enjoys the freedom from working at home but feels lonely without seeing coworkers face-to-face. Without a commute, they find there aren’t clear lines between work and life. The day can slip away without having spent on hobbies or health.
Personality
Extrovert ★★★
Time Management ★★
Health & Wellness ★★★
Goals
✔ Have a clear line between work and personal life
✔ More time for relationship and personal endeavors
✔ Connect, socialize more with people in and off work
Frustrations
☹ Isolated and lonely working from home
☹ Has used mindfulness apps but felt they lack personalization
☹ Isolated and lonely working from home
Age: 44
Job: Software Engineer
Married, 2 Kids
Charli the Remote Worker
Charlie has been working from home since the start of the COVID pandemic. It has taken an adjustment, but she's learned to love working from home because it gives them more time around family. However, she finds it challenging to balance work and life since it happens in the same place. She’d like to spend more time working on wellness and spending time with her family but find it difficult.
Personality
Extrovert ★★★★
Time Management ★
Health & Wellness ★★
Goals
✔ Turn off work and spend more time w/ family
✔ Spend more time on health and wellness
✔ Efficient management of work and personal time
Frustrations
☹ Not knowing how to fit everything into her schedule
☹ Difficulty in maintaining solid relationships w/ colleagues
☹ Unable to do things she loves to do (e.g., hobbies, activities)
Ideation
Using the insights we gained during our research, we came together as a team with a clear goal and outcome and ideated through an Opportunity Solution Tree workshop to come up with our solutions.
Scenarios/Storyboard
Riley the Hybrid Worker
Context scenario: Riley wants to check how he spends his time working from home and in person and reflect on changes he needs to balance his life.
Charli the Remote Worker
Context scenario: Chali is working on a big project at work and has neglected her self-care routine and activities as well as time with her family.
Designing our Solutions
Wireflows
Main Task: Onboarding (Personalization/Customization
Onboarding is a critical process to enable ELEVATION to personalize user's experience best suited for their needs and lifestyle
Main Task: Get insights and track time spent on work, self-care, family, and personal
Sub Task: Sub Task: 1) Self-care reminders/to-do, 2) “Nudge,” 3) Spin the Wellness Wheel Self-Care Challenge
Main Task: Find activities, routines, advice, and guides on self-care and wellness in the Elevation Library.
Sub Task: 1) Get activities recommendations based on lifestyle/preferences, 2) Access a list of hobbies and wellness activities to try, 3) View and join recommended events or activities/interests groups nearby, 4) Save to “My Self-Care Library”
The Onboarding Process
The onboarding process is the beginning of our user's journey with ELEVATION.
[ Feature ]
★ Identify user goals, habits, interests, time management
★ Connect with user's favorite apps (health care, fitness, calendar, task management, etc.)
[ Supports User Needs ]
Personalized Support
Planning
The Elevation Balance Tracker
Our balance tracker lets users see how their time is spent and balanced, providing deep insights, tips, and recommendations.
[ Feature ]
★ Track time spent on work, self-care, family, and personal
★ Integrated to-do, task, & calendar for personal and work
★ Personalized insights, tips, and recommendations based on data
★ Aggregates data on health, fitness, and time management to provide powerful insights for users
[ Supports User Needs ]
Focus
Structure and Boundaries
Personalized Support
Planning
Spin the Wellness Wheel Challenge: Our Unique UX
Making a lifestyle change is difficult, especially regarding self-care, wellness, and balancing life overall.
This feature challenges users to do different activities in small steps to empower them to take bigger leaps in the future.
[ Feature ]
★ Dedicated button, easily accessible across the app
★ Generates personalized activities based on user preference, lifestyle, and insights from data
★ User-controlled (time and level)
★ Small challenges include fitness, mindfulness, or even sending positive messages to family or friends
[ Supports User Needs ]
Focus
Personalization
Positive Outlook
The ELEVATION Library
Our library is a wealth of relevant resources to help users find balance in their lives. Personalized and curated based on user's preference, lifestyle, and data. Empower users to socialize again through wellness-focused groups and events.
[ Feature ]
★ Library of relevant content for self-care, work, family, and personal
★ Personalized and curated for users based on interests, preferences, and user life/balance data
★ Join interest groups or a wellness-focused event nearby; empowering users to socialize again
[ Supports User Needs ]
Focus
Structure and Boundaries
Personalization
Planning
Positive Outlook
prototyping
Usability Testing
Usability Testing Dates: 2-4 Dec 2022
Objectives
To understand how real users interact and if they can use our product and see if it is effective, efficient, engaging, error tolerant, and easy to learn.
Tasks
✔ Complete the onboarding process and navigate the homepage
✔ Navigate the ELEVATION Tracker, and check a specific data set (sleep) to get some insights
✔ Access their To-Do list and add or edit an entry
✔ Take the Spin the Wellness Wheel Challenge
✔ Go to the ELEVATION library, check out an article, and sign up for an event
Key Usability Testing Insights
Our usability testing participants successfully completed all tasks without any significant issues. Participants noted a few texts that were confusing, causing them to pause and think. There were a few inconsistencies in a few areas of the UI that resulted in participants tapping on the incorrect components.
Nudging
★ What do reminders look like for users? Users want to see the right thing to do at the right time.
Reduce and Improve Copy
★ Remove or rephrase a few confusing texts, and reduce excessive ones—users don't want to read long ones.
UI Updates and Improvements
★ Improve consistency in a few components
★ Clear actions on interactive components
★ Simplified/minimal data visualization
Usability Testing Notable Quote
"I like that it's curated for me...I don't want generic content like " Hey, you should do this.”
"I think the app should have an interest in me. I haven't been there in a while...you missed three appointments or a workout...Bring me back into the app.”
Iteration (Nudging)
Relevant nudge that matters at the right time.
Notable Future Iterations
Our usability testing yielded great feedback and further insights to add future capabilities to ELEVATION.
Mood
★ A look at how users' activities and plans are impacted by their mood and target tips and recommendations.
Friends/Family Sharing & Community Challenge
★ Interaction and challenge with friends, family, and the community.
★ A friend or family you are accountable for your goals
Budgeting/Finance
★ Users see finance as essential part of a balanced life
Key Takeaways
✔ People working remotely or hybrid wants a better work/life balance.
✔ People in their busy lives want to be reminded or "nudged" and be accountable for their goals.
✔ Validated the interest in a product that brings together essential facets of a balanced life—work, self-care, family, and personal.
✔ Personalization is important to people—a product that knows and understands their needs.
