THE Client

A conceptual design executed for the capstone project portion of Springboard’s User Experience Design program.

THE CHALLENGE

Create a mobile app that will allow users to painlessly declutter their homes.

THE SOLUTION

Develop a mobile app that helps users separate their emotions from their objects by setting goals, identifying the bad habits that contributed to accumulation of goods as well as providing encouragement for a user’s success. 

THE OUTCOME

An aesthetically appealing mobile app that seamlessly facilitates the scheduling and management of decluttering tasks as well as helps to motivate users.

MY ROLE

Lead UX / UI Designer  (research, interaction design, visual design)

People are accumulating more than they need. Some reports say that we consume twice as many material goods today as we did 50 years ago.

Studies show that Americans spend $1.2 trillion annually on nonessential goods, resulting in approximately 300,000 items in the average home. This leads to excess waste, environmental impact, loss in potential savings, and stress.

During the research phase, I sought to understand the current state of the the online financial planning landscape. My intention for the research phase was to uncover the needs and frustrations of the target users to better understand how to appeal to them. 

SECONDARY RESEARCH

First, I conducted a review of existing studies on clutter and accumulation of non-essential goods in order to fully understand the potential user behaviours and trends. Secondary research to also conducted by collected information from articles and case studies to further identify industry standards and user expectations.

PRIMARY RESEARCH - COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

In order to gain more knowledge on how to improve the user experience, a heuristic evaluation of existing competitor apps was conducted.

Three apps were examined and analyzed; one decluttering-specific app (Konmari), and the other two being productivity apps, (Wunderlist, Sortly), that could be used in helping a user eliminate non-essential goods from their home. The heuristic evaluation revealed that the primary usability problems in the competitors’ apps resided within the customization functions and visibility features. 

This flexibility would create a more enjoyable experience, as well as a stress-free environment - both digitally and physically - for the users.

Following this analysis, I felt that the app should implement the following features:

PRIMARY RESEARCH - POTENTIAL user INTERVIEWS

Understanding potential users is just as crucial for attracting new users as well as keeping the existing clients. By identifying the underlying habits, concerns and attitudes towards decluttering and item accumulation, it is possible to address the causes of the accumulation and hesitation to discard items.

SUMMARY OF RESEARCH FINDINGS

Independent research was conducted in order to identify the fundamental motivations, habits and behaviours of individuals who need assistance in conquering clutter, and controlling excessive accumulation behaviours. This research was in the form of online surveys, one-on-one interviews, card sorting studies, and secondary research.

The following are the primary characteristics of the study’s participants:

Of the 38 individuals surveyed, 34% of respondents reported having been at their current residence between 2-5 years, while 29% and 26% of people reported being in their current living situation for less than two years, and over 10 years respectively. The infographics below demonstrate additional participant demographics.

Participants were asked to rate the tidiness of their homes, with 58% of respondents rating their home as ‘good’, with most items put away and only a few areas where items tend to pile up. Whereas, 29% of respondents felt their home was disorganized and admitted to having trouble finding items.

While 8% of people confessed that they were too embarrassed to invite people over as a result of the ‘terrible’ state of their home. Only two responses considered their home to be ‘immaculate’, with every item having a designated place.

PAIN POINTS

PERSONA DEVELOPMENT

Based on feedback from the respondents, both the reason for acquiring and keeping unnecessary items were emotional. The emotional connection to the items, as well as the fear that the item will be needed in the future were the biggest challenges faced when trying to discard excess items. Others indicated that they felt guilt when considering discarding items that were received as gifts. Respondents were also hesitant to discard items on which they had spent a significant amount of money.

Four personas were discovered during the research phase, with all participants demonstrating at least two of the aspects used to develop the personas.

EMPATHY MAPS & DETAILED pERSONAS

Now that I had empathized with target users and identified their needs, I needed to define the solution. Once I had identified common goals, I could decide what product features were necessary for the prototype.

USER REQUIREMENTS

Based on the preliminary user research and resulting personas and user stories, I determined that the core feature set of the mobile app to be the following four features, these features would allow the app to be deployed and still deliver customer value:

The first step taken was to sort all necessary required information into categories. Once these categories were finalized, they were used at the basis for the Card Sort study.

CARD SORT STUDY

An open card sort was conducted in order to help create an intuitive navigation system for the app. Six individuals with similar goals and motivations to those of the identified personas were selected to participate in the online exercise.

Some of the tasks like ‘restarting the decluttering process’, and ‘saving difficult to discard items’ to a specific category, seemed to cause participants some trouble. Though the participants could not necessarily agree on the placement of these specific features, the competitive analysis did reveal that these two functions were important to users.

Some differences between the categorization of specific decluttering tasks were also noted, with some participants grouping all decluttering tasks together, and others grouping some tasks in their ‘progress’ or ‘settings’ groups.

The participants created five primary categories:

The resulting recommendations included:

SITE MAPS

A site map was created based on the card sort results, with data from the preliminary studies being used to decide between the minor discrepancies observed in the card sort results.

Though, the terms “tasks” and “tags” came up frequently during the card sort process, these names were a source of confusion later during the usability testing phase.

As a result, the menu name was changed to “Lists”, and the “Tasks” and “Tags” headings were updated to “Rooms” and “Categories” respectively.

Helping the user separate their emotions from their objects is a crucial component of their decluttering journey. Having the users identify their specific goals, and break them down into specific and manageable tasks is integral to their success. The app should contain plenty of customization options as limiting users’ ability to adapt their course of action may be discouraging if they feel as though they have gotten off-track or failed.

The app’s simplest core feature set that would allow it to be deployed and still deliver customer value were determined to be the ability to create and customize lists, track their progress, sync tasks to calendar, and share tasks with their friends and family.

INTERACTION DESIGN

User flows were generated for the most common tasks, which were new user registration, add a new task, and share a task with a contact.

Sketches & Wireframes

A series of basic sketches and wireframes were developed based on the user flows. As per the card sort findings, the primary categories were:

As a result, these categories were all placed in a dock menu along the bottom of the app for immediate access. Placing the menu along the bottom also makes one-handed navigation easier for the users. Once the rough sketches were completed, the drawings were recreated and refined digitally in Adobe XD.

Colour & Style

The overall visual design of the app is clean, light and uncomplicated in order to represent the sentiment of decluttering. The app was named ‘Unburden’ to epitomize the act of freeing the user from their unnecessary material items, as well as the feelings of stress and guilt associated with the clutter.

Circles were prominently used in the design for Unburden due to their ability to create a sense of flow and calmness, as well as their representation of completeness and commitment. The colour choices are primarily neutral, with the yellow providing a subtle, yet sunny, pop of colour.

A feather was selected to represent the ‘Unburden’ app for its connection to freedom and inspiration, and it was turned upward to project feelings of optimism as well as to resemble a smile.

Validating the Design

The decision was made to elevate the original low-fidelity wireframes to medium-fidelity wireframes for the usability testing sessions.

Testing the product and its design while still in a rough form proved to be beneficial for many reasons. This course would resolve any usability issues before spending lots of time on a detailed and polished prototype. Also, studies have shown that participants are more likely to provide constructive criticism and feedback when presented with design that is still in the early stages.

Content and visual elements were added to more accurately represent the final product. The prototype provided limited functionality, but contained clickable hotspots to characterize the interactions and navigation possibilities of an application.

SUMMARY OF THE USABILITY TESTING

Usability testing was conducted via moderated sessions with a total of four participants, ranging in age from 28 and 44, with three users being current homeowners and one user currently renting. Professions of the participants were a civil engineer, an IS specialist, and a drafting technician, and a manager. All participants frequently use mobile apps and are confident and comfortable using technology for both personal and professional purposes.

Prior to starting the testing, participants were asked about their expectation of a decluttering assistance app. The expected features that were mentioned was the ability to track progress, the ability to take photos of items and progress, as well as links to local junk removal services.

Participants were asked to test a click-through prototype and complete the following tasks:

Registering as a New User

Adding a New Room

Adding a Contact to a Task

Scheduling a Due Date to a Task

FEEDBACK

The majority of the feedback received from the participants revolved around the ‘To-Do Tasks’ List/‘Do It Later’ Items Lists. Most participants felt that the task buttons were too small and would benefit from more interactivity. Another participant felt that the ‘To-Do Tasks’ list and the ‘Do-It Later’ items names were confusing. Other minor issues were that the testers found the ‘Room Selection’ page to be overwhelming, with too many unnecessary options.

No issues were observed during the “Create a new room”, or “Set a due date for the “To-Do” tasks. Participants also noted that the contact and calendar icons on the task tile indicating these fields had been set was a very helpful and communicative feature.

After completing the specified tasks, participants were asked to provide general comments regarding the app and their initial experience with it. All participants liked the icons on the task that indicated a contact or due date had been added to the task. They felt this feature was very helpful and communicative. · The ability to archive completed rooms · Sort tasks by ‘active’ and ‘completed’ status · Add a “Date Added” note to each task, so Users know how long they have been meaning to complete a task.

It was determined that the app should contain plenty of customization options as limiting a Users’ ability to adapt their course of action may be discouraging, especially if they feel as though they have gotten off-track or failed.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Changes were made to the Rooms menu, in order to communicate additional information behind each room tile. This was done by adding an additional line of text that specified the number of unseen tasks, for example “...plus 12 more tasks” within each room or category. This indicator would also tell the user that there is more information available to view.

These simple iterations elevated both the functionality and usability of the design, as well as improved the overall aesthetics of the interface.

Aside from the visual interface, the ability to set goals, identify bad habits and the motivations that had contributed to the initial clutter as well as keeping users encouraged would be crucial to success of both the user and the mobile app.

Education and strategies that aid to prevent the accumulation of more unnecessary items and separate emotions from objects during the process, and in the future were recommended to be implemented and executed in a subsequent update.

END-TO-END DESIGN

A complete an independent self-driven design project.

This capstone project taught me how to take a UX project from concept to development. The nature of the self-paced program was significant in teaching me how to appropriately manage various project requirements and time constraints, as well as how to quickly identify the most important elements of a project.

The usability testing sessions all went very well. Initially, moving through the tasks with the participants was a bit awkward, but having the script helped me keep the session on track. One challenge I encountered was not explaining or defending the design. There were a couple of times when I wanted to clarify the reasons behind a decision but remained quiet throughout the sessions.

Overall, the testing sessions were lots of fun to conduct and produced a lot of great feedback that will really help to improve the design and functionality of the app.

Specifically related to the subject matter of the design, I learned that almost all people were purchasing and accumulating of nonessential items as a way to try to increase their happiness. Items were either a reminder of a better time or a symbol of a brighter future. Both perspectives make the user feel unsatisfied with the present.

Initially, the cause and effect of our accumulation crisis was somewhat depressing however, learning how to create a thoughtful and empathetic product that focuses on the users’ needs and gives them the ability to help themselves and increase their level of satisfaction and happiness in the present was very encouraging.