Mobile App — Bothway
Role: Personal Project: UI Design, UX Design
Tool: Figma / Sketch
Time: 7 days 2021
This project aims to provide a straightforward and multifunction platform for a family to communicate - from doing user interviews, and defining problems, to building the wireframe, app design, and prototype, and finally have user testing to validate the idea and iterate it. This was an independent design challenge finished in 14 days.
Overview
Prompt
As the need and the use of high-tech phones increased among people of different ages, people usually establish a close relationship with others by relying on their phones and the internet (for example, chatting through social media.). People with kids use tools on the phone to communicate with teachers or babysitters to know about children's status and ensure their safety.
However, this kind of communication is one-way for children and parents, and it is the parents' one-way understanding of the children's journey. Parents often ignore their children's feelings. Children have no way of knowing their parents' schedules (when Mom and Dad come home from work, which weekends Mom and Dad have time to eat with me, etc.). Two-way communication and understanding can build a stronger, more intimate parent-child relationship.
I decided to explore a direct and enjoyable way to help parents and kids know each other.
Design Preview
Personalized users’ names, profile and identification
Update the current status by selecting emoji
Different functions to provide convenient tools for both kids and adults
How can we strengthen the emotional connection between parents and children?
Parents sometimes lack communication with their kids due to busy work or other situations. Kids sometimes feel neglected. It is important to provide a platform to help them to communicate and know each other.
Challenge
Research
Target User Group
Young kids who know how to use a cell phone but still need to be supervised by their parents.
User Interview
Identifying user pain points to extract essential features
I interviewed 3 adult and their kids and asked questions regarding their daily communication. From this, I found four pain points from 4 categories (Platform, Safety, Communication, Understand):
Platform
Parents need a tool to communicate with their children and learn about their feelings in the way the kids like.
“My kids prefer drawing rather than typing. I couldn’t find an app to let us communicate through drawing.“
Safety
Using phones can be a good way to ensure the safety of children.
“When I am at work and can’t pick up my kids, I usually use my phone to monitor her location.”
Communication
Kids are eager to communicate with their parents and find out what they did.
“ I love to laugh with my father. We played together after he go back home every day.”
Understand
Two-way communication is the foundation on which emotions are built.
“Talking with my parents and learning about their stories are fun!”
Conclusion from User Interview:
The solutions should satisfy both parents and kids.
Mobile applications allow target users to communicate easily in using scenarios.
Therefore I decided to do a competitive analysis based on mobile phone applications.
Competitive Analysis
To know what aspects of existing communication apps worked and what didn’t work
I started the project by analyzing the competitors’ pros and cons so I could define those problems as a starting point. I found out there is no place for parents to play with their children and monitor the kids’ safety simultaneously and there is barely an app targeting children to let them know the emotional status of their parents.
Design Solutions
Based on the analysis of competitive research and user interviews, I concluded some problems with solutions that the app can potentially focus on.
Problem 1: There is no place for parents to play with their children and monitor the kids’ safety simultaneously
Solution1: Combine the two functions and let parent use the way that children liked to communicate
Solution2: Adding some enjoyable emoji (show the emotional status of adults) and an interactive drawing board (communicate with kids)
Solution 3: Personalization and make everything straightforward.
Problem 2: There is barely an app targeting children to let them know the emotional status of their parents.
Problem 3: Let the style and function of the software satisfy both adults and children.
Wireframe
1.Enrollment pages — Personalization, setup passwords
2.Straightforward Layout — Grid view for the main scene
3.Monitor safety — Real-time location, Authorization popup
4.Multi-function — Convenient tools to communicate and record
5.Enjoyable — Emoji, Status of a person, Undrstand
Interface Design
Product Features
#1. Personalization
Personalized users’ names, profile and identification
Based on different identifications of the user, there are different interfaces for the main interface.
Kids can only see the emotion status and the chatting boxes on their main interface.
Adults can not only see the emotion status and the chatting boxes on their main interface but also check the real-time location of their children to ensure their safety when the kids are alone.
#2. Understand each other in an enjoyable way
Update the current status by selecting emoji
#3. Multi-Function
Different functions to provide convenient tools for both kids and adults
Users’ can show their current emotional status and what they are doing by selecting emoji. The status is showing with the name of a contact.
There are different functions, such as a drawing board, to-do list and game center. Game center is to give the kids a platform to have fun. It needs the permission of an adult to help the kids unlock it. To-do List reminds the adult of what they need to do related to their kids. Drawing board provides a more exciting platform for children to communicate and express themselves.
If a kid wants to play a game by clicking the game center, a pop-up will show up and remind him to invite an adult to help unlock the game center. This way, adults can appropriately control how often their children play games.
User Testing
To validate my idea, I found 5 families from the user interview and did the user testing. There are one kid and one adult in each family. They spent 5-10 minutes on the prototype and respond to feedback.
5 / 5
Want to use this product to communicate with family
4 / 5
Clear about how to use the app
5 / 5
Better understand the kid/adult after using the app
Takeaways
Before this project, I had never completed a Design challenge in such a short time. I didn't use the same type of app before, so I know little of it. This design challenge helped me practice the ability to "think deeply on users' needs" by analyzing users' thoughts. A designer needs to have sympathy at any time. It can help to solve users' problems and find better solutions.
For the future iteration, I would like to optimize the interface and features through:
(1) learn more about the graphic design knowledge to design an interface that meets the aesthetic of the target user;
(2) more user testing to earn feedbacks;
(3) cooperate with developer to learn about limitation and feasibility.