Hi guys!! So I participated in HFR&D training while joining Cognizant. Ooh man, the experience was exhilarating. It was super-fun working with cohort mates. It's an exhaustive 15 days training organised by Cognizant for new joiners.
Here, we went through a 3-day design sprint challenge with 5 member in team worked on real-world problem, completing an effective solution within 3 Days!! Yes, keeping this fact in mind it was quite challenging and we followed the entire research/ideation/design process.
So, we used 5W's process to validate the word and ideas that let us to the sprint problem statement.
After analysing the Who, What, Where/When, and Why perspectives of our problem statement, definitely gave us a kickstart in understanding the situation better!!!
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Design Sprint Statement:
How might we assist lonely people socialise?
Many individuals who struggle with feeling of loneliness tend to be introverted and feels isolated, which reducing or failing to develop their their ability to effectively socialise and connect with others.
This lack of social interaction can lead to various negative consequences, such as decreased mental well-being, limited support network, and decreased sense of belonging.
Various factors and fields, including but not limited to:
1. Digital Dependency; it lead to decrease in face-to-face interactions and genuine connections.
2. Changing Demographics; such as urbanisation, migration, and the aging population.
3. Work Life Imbalance; long commutes, high levels of stress can leave individuals with limited time and energy.
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Let’s Start: Design Planning
To complete the entire design exercise,
Design: IDEO Process
My strategy divided into 5 distinct phases, cheers to IDEO’s human centered design thinking process.
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Market Research:
Research gives us the ability to translate our designs into reality.
Through research, we find out what real users think and how they behave when they’re in certain scenarios. Research provides direction in place of guesswork, and data rather than opinion or speculation.
Empathise with User:
To understanding their needs, preferences, and barriers to social interaction. To gather data I took qualitative and quantitative research which provides me valuable insights to design effective interventions. Some of the questions we asked were:
All facts found in the research phase, and surveys was added to a cards and used in the Rose Thorn Bud Method to find the pain points and their consequences to find insights.
Shining Insights:
- Be inclusive and reach out to others, a simple conversation can make a difference.
- Society should provide inclusive activities/group games and gatherings to facilitate meeting new people.
- Create digital platforms that foster real-life connections alongside social media.
- Volunteer and engage in social centres to expand social networks.
- Emphasise the importance of meaningful real-life relationships over virtual interactions.
- Students should prioritise social interaction alongside academics for overall personal growth, via school events, picnics, volunteering, physical activity. (outside your friends, family circle)
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Define:
The next step in the Design Thinking process, the define stage is where you establish a clear idea of exactly which problem you will solve for the user, which is based on the research findings from the empathise stage.
Persona:
Going further through research, I identified many persona, I grouped and created a persona that would resemble the ideal user, and answers the question: “who are we designing for?”
Scenario:
Persona: Anshul
Goal: Feeling less lonely and building social network.
1. Anshul just moved to a new city and started a new job as a software engineer.
2. She does have many colleagues and no friends or family nearby.
3. After work every day, she goes home alone. When talking to a friend on the phone she tells her how lonely she feels and that she wishes she had something to do or someone close by to go with or talk to. The friend tells her about this new app that is great for making connections and meeting other people.
4. Anshul downloads the app and starts to browse the community and forum. She plays a few games and chat with others on the app. After a while they plan to meet up and eat lunch together.
5. Anshul is excited about the new possibilities with the new app.
Key Path Scenario:
Anshul downloads the app from app/play store and reads the introduction and terms of use carefully, before she creates a profile for herself. She then scrolls through the different features of the app; the forums and chat functions, the volunteer section, the games you can play with others from your city. She then joins a game and starts to chat with the others. She finds out they all signed up for a lunch meeting the next day not far from where she works. Since they seem nice, she also registers for the same lunch activity. Also, the communities are available to learn about different topics and share personal opinions, thoughts and feelings.
Problem Statement and Our Vision:
- User-friendly Platform: Individual easily find and join the activities and games sessions.
- Matching Algorithms: Effective matching algorithms that consider users' preferences, interests, and location to connect them with like-minded individuals or groups.
- Support and Moderation: Provide adequate support and moderation to ensure a positive and safe user experience.
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Narrowing our focus with HMW:
In the third stage of the Design Thinking process it is time to generate ideas. I now have a good idea of who the user is, their needs and goals. To further fuel the ideation and asked HMW questions:
Crazy 8’s:
Crazy 8’s is a core Design method. It is a fast sketching exercise that challenges people to sketch eight distinct ideas in eight minutes. The goal is to push beyond your first idea, frequently the least innovative, and to generate a wide variety of solutions to your challenge.
Information Architecture:
After finding the requirements, the information architecture was born. To avoid frustrating users content has to be organised and structured in a way that promotes usability and makes it easy to navigate the app.
Design System:
Set of standards to manage design at scale by reducing redundancy while creating a shared language and visual consistency across different page and channels.
Digital Wireframe:
Building the App Layout inside of Figma. This focus on executing layout and hierarchy. We iterated many screens at the final skinning phase based on usability testing and the style guides.
Onboarding:
Application ask user to register and login using phone number and OTP. In the beginning, a series of questions is asked to identify the needs and personal details of the user so that the app can suggest task based on personalised suggestions.
Landing Screen and Settings:
On the landing screen few daily challenges and suggestions are available based on personal interest so that the user will be involved in something he loves and will have less emotions of loneliness. In the Hamburger menu the user will find events and volunteer activities near him where they can visit and try to interact with others.
Task Flow:
A list of various task is available. In the daily task, multiple challenges is be available and duration to complete the task within timeframe. The user can read the reviews of how the task has helped others in their life. The user can simply accept the challenge and a timer will begin. After completion the user can give their feedbacks.
Community and Chats:
A community to learn about different topics and share personal opinions, thoughts and feelings which will help users to express themselves. In the chat option AI BOT, mentor connect, anonymous group chats, anonymous personal chats, and help is available for users to express and get connected with. If the user is facing serious problems then they can connect to a psychologist who will help them by giving solutions.
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Prototype:
Prototypes are a fantastic way to: Preview interactions and user flows. Share and iterate on ideas. Please, click on link and have a look.
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User Testing (User Interview):
The test were carried out and assessed using the following pointers:
- Learn if participants are able to complete specified task successfully.
- Identify how long it takes to complete specified task.
- Find out how specified participants are with solution.
- Identify changes required to improve usage performance.
- Analyse the performance to see if it meets your usability objectives.
- Learn if participants are able to complete specified task successfully.
- Identify how long it takes to complete specified task.
- Find out how specified participants are with solution.
- Identify changes required to improve usage performance.
- Analyse the performance to see if it meets your usability objectives.
Conclusion:
Through rounds of exploration and testing, it were able to validate this format that creates a sense of “togetherness,” using technology to bridge physical activity rather than to replace it.
In our testing, we found that people valued quality time and enjoyed being able to have time doing something together while seeing each other. We believe in the potential of this form of technology-mediated interaction to solve challenges in loneliness, and we hope to explore ways in which we can take this concept further in the future.
