The general requirement of this course of UCD of New Media is basically to apply different UCD methods in a design project. More specifically, we designed an app and did adequate user research to evaluate it. Moreover, with the specific project requirements of following the "UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, and in light of the role of student, we had decided to consider possible directions from the aspect closest to ourselves. We accordingly chose the track of improving the quality of life which is specifically associated with the aspect of well-being and good health.
Mental stress and health problems are one of the most well known diseases among young people and it evermore increases (Rosenberg, 2019). Taking figures presenting stress among young adults (aged 20-21) it can be discovered that the amount of “psychological distress” rose by 78% between 2008 and 2017 (Rosenberg, 2019). Moreover, Al-Qahtani and Alsubaie (2020),conducted a study with 260 students, showing that 42,7% of the students reported a high level of stress resulting from an “academic domain”, e.g. from the university. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that mental stress and mental imbalance might also be a large issue among future generations.
In the "new norm" of working/studying from home and lack of physical contact with others, it is important to take care of mental health. That is why mindfulness and meditation app was designed for college students. Through the design process, we would like to know:
(1) what are their knowledge and attitudes towards mindfulness and meditation? (2) How do people perceive a mindfulness and meditation app? (3) How to design a useful and engaging app by using user-centered design methods? The design phases were based on the proposed human-centered design cycle by Maguire (2001). In the following sections, it will be applied and explained specifically to the project.
Given the current COVID-19 situation, the WHO published a series of messages used in several communication streams to support mental and psychosocial well-being in different target groups. At the same time, considering the researchers own identity as college students, we are correspondingly more familiar with the target group. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, it was estimated that approximately 15% to 20% of students will need to be screened to determine the need for support (Dowdy et al., 2015). Considering the potential emotional impact of the pandemic, this proportion will certainly be higher. Hence, a meditation app was decided on. A preliminary idea was set up and the basic intention is to pay attention to the mental health of college students.
By evaluating mental health smartphone apps, Bakker et. al. (2016) give out 16 recommendations for future health apps, including reporting of thoughts, feelings, or behaviors, mental health information, real-time engagement and gamification. All these recommendations are guidelines to the detailed interface requirements (see table below).
In order to obtain the demand for this application as completely as possible. It is a way more objective way to collect demands from both the side of human and existing products. While currently considering the time and other constrains. We decided to put forward the own needs based on the student status. Therefore, there were actually no direct users which could be detected in this phase. First, in view of basic user requirements researchers need to know what users needs are. Possible needs might be relax and release pressure through using this app, such as various options of sounds and comfortable layout or color; to learn more about mental health and professional meditation; include more natural elements; including a gamification might make engagement with the app more interesting. Second, another key factor which can be outlined are product requirements. Through a small-scale competitive products analysis, as we did some research on the existing products of meditation on the market, such as Mindfulness, and Headspace. In addition to basic application requirements such as login and personal information, these products all provide different types of relaxing sounds and courses. These two functionalities should be indispensable. Additionally, the design styles of these apps are very simple and clear and might be a good element to also incorporate in Mediday.
After observing classmates and summarizing own personal needs the persona for the application has been created: Frank Ortega (see Figure of Persona below).
In analyzing and designing systems and softwares we need better means to talk about how they may transform and/or be constrained by the contexts of user activity: this is the only way we can hope to attain control over the “materials” of design (Carroll, 2000). To elucidate further, scenario design is the intuitive approach. Through the internal discussion with the researchers, and the conversation with students, and association of persona herein. We mainly defined four processes of the using context, (1) Since the lockdown measure for the pandemic started, all of Frank Ortega’s classes have been moved online. (2) After a study day and sitting for a long time, Frank feels not only physical fatigue but also mental anxiety. He needs to get some emotional satisfaction, pleasure, comfort and relaxation in order to feel mentally balanced again. (3) At that time he remembered that the meditation app might help him. So he clicks on the app and takes a lesson. Followed the video tutorial for a simple meditation. (4) After using several functions the application provides, Frank feels better.
In total, five min requirements have been determined, hence, 1) to offer different sounds, lessons and professional articles about mental health; 2) include a gamification part for checking progress. 3) incorporating a profile page; 4) setting parts and 5) a natural style for the whole app layout.
Accordingly, we made a rough mind map for this app. As you can see it on the right as the structure of this app. Eventually, through the above steps, after determining real needs of users, corresponding functions for the product on this basis can be designed. The functional requirements were determined and all functions will be divided into four main interfaces, presenting the structure of Mediday.
And then, based on the structure of Mediday, I designed the initial wireframe, or we can say low-fidelity(lo-fi) prototype in a way, of this app as you can see, as shown below. The main intention of designing this lo-fi prototype is to preliminarily see if the features we determined can be implemented well in the actual project. In addition, by designing this lo-fi prototype, we can more intuitively feel the general tonality of the entire app from the visual level. It could better help discuss and investigate the subsequent design steps. The initial prototype design is very useful for a project which starts from scratch.
During the process of user testing, users should familiarize themselves with the mockup of the mediation app and explore it while thinking out loud. They will be shown the mockup of the app and asked to use different functions of the app and to navigate through the app. Users will thereby be asked how well they can handle the mockup and if there are any difficulties in using it. Finally, users will be asked about the general appearance of the app and what they would change in the app. The testing of the mockup and the answering of the individual questions during the usability testing will take about half an hour and will either be carried out in person, or, if the current situation does not allow otherwise, via Skype.
After testing the application with users some interesting results can be pointed out. In the following, results from the conducted usability tests on the applications structure and navigation, content, use of color and pictures, as well as icons and shapes will be presented.
Given the results of user testing, we discussed internally how to improve this app from a user-centered design perspective. And there were three aspects which has a relatively high priority to optimize. They are the guiding journey, the emotional symbol, and the design of the gamification. By adding the pages of app tutorial in the beginning for new users, we aimed to solve the problems participants mentioned in the session of user research. That is, most of participants did not understand several functions, such as the existence of my tree, the specific differences between different pages, the meaning of emojis, etc. This tutorial info would save more learning and time costs for users. Next we removed some emojis to try to include different emotions with certain general emojis, and the skip option was added to reduce user resistance of selecting. Moreover, to keep the consistency of design style for this app, the design elements in the page of "my tree" had been adjusted to a large extent. The color saturation was reduced to more match the color scheme of this app. And the sprout was used to represent the start-up growth phase of users' working process.
At the bright side of UCD process, UCD principles and development cycle give us a clear roadmap to the design process. First, It outlines and emphasizes the importance of users as the center in our design process. These principles emphasize the interaction between users and the developed system (the tool or technology). Therefore, as students ourselves, we first brainstormed the tasks and use of context for our app in the requirement phase by using many UCD methods like persona and scenario of use, which crystalized many useful design requirements, such as the education function, engaging games, simplistic UI etc. Then, we incorporated actual users in the evaluation phase and asked them to do usability testing by using the think-aloud method, and interviewed them afterwards. Completing this project was actually a very smooth process when everything is in line with the design circle of UCD design principles. While taking a sight on the downside of UCD, first, in the requirement phase, how representative of personas and profiles is and how they inform our design solutions is hard to articulate or prove. And the logic connection behind requirements and design is still somewhat arbitrary. Second, as Norman (2008) points out “listening to users” may lead to inconsistent and complex designs. It is true, in some sense, that our users proposed many valuable suggestions in the evaluation phase, but some of them are either contradictory to each other or against our initial design intentions. For example, some users wanted to adda social networking function, which we had thought about in the requirement phase, but we ruled it out because we did not want to cause pressure on users. Therefore, sometimes, some users’ ideas are inconsistent to those of others or designers, we need to make a decision between “listen to your users”and “ignore your users”.
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