PROJECT OVERVIEW
What is InBalance?
A hypothetical app I designed during my UX/UI design boot camp to promote work-life balance among stressful & busy people. I initiated this project for one sole purpose-to solve my friend's problem; An office administrator who always has acute headaches and has affected his daily job badly.
By using the 5 whys methodology, I found out the root cause of his headaches is due to constant stress. Therefore, I further investigated this issue and proposed a simple solution that would help to solve this problem.
My role: UX researcher, UX designer, UI designer
Duration: 10 weeks
USER GOAL
To help busy working professionals find a balance between work and life.
BUSINESS GOAL
To find out if there is a potential market for a productivity app with stress-relief-focused features that people would like to use by measuring the Net Promoter Score (NPS).
" I don't think the "stress problem" could be fully solved by "an app" or other digital tools. It requires a person's determination and self-discipline aside from using any tools to help them combat stress in their daily life." (my biggest challenge)
DOUBLE DIAMOND APPROACH
This is how I approach every design challenges or problem that I encountered by using double-diamond thinking in an Agile methodology framework to come up with the final solution.
MY DESIGN PROCESS
STEP 1: DEFINE- Problem, hypothesis & desk research
STEP 2: EMPATHIZE- Survey & User interview
STEP 3: ANALYZE-Affinity mapping, Insights, HMWs
STEP 4: IDEATE-Sketches, Crazy 8s, User flows
STEP 5: DESIGN-Wireframes & Prototypes
STEP 6: TEST-Usability testing & Reiterate
DEFINE
PROBLEM STATEMENT
1/3 of people around the world report feeling extreme amounts of stress regularly...(Gallup)
Stress is inevitable, especially in this modern age. This sparked the question- How can we manage our stress while busy juggling our work and personal life?
HYPOTHESIS
"We believe that offering a tool that is simple, intuitive, and personalized for stressful busy people can help them to be more productive and at the same time manage their stress."
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
The competition had no stress relief aspect!
By comparing with other popular productivity apps in the market, I found out almost none of them had this stress relief aspect to help them manage stress while achieving their goals in life. This then became my opportunity for the solution.
SOLUTION
THE SOLUTION
Productivity combined with daily stress relief is the key to a well-balanced life...
Become more Productive
Measure & track your stress level
Uplifting your mood instantly with "Quick Mood Boosters"
Schedule your personalized stress relief activity
Manage your Stress
Form Positive Habits with 21 days challenge
Set and achieve the goal in 3 simple steps
Manage time with an intuitive calendar system
Easily record all important matters using notes
EMPATHIZE
USER RESEARCH METHODS
people took a survey
47
QUANTITATIVE
5
people took an interview
QUALITATIVE
USER INTERVIEW
"I love using my Apple Note to record all the daily tasks."
"I don't use any stress management app because I would fall asleep if I meditate."
"I schedule all my meetings using google calendar."
"I moved from Shanghai to Spain because I want a life that is work-life balance."
"I use a physical notebook to write down all the important matters so I don't forget."
ANALYZE
4 MAIN THEMES
"Most people often work hard to support themselves and their family, causing them to feel stressed and unhappy in general. This makes their life unbalanced."
"Due to the vast amount of stress coming from work and personal life, people often have many side effects causing their life is jeopardized. This could cause depression in the long run."
"When people feel stressed, most people cope with their stress by doing some sort of activities to forget their problems. These activities help them to relieve stress and feel better."
" Some busy people do not believe that the productivity app can help them to reach their goals and manage their stress."
4 KEY INSIGHTS
HMW help stressful busy people to find a balance between their work and personal life?
HMW keep track of their stress level and help them to manage and keep it at a minimum level?
HMW help them to cope with their stress by doing activities that they like?
HMW help busy people to set and achieve their goals?
4 HOW MIGHT WE...
IDEATE
After sketching out all my 4 main task flows diagram, I started my ideation process by doing a lot of sketches using pen and paper for all 4 main user flows using Crazy 8's and User Flow methods.
SKETCHES
DESIGN
After finishing my rough sketches on the paper, I moved on building my mid-fidelity wireframes on Figma.
MID-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
TEST
USABILITY TESTING + IMPROVEMENTS
3 Major improvements in my design
Removal of the schedule button
I have redesigned the card without the schedule button because it is confusing for some users. The users tend to click on it without first clicking the add button.
Increase the "add" button size
I have redesigned the card with a bigger "add" button as it is not very visible to some users. And they tend to ignore it.
Replace the text "more"
I reiterated the design twice and lastly changed it to a larger blue text that states "more info" with a move forward icon because many users think it is part of the design and wouldn't think of clicking it.
VISUAL
STYLE GUIDE
Colour Palettes
Typography
FINAL SCREENS
Home Screens
Intuitive Calendar System
Stress Tracker
Intuitive Notes System
Goal Setting
Form Positive Habits
RESULTS
80% of the users would recommend this app to a friend or colleague
NEXT STEPS/CONCLUSION
I would like to design my remaining flows on how users of this app can share their information and communicate with each other. And I would like to approach more users for the usability testing and reiterate as many times as I can until the app is polished and ready to be published to the App Store before handing it over to the developers.
leetingkhoo96@gmail.com
Thank you for reading my case study!
Want to work with me? Feel free to drop me an email!