Pally
A concept for a self-care mobile application
Digithon
Hosted by Chalkpiece, 2020
6 day sprint
Top 9 entries
Coping with stress during pandemic.
The pandemic has struck and thrown life out of balance. A worldwide lockdown has forced everyone to stay indoors. Meeting friends and family and walking around freely has become the most unsafe option. They call this the new normal. Schools, college, and offices are closed. Where can we socialise?
Some have found themselves working or studying from home and some are completely out of jobs.
Domestic and professional life is at its best collaboration. Financial, work and personal stress are more common than ever during the pandemic. Mental health is at an all time low. As the public quarantines, maintaining a sense of order has lost its cause. Days melt into nights. Finding a job or to pass time is getting exhausting. All we want to do is to take a vacation. But all we can afford right now is a mental one.
Dissecting the issue at hand.
What problem are we solving?
The lack of focus on goals, be it physical or mental, personal or professional, long term or short term. Disconnect from a regular routine. Focusing on existential dread. Negative use of time at hand.
Who has this problem?
College Students and Working Professionals from all sectors.
Why is it urgent?
Mental health and well being is at stake.
What do we want to achieve?
Help the students and working professionals cope with life during the pandemic by enforcing a goal oriented use of their time. Help them feel accomplished. Turn the negative situation of the pandemic into a positive one. Provide a source of social support.
We did some preliminary research to understand what the mental health situation is and how people are coping with the pandemic.
To put it plainly: we were not doing great.
We did a localised survey to identify how our target audience was responding to the pandemic.
Based on the responses, we made an Affinity Map.
We first grouped the data into 7 category groups- stress inducers, stress coping mechanisms, reasons for and not seeking help and their expectations from a self care app.
We further grouped the data into 4 main category groups- stress triggers, need, stress coping mechanisms and seeking help. These 4 groups each have sub categorizing data that will serve as points of inspiration for the design.
Based on the survey and affinity map, we inferred-
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Maintaining a routine and indulging in distractions helped coping with stress. Fitness rated as the best distraction.
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Seeking peer counseling rated higher than family counseling or therapy.
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Validation and relatability from peer counseling.
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Most were open to trying, if therapy was affordable and only if it was really required.
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Reflecting on feelings and activity would help give some perspective and self evaluation.
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Open to seek suggestions to develop a more positive outlook.
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Need a medium or outlet to express.
Based on the age group of the target audience, we had come up with an identity that they can resonate with.
Brand name
During our initial ideation, we wanted to create a design for our user to rely on- like a friend. As stated in the survey, a friend is someone our target users felt they could relate to best.
We came up with the name Pally- a pal and an ally.
Personality
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Young and quirky
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Fun
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Informal
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Open and free
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Experimental
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Supportive
Pally
Product principles
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Create a personalised goal-oriented experience.
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Help the users track their mood for reflection.
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Promote sharing feelings and emotions.
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Help the users reach out to peers to vent and professionals for help.
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Create a human centric social design that creates a healthy habit for the user's wellbeing.
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Suggest methods or content to improve mood and well being.
Persona
We created a persona to represent our target audience's needs, wants and frustrations.
This is Malini. An architect currently quarantining alone. She is stressed out and is unable to make time to prepare for her master's entrance exams. She has been feeling down lately and doesn't know who she can reach out to.
To understand Malini better, we created this Empathy Map. We wanted to empathise with a situation that is rampant during the pandemic. Map her thoughts and actions.
Insights
From the map, we identified the 3 possible points for opportunities where a Pally intervention could help
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Malini can add her plans to try the recipe and her exam prep on to her to do list on Pally, which can optimise the best time for her to fulfill this interest.
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At this point, she wants to reach out to vent out her frustration. Pally can connect her with someone that will well relate to her feelings.
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She needs a healthy coping mechanism. Pally can suggest a healthy way to deal with overwhelming emotions.
Many like Malini need a way to focus on her goals and not get overwhelmed by her emotions. She needs to vent and talk about what she is going through. This will help her tackle what she is going through mentally, and bring back focus on her real time goals.
How do we help Malini achieve her goals and face her challenges while keeping her mentally grounded?
Working on the points of opportunities, we mapped out Malini's possible reactions with Pally as an aid.
Our predicted map shows Malini's Satisfaction level increase by the end of the day. The coping with the situation was addressed immediately by helping her vent to a peer on Pally.
Based on the insights from our research, we ideated on some features for the app design.
The Users Add daily goals or challenges to be achieved
A to-do list that gives gentle reminders to work on the goals. Should be able to block all cellular activity for a duration, if prioritised.
Gentle reminders
Through notifications- should not be nagging, but thoughtfully timed.
Mood Reflection
A mood tracker- for the month, week and day. A full analysis to help the user reflect and improve.
Content that is inspirational and helpful
Suggestive content based on the user's current mood. The content should be inspirational and tips on how well to cope with the emotion.
Connect with people who are going through similar emotions or have similar interests. Connect with mental health professionals
A community where people share content based on an emotion or interest where they can validate each other. Forums or chatrooms where users can hold group counseling sessions or talk about general topics of interest. Private messaging for peer-peer counseling and professional counseling.
Assistant
Pally assistant will
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Suggest best ways to achieve a goal
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Suggest content based on emotion
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Scan posts or entries for suicidal triggers
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Sends gentle reminders to work on goals
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Encourage the user: like or comment on the user's posts
We identified 3 main flows- Seeking Peer Counseling, Seeking Professional Counseling and Goal Achievement
Usability testing
We performed a usability test post sprint to understand
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The user friendliness
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The relatability
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Issues
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Further explorations and suggestions
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Attractiveness
Usability Testing Method: Monitored Remote Usability Testing
Test Group: 4 Candidates
Age Group: 20-25
Test Objectives:
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Track Your Mood
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Add A Journal Entry,
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Look For A Professional,
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Cross Out Goals,
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Explore Homepage For Content,
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Explore Pals Feed
Results
User Friendliness: 17/20
Relatability: 16.5/20
Attractiveness: 17.5/20
Would you download the app? : Yes
Usability issues
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Users could not differentiate between Claps and Likes. Would want either one feature and not both.
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Users thought the icon for Today's Goals on the bottom navigation bar was misleading.
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Users connected the Notifications icon on the bottom navigation to likes rather than notifications on the whole.
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Users were not able to relate to the mood tracker infographic colours.
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Users thought the contrast was too high between task tabs in Today's Goals.
Explorations and suggestions
Here is a list of suggestions by the user test group and some further explorations we did after ideating and researching.
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Swap Follow with Message in the short description card for Professionals.
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Change the icon for Today's Goals and Notifications.
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Remove the quantification of Likes/Claps/ Comments on posts as it is a self care app and should remove all traces of social media dependency.
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Let the user be notified of all the activity on their post at a later time of the day as one push notification and not multiple.
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Have the app create good habit-forming goals besides the user's daily goals, like meditative sessions.
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Create a higher stake reward system for carrying out the goals. Expand the gamification by adding levels to be reached and points for each achievement and an action on the app. Ex, peer-peer counsellor level would mean the user has to counsel a certain number of peers.
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Invite others to participate in the same goals. The more the merrier.
