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)
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
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?
THE SOLUTION
Productivity combined with daily stress relief is the key to a well-balanced life...
Become more Productive
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
Measure & track your stress level
Uplifting your mood instantly with "Quick Mood Boosters"
Schedule your personalized stress relief activity
Manage your Stress
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."
DESK RESEARCH
" 94% of workers feel stress at work."
Statistics from The American Institute of Stress say:
" The number of stressed people out of 143 countries globally is 35%."
" 55% of Americans are stressed throughout the day."
COMPETITIVE BENCHMARKING 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.
USER RESEARCH METHODS
people took a survey
47
QUANTITATIVE
5
people took an interview
QUALITATIVE
SURVEY
1- Main cause of stress is work-related (40%)
3 main takeaways
2- 85.5% of users use productivity apps, but 30% of them do not think it will help them to manage their stress.
3- 74.5% of users believe that stress management apps help them to manage their stress, but 65.3% of them have never used any stress management apps before to manage their stress.
5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS:
1. Why do people feel stressed in their life in general?
2. What are the side effects they have due to stress?
3. How do they cope with their stress at work and in their personal life? What activities do they do?
4. What tools do they use to help them organize and manage their stress?
5. What features an app needs to have in order for them to use it frequently/daily to manage their stress?
4 Main Themes
4 Key Insights
"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 in jeopardized. This could cause depression in a 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 How Might We...
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?
DESIGN
Setback + New direction for my design
At first, I wanted to include an AI personal assistant as part of my design solution. However, after discussing it with one of the users during the interview, I don't think it is a good idea to include it as part of my design. It is because we might not have the perfect AI technology yet and it is more of a hassle than a benefit. Hence, I stick to a simple productivity app that is stress-relief focused.
These are some insights I received from the interview:
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.
My Sketches...
After finishing my rough sketches on the paper, I moved on building my mid-fidelity wireframes on Figma.
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes...
STYLE GUIDE
Colour Palettes
Primary
Accent
Typography
Components
FINAL SCREENS
Home Screens
Intuitive Calendar System
Stress Tracker
Intuitive Notes System
Goal Setting
Form Positive Habits
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.
RESULTS
80% of the users would recommend this app to a friend or colleague
NEXT STEP
If I have more time, I would like to...
1- Design my remaining flows on how users of this app can share their information and communicate between each other.
2-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.
CONCLUSION + LESSONS LEARNED
What I'd do differently next time...
1- Reiterate as many times as I can at the early stage.
2- Focus on the problem instead of the solution.
4- Work systematically
5- Do as much usability testing as I can.
6- The User interview was a real game-changer for me.
3- Look at a problem from many angles before making any decisions.
leetingkhoo96@gmail.com
Thank you for reading my case study!
Want to work with me? Feel free to drop me an email!