Academic Project

Nomore

In the fall of 2022, I worked on this project as a part of my Master's academic course INFO-H541. This is an extensive project which follows the design thinking process.

Responsibilities

Research, Storyboarding, UI Design, Information Architecture, Prototyping, 3D modeling, User Testing

Team

1 UX Designer (Me), 1 UX Researcher, 1 UX Generalist

Project Information

  • Context Indiana University has three grand challenges focused on pressing issues that require collective efforts to solve. We chose smoking addiction as our grand challenge because it is a major public health problem and one of the most difficult addictions to overcome.
  • The Problem In the past five decades, smoking rates have decreased considerably in the US, but smoking-related health issues are still a significant cause of death. The primary rationale for the vast number of deaths is the lack of awareness and inability to succeed in smoking cessation.

Almost 14% of U.S. adults aged 18 years old or older were cigarette smokers in 2018. (CDC, 2021) = 46.8M.

There are more than 480,000 deaths in the United States each year due to smoke exposure. (CDC, 2021)

In the United States in 2018, 55% of adult smokers had attempted to quit smoking in the past 12 months. (CDC, 2020)

Nearly 70% of adults who smoke say they want to quit.

The reality is that smokers struggle to "Quit smoking"

How might we help people to overcome smoking addiction?

The Solution

  • NoMore - The smoking cessation solution
    • We designed NoMore, a smoking activity tracker which tracks users' smoking behaviour to provide personalized feedbacks to gradually overcome their smoke addiction.
    My Contribution I conducted user interviews, created 3D model, prepared wireframes, storyboards to understand the user journey & prototypes to communicate ideas effectively.
    NoMore Wristband
  • 3D Visuals
    • NoMore Wristband Look 1
    NoMore Wristband Look 2
    NoMore Mobile App
Jump to prototype

How did we reach there?

  • The Approach
  • Process followed

01

Research and Insights

  • Structure of the researchTo gain an initial understanding of the domain we started off with desk research and later to confirm and validate our findings and analysis, we conducted user-interviews and observation sessions. Structuring it in this manner, helped us swiftly navigate through the data gathering phase and build our initial hypothesis on the topic.
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  • Desk Research

    • Why:

    To gain understanding about how people start smoking and empatize with their pain points

    How:

    Reading scholarly research papers and articles, and watching videos about smoking addiction, how people are affected and its existing solutions

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  • Semi-structured Interviews

    • Why:

    To understand how people start smoking, their addiction and their experience in quitting to smoke

    How:

    Conducting 6 user interviews via Google Meet & In-person. Age ranged from 22-40 and approximate duration being 30 minutes.

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  • Direct Observations

    • Why:

    To gain insight and develop an understanding about the typical behavior of people while smoking

    How:

    Conduction obseration sessions at public places like Gardens and Outdoor restaurants for approx. 40 minutes over 3 days in 4 locations.

    Once enough data was collected, we analyzed it and identified insights.

    • Affinity Mapping
    • User Review 1
    • User Review 2
    • User Review 1
    • Empathy Mapping
    • User Review 1

    The insights helped us frame "How might we" statements and identify user problems.

    • How Might We statements (HMW)
    • How Might We statements
    • User Problems Our analysis helped us identify the following two broader problems that smokers face during their smoking cessation journey:
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    Addiction paused, not stopped

    Smokers may relapse despite their best efforts, due to intrinsic or extrinsic factors.

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    Lack of stable support

    Smokers who want to quit often lack ongoing support from loved ones, family, or even technology, which can lead to relapse.

    Then, we created "Personas" to depict our ideantified user types.

    • User Personas
    • User Persona 1
    • User Persona 2

    Redefining the problem statement

    • New Problem Statement

    How might we help smokers build a bridge between their smoking pattern and behavioral change to gradually overcome smoking addiction?

    • Understanding the need After conducting research, we realized that in order to quit smoking addiction, users need to adapt to a gradually decreasing smoking pattern which was possible by bringing a behavioral change. With this new perspective, we were able to better understand the problem and come up with more effective solutions. This approach proved to be incredibly helpful, as it allowed us to more accurately pinpoint the root causes of the problem and develop targeted solutions that were more likely to be successful.

    02

    Design

    • Design RequirementsBased on our research findings we defined the terms of our design requirements before moving on to designing the interface.
    • Design Requirements

    Using the "Design requirements" and "HMWs" we brainstormed solutions.

    • Random Word Ideation
    • Random Word Ideation
    • Cross-Matrix Method
    • Cross-Matrix Method

    50+ ideas generated! Using internal voting we narrowed down to 6.

    • 6 Storyboards

    The final idea!

    • Finalized IdeaBased on the storyboarding activity, we validated the ideas and decided upon the below final idea. It consists of a wearable band and a mobile application which collectively satisfy the design opportunity areas.
    • Final idea
  • The idea recognizing users' smoking patterns using the wearable band by monitoring their hand gestures.
  • The user can track their progress on the mobile application and try to achieve daily targets.
  • The wearable device will alert the user when in a tobacco prone zone.

    • Then, we began exploring ideas for designing the wearable device.

    • Moodboard
    • Moodboard

    Final design for the wearable device.

    • Wearable device
    • Wearable device GIF
    • Band final design

    Features for the wearable device

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  • Meaningful Alerts

    • Using the Red LED to alert the user when nearing a tobacco smoke prone zone.


    The alert will be a combination of LED flickering and vibrations.


    This feature will help the user stay alert during a social gathering and thus avoid the urge to smoke.

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  • Positive Affirmations

    • Using the Green LED to positively affirm the user when they make progress.


    Positive affirmation is important when trying to bring about a behaviour change.


    This feature will help the user stay motivated while on their smoking cessation journey.

    Designing the mobile app

    • Information Architecture
      • Information Architecture
    • Wireframes - Onboarding Flow
      • Signup Wireframe
    • High-Fidelity Screens - Onboarding Flow
      • Onboarding hifi
    • High-Fidelity Screens - Questionnaire
    • When a user sign's up for the first time, the are prompted to answer a few questions related to their smoking.
    • This helps the system to serve the user with the initial personalized information.
      • Questionnaire hifi
    • High-Fidelity Screens - Activity
    • The dashboard comprises the profile and options icons on the top of the screen, and the bottom navigation bar has the dashboard, activity and menu icons.
    • The screen consists of a visual representation of the smoking activity and the progress of the user.
      • Activity hifi
    • High-Fidelity Screens - Activity (Features)
      • Activity Features
    • High-Fidelity Screens - Dashboard
    • The Activity section includes an overall breakdown of the user's daily body composition, heart rate, oxygen levels, stress levels and sleep cycle.
    • The screen covers all the necessary information at one glance without needing to toggle between sections or screens in the app.
      • Dashboard hifi
    • High-Fidelity Screens - Dashboard (Features)
      • Dashboard Details

    03

    Evaluations

    • User Feedback & TestingIt was time to evaluate the designs and reflect on our design decisions. We decided to conduct a usability study which included one cognitive walkthrough, two heuristics evaluations, and three think-aloud sessions. All the shortcomings were rectified and iterated to produce the final designs. The results of the evaluations are as follows:
    • #1 Finding
    • The user's daily progress status was missing in the band
    • To check for daily progress or metrics, the user had to open the app every time to see how good or bad they were doing.
    • How did we address?Displaying the daily progress of the user in the band itself so that the consumption of daily progress will be easier and on the go.
      • Band Daily Progress
    • #2 Finding
    • Repetitive feedback caused ambiguity and confusion
    • The initial design of our tracker band has a similar haptic feedback for every activity.
    • How did we address?Possible solution was to implement different variations in the haptic feedback which user receives. It will help the user to understand the context with lesser cognitive load.
      • Haptic Feedback
    • #3 Finding
    • Users shared that they lacked the motivation to use the app
    • The user described how some people successfully quit smoking for days, weeks, or months but then relapse. While limiting and progressively eliminating smoking is not a popular idea, it has the potential to be more effective.
    • How did we address?We decided to add a new section in the app that offers different challenges based on the current phase of the user.
      • Challenges Finding
      Challenges New Section