Happly - Habit tracking application

Project Overview

Starting new habits such as running or healthy eating is often motivated by a desire to enhance our quality of life. However, these goals often fade quickly as sustaining long-term changes can be challenging, requiring significant resilience and determination.

Although setting specific, relevant, and time-bound goals is often recommended, achieving them requires a concerted and effective effort. This challenge can be overcome with the help of an accountability buddy who provides the necessary support and encouragement. To further aid individuals in their quest for goal attainment, a platform has been developed with the objective of facilitating this process.

Scope

This project endeavors to develop an interactive mobile application. The application serves a dual purpose of enabling users to establish and sustain habits, while also offering an accountability partner for an extra boost in achieving their goals.

Assumptions

We have begun to organize our ideas and thoughts about this topic by creating a CSD (Certainties, Suppositions, and Doubts) Matrix. This has allowed us to better categorize our beliefs and uncertainties, and to develop a clearer understanding of the various factors and assumptions that shape our thinking:

Many individuals are motivated to form habits, but face difficulties in doing so.
Trying to adopt too many habits simultaneously can lead people to feel overwhelmed and give up altogether.
People often seek out others who share their struggles and challenges in life, to gain a sense of perspective and connection.

Research

Based on my secondary research from the article published on Vox.com titled ‘Habit-tracking apps won’t change your life overnight, but they could get you on the right track’, I discovered that the author identifies four distinct categories of people when it comes to forming habits.

Upholders – disciplined, respond to both internal and external expectations
Obligers – can’t keep commitments to themselves but respond to expectations from others
Questioners – ask why and can keep a habit if they understand the logic and reasoning
Rebels – hate being told what to do by others – so it has to be something they want do

Competitive analysis

Initially, I undertook marketing research to evaluate the level of satisfaction among users with regards to existing products for tracking their daily habits. The current solutions comprise two approaches: pen-and-paper-based methods like using diaries and post-its, and mobile application-based solutions such as habit tracking apps on desktops and smartphones. I concentrated my investigation on mobile apps since they are more prevalent and easier to use nowadays.

Take Away

The reminder feature is a ubiquitous attribute found in all applications that facilitates users to assign a specific time and date to accomplish their tasks.
All apps have calendar functionalities that allow users to visualize their progress and objectives in the future.
The ability to tailor and receive a personalized plan is advantageous for users as it aids in their motivation to continue their habits.
Apps like Productive and I Am Sober can be convenient for some users as they provide pre-designed habits based on user preferences during sign-up. However, these apps may not be suitable for those who prefer to create their routines and habits from scratch.

Interviews/Survey

I decided to conduct interviews immediately to gain a deeper understanding of users’ challenges. My interview script has been designed to achieve the following objectives:

First validate who they are when it comes to building a habit, what keeps them motivated.
Then find out how they would feel if they had an accountability partner, and know what their struggle is with building a habit,

39 of 51 interviewees had tried to build a healthy habit: doing exercises, eating healthy, praying, reading more, saving…, While 12 interviewee tried breaking from an old habit: Smoking, drinking, not sleeping.

Their motivations were:

Reminder of their progress
Community that help push them
Their personal accountability
Summer body (lol)

I also did a survey with my interviewees that would help me create a user persona

60.8% are able to commit to building a habit. While
35.3% would like to commit but find themselves lacking when it comes to committing.

Their motivation not to quit: 58.8% are self-sufficient in reminding themselves and also being self accountable, 25.5% would keep going if they had someone also engaged with them in the habit, while 15.7% would like to know about past successes they’ve had and heard about from others.

How well they would perform if they had a partner: 84.3% would most likely accomplish their goals, while 15.7% are more private.

What are their struggles: The data suggests that a significant proportion of individuals struggle with various challenges such as feeling overwhelmed with life (23.5%), not having enough time (15.7%), having other priorities (25.5%), finding it challenging to maintain a habit on a daily basis (31.4%), and lacking someone to hold them accountable (3.9%).

User Persona

User Journey

James embarked on a journey towards a healthier lifestyle by planning habits that aligned with his goals. Despite his efforts to adhere to the plan, he found himself too occupied with work. Struggling to get back on track, He eventually gets an accountability partner.

Identifying potential design opportunities, we suggest personalized healthy habits based on the user’s goals, and recommend a suitable frequency for their implementation. To assist with maintaining motivation and consistency, we propose incorporating rewards, task reminders, and progress tracking features. Additionally, a supportive community can be established to remind users of the benefits of their progress so far and offer encouragement towards achieving their health goals.

Problem Statement

Based on our analysis, we have identified a problem statement that will guide our brainstorming and sketching sessions:

How Might We

How might we design a personalized and supportive system that helps individuals establish and maintain healthy habits aligned with their goals, by offering reminders, progress tracking, and a community of like-minded individuals?

Value Proposition Canvas - VPC

Using a VPC (Value Proposition Canvas) approach, we have identified the key points and important aspects that should be considered when designing the application. These include:

Customer Profile:

The target audience is health-conscious individuals who are interested in establishing and maintaining healthy habits.
They may be busy and struggle with consistency in their habits.

Value Map:

Personalized habit recommendations based on user goals and frequency preferences.
Reminders and progress tracking features to help maintain motivation and consistency.
Rewards to incentivize users and encourage continued progress.
A supportive community of like-minded individuals to offer encouragement and accountability.

By focusing on these key points and important aspects, we can ensure that our design solution meets the needs and desires of our target audience, and ultimately leads to a successful and impactful application.

Ideate

Sketching

I have completed multiple sessions of The Warm Up, including Comparable Problem and Solution Sketch, to develop a concept for how the application should be designed and to create a user flow that outlines the steps a user would take while interacting with the application:

The user set up their profile;
The user can create their own habit or use predefine habits either starting a good habit or stopping a bad one;
The user checks the habit that is completed for the day
The user creates a challenge with friends in other to have a friendly group competition to account for themselves;

Low-fi Sketch

Hi-fi Prototype

Here is the link to an interactive prototype that represents my final deliverable. You are welcome to explore and interact with it to get a better sense of its functionality.