I designed a Minimal Viable Product (“MVP") to keep habit builders accountable by enabling them to make these habits with their friends.
User Research, Wireframing, Prototyping, Interaction Designs, Usability Tests, Maze, Mira
Overview
Research shows that this process can take up to 66 days on average (European Journal of Social Psychology”, by Phillippa Lally). In this personal project, I discover habit seekers' obstacles when trying to build a new habit and design a solution that helps them reach their goals.
Problem
Habit-builders find themselves struggling in building a habit because they see the tools they are using require too much effort and don't allow them to connect with friends, letting them lose motivation.
Outcome
I design a platform that allows users to quickly and easily track their habits that does not require much effort while being able to build these habits alongside their friends to foster social accountability.
RESEARCH
Understanding why it’s hard to build habits
I wanted to understand the challenges my peers faced when trying to build a new habit. I had 23 participants fill out a survey to get quantitative data. I conducted 6 user interviews to get more detailed experience.
Required but unnecessary effort
Habit tracking emerged as a pivotal approach for users. Nonetheless, they perceived traditional methods like notebooks, calendars, and apps as demanding considerable effort before initiating the habit-building process. This discouragement led many to rely on mental tracking, often resulting in forgetting their goals.
Stemming from the necessary energy required to setting up habit tracking, one of the main goals for users was to not need to learn the habit of “tracking my habits” and revolve their life around the tools they are using to track their progress.
“Like I don’t want to build a habit of tracking habits in order to actually learn a new habit”
- Jason
Users don’t like to work alone
One of the main themes from my user interviews was that most participants didn’t like to build a new habit alone. This could either be through an online focus group, coworkers, or a buddy.
I decided to get quantitative data to support this finding and discovered that depending on the type of setting that the users were building a habit in when they are not doing it alone, affected how successful they were.
Habits built alone
Habits built alongside
5
21
17
7
Successful
Unsuccessful
75%
25%
23%
77%
Users found more success when they were building a habit alongside others but specifically with friends rather through other mediums. For many participants, they felt bad skipping out on one day of building a habit when they knew their friend was on the other end trying their best. As a result of my research, users required social accountability when building habits.
Users finds more success when they are building the same habits as their friends.
Current competitors
In order to get a better understanding of the types of products out there in building habits, I conducted a competitive analysis on products that participants have tried. I looked at the following companies.
All platforms allowed users to track all their habits, but required users much energy to do so. Along with that, there was no social aspects for users to connect with their friends in building their habits. This finding supported the main obstacles that prevented users from reaching their goals.
Persona
I developed a persona based on my user interviews and research. This served as guide for me through my design process and coming up with a solution.
IDEATION
It’s brainstorming time
Utilizing my research, it came down to determining the approach in helping habit builders reach their goals in reaching a habit. I ensured that my solution encompassed a user’s desire to not spend too much time on the platform and their motivation derived from working out with a friend.
Honing on the level of engagement
I spent 5 minutes listing as many solutions to ensure all avenues were considered. After the 5 minute session I started to eliminate ideas that did not quite address the user’s pain points based on my research. From there I took into consideration outside factors such as technology, user trends, and timeline. I ended up with two potential ideas.
I decided to go with the “Shared Tracker” solution. It takes into consideration that users do not want to revolve their life around a platform. Users wanted a quick way to build habits while being able build these habits alongside their friends.
Providing users social accountability and reducing required screen time on platform.
Ensuring the necessary features for the product
Before designing my solution, I listed out all features of the product and than organized into a priority matrix taking into consideration the importance of each feature and the potential engineering lift needed to implement.
I decided to get quantitative data to support this finding and discovered that depending on the type of setting that the users were building a habit in when they are not doing it alone, affected how successful they were.
Goal of this project was to implement all features that were high priority to provide a functioning product that users would use for habit building.
BRANDING
SHOY
Before going into the design process, I decided to reset by quickly developing the brand of my platform. I name this product “shoy”, which is defined as “intentionally sharing the joy of someone relating success story by showing interest and asking follow-up questions”. This resonates with the goals of users trying to build habits through their friends.
Logo and colors
I spent 5 minutes listing as many solutions to ensure all avenues were considered. After the 5 minute session I started to eliminate ideas that did not quite address the user’s pain points based on my research. From there I took into consideration outside factors such as technology, user trends, and timeline. I ended up with two potential ideas.
Primary color representing “growth”, users are able to grow as they learn new habits.
#C0B6FD
Secondary color representing “support”, users can use the support of their friends as motivation.
#F7EEB0
Primary color representing “joy”, users will be able to feel happy for their friend’s progress and their own!
DESIGN PROCESS
Designing the solution
This is where the magic happens. I created user flows in order to help me build the foundation of the experience with this product. After that I designed low fidelity frames to conduct usability tests. While a comprehensive overview is not possible, the following highlights provide insights into the design journey.
Quickly setting up user habits
In order to track habits, users needed to create these habits, set the parameters and invite friends. I looked at competitors on the type of inputs they require users and cross referenced with those importance from my user research - “Title”, “Notes”, “Friends”, “Goal Frequency”, and “Tags”. I created a user flow to design the experience of building a habit..
I then went into designing low fidelity in how users can create their habits. I conducted user interviews to gather feedback on the initial sketches. This iterative process was repeated twice, with the aim of gaining insights into users' habit setup preferences and refining the design accordingly.
Based on the first iteration, users felt that the process to set up a habit had too many frictions, and required too many inputs from the user. With draft 2, I redesigned how users set up their numeric goals for their habits by combining all inputs into one pop up. This approach is inclusive on all types of habits. I conducted a usability test on this draft and had the following insights:
During the test, users were confused on what the toggle to differentiate the types of habits. I decided that given the time frame, this was a consideration that I could deep dive later on - how users view habits they want to build vs habits they want to forget.
It was important to create a hierarchy so that users can have a seamless experience regardless if they are building a habit with a friend or on their own. I decided to move the “friends” input to the button section. From there I made sure that the “goal”, “friends”, and “tags” inputs all had a consistent interaction.
I took this mock up and all users were able to make new habits very quickly, achieving our gaol of ensuring a quick and efficient experience. Here is the final prototype where users can easily set up new habits.
An inclusive CTA
I needed to design a way for users to complete and track their habits. Along with I needed to provide users a quick access in seeing their friend’s progress in order to feel the social accountability whenever they feel like missing their habits.
I then felt that there were too many of the same interactions on one button. Since users will be performing the action of completing a habit, it was important to have a unique interaction. I decided to conduct an A/B testing to see if users had a better experience of tracking their completion through a “long press” vs “swiping”.
Success Rate
:
48%
Success Rate
:
95%
I incorporated these buttons to the dashboard and conducted a usability test, asking participants to complete a habit and see their friend’s progress.
Users had a hard time understanding how to read their friend’s progress. It was important to address in order to provide social accountability for users. Utilizing the feedback, I decided to reduce the amount of actions on button, creating a separate page for users to view their friend’s habits.
Although it takes an extra step of going to a new page, this approach allows for more detailed information on a user’s friend’s progress and reducing the need to memorize which area of the CTA button was in regards to their friend’s progress.
Here is the final prototype:
Final Thoughts
After completing this project, I have reflected on my experience and identified areas where I would have approached things differently and, if I had more time, features I would incorporate.
Next Steps
Given the time constraint, there are a few things that I wanted to do. I would have liked to conduct further research on users' habit categorization and their differentiation between good and bad habits. In the next steps, I would have liked to explore more features to enhance the social aspect of the platform.
Reflection
This project was instrumental in my growth as a designer. Beyond usability tests, I actively engaged in informal mini-tests and discussions with peers to validate my design choices. This process of incorporating feedback at each stage allowed for iterative refinements and developed a more user-friendly product. Additionally, delving into research on user preferences between "swiping" and "pressing" interactions provided valuable insights, emphasizing that user experience encompasses visual design and how users interact with the product.
I want to thank my mentor Miguel for providing valuable guidance and support throughout this project.
Thank you for reading.
I appreciate you checking out my work and I hope you liked it! If you want to keep that energy going check out my other projects.