Process
From problem to prototype, here you’ll find all the information you need to know. Ranging from the co-design, requirements, the design challenge and concepts to the development of our final concept.
Co-Design
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We started off by asking our co-designer to fill in a dairy for the first 2 weeks of the project. For this, we created the template, so it was clear for her what we wanted to know. During our weekly meetings, we went deeper into the answers she on paper, since they were often quite short. The main goal of the diary was to get more insight into what she is doing and feeling during the day.
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Diary
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From the diary, we learned the main cause of stress and we wanted to know how she handled specific situations. Therefore we went through some scenarios with her.
the first story is about her neighbour making a lot of noise during the night, which ruined her sleep. This is happening often lately, and she already complained about it without effect.
The second scenario is about a day where everything went wrong. So she lost her keys, forgot some of her groceries, it is raining, and she is having an argument with her boyfriend.
Stress Situation Scenarios
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Stakeholder Mapping
The diaries showed that her stress is usually caused by something that someone close to her is doing. We used Stakeholder mapping to get more insight into the people that are involved in the co-designers life. In the previous phase, some of the stakeholders were already determined, but in some areas, we needed more information. Since we only collect more general information on the stakeholders. So in this co-design activity, the focus was on the stakeholders which are relevant in the process of communicating stress.
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The activity started with asking for important persons in her life divided into different categories, those categories were; family, friends, caretakers, neighbours and others.
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After we knew the names of the most important people we asked her to make top 3 lists: Who do you most often talk to, who do you see most often, who would you like to see more often, who knows you the best, with whom do you feel the safest, who causes you the most stress and whom do you tell first that you are stressed?
Besides that, we went deeper into some of the stakeholders to make sure we really understood.
Co-Design Results
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The diary told us that she can be busy with something for a long time, even several days. For example, when she had to go to the doctor and had to wait for the results. This kept her stressed for a couple of weeks.
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Diary
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After going through the separate scenarios with Wendy, we concluded that she usually ends up in the red zone, so very stressed, if a lot of different things happen and her stress levels keep building up. But when she has a clear solution there is no problem, for example, if she forgets some groceries she knows she can just go back and her problems are solved.
Stress Situation Scenarios
Stakeholder Mapping
The stakeholder mapping showed that Wendy talks the most with her partner, her caregivers and her mother.
She also sees her partner and caregivers the most, which makes sense. But she would like to see her mother and sisters more. This is not possible right now, due to the corona situation.
Her partner, caregiver Karen and her mother know Wendy the best.
Wendy feels safe with her partner, her sisters and the old neighbours.
The stressed feeling of Wendy is sometimes caused by her fellow residents. This is because they come to Wendy with their problems. She cannot really cope with that, especially when she is already dealing with her own problems.
She finds it hard to talk about her stress, especially when she is in the red zone. And most of the time it is already too late and it can't be saved anymore.
The supervisors do not always have the time or do not realize that Wendy is in the red zone. When Wendy asks she can talk to her caregivers after she has dealt with her stress a bit herself.
The activity started with asking for important persons in her life divided into different categories, those categories were; family, friends, caretakers, neighbours and others.
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Requirements
After all the conversations we had with our co-designer we came up with a list of requirements and possible functions for the design. First, we explained all the requirements to our co-designer and asked her if she thinks it would help solve the problem of communicating her stress. The next step was to let her put them in order of importance. This list can be used to rate our concepts to see which concept matches our co-designers wishes the best.
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The results from the requirements are the following, Wendy would like to fill in how she feels at fixed times and possibly in between if necessary. And she would like a reminder when to fill it in. When she is not feeling well, she would like to have an extra reminder to fill in how she is feeling.
She would like to receive tips on what to do, to make herself feel better when she is in the red or orange zone. And she would like the product to give her the choice to turn on the guidance when she thinks it is necessary. But she said she was less able to judge that when she was in the red zone.
Lastly, she would like to fill in how she feels when she is at home and on the road. And receive an overview of how she felt that day or that week.
She gave us the tip that if she's in the red zone it might help if she sees a picture of her family, partner or animal.
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Concept Development
During co-design, we started ideation. Our first step was making mind maps. This combined information we received during context mapping and co-design, but additionally also contained possible functions for the product. These functions were either things that Wendy had mentioned explicitly, or they came forward from our conclusions from the co-design.
A few interesting function options that came up:
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Notifying when to fill in emotion, maybe on fixed times so it becomes part of her routine
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The user can fill in their mood and it gets sent to their caregiver, but not only that: the product also directly gives feedback on what she could do to improve her mood
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It could for example tell her to lay down or go for a walk
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It could talk her through a guided breathing exercise
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It could distract her from her stress
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The product should notify the caregiver about the user’s mood, but the notifications should somehow be more urgent when the mood is red/orange
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The product normally asks for the mood 3 times a day, but when the user has filled in a red or orange mood, the product asks again in ~2hrs to check if the mood has improved.
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Not really a function, but still important: the product should be easy to understand and quick in use. This is because someone with an intellectual impairment.
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Not only signal the mood towards the caregiver, but also make an overview of last week’s mood: this offers a chance to reflect on when and thus why she feels a certain way.
Next to possible functions, we also wrote down possible products(-directions) that might be able to fulfil these functions. Some examples were:
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A smartwatch
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A system similar to Google Home
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An app
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A diary
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Something for on her wall, for example with magnets, whiteboard markers etc.
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A game
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Etc.
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We decided to continue the ideation process by dividing these options into three different categories: portable, static and mobile app.
Portable
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By making the product portable, the user could carry the product anywhere they go. An advantage of this is that the user can fill in their mood wherever they are.
An obvious option would be to let the product, especially when it is a smartwatch, track the users' mood using heartbeat/transpiration sensors. However, the decision was made not to: this could be a bit invasive, as the data will be sent to the caregivers and it might be inaccurate: the user could also have a raised heartbeat because of doing sports.
The disadvantages of a portable solution are that it is more likely to break or get lost than a static home product.
Static
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Another option would be doing a static product. This product could just stand in the user’s home, on a table or on a wall. A disadvantage compared to a portable product, would be that it is not possible to fill this in everywhere. However, it is less likely to get lost or break. Since the product can be larger, the interface can be larger and thus more clear.
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App
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The last option was an app. It was possible to realise all of the desired functionality with an app, however, the experience would be lacking when only using an app: the user would have to use their phone. This might be distracting or it could take too many steps. A phone already provides many stimuli, which is not pleasant when a user is already stressed.
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Concept Decision
Our final decision was to combine a static product with an app. The decision to use a static product instead of a portable one was based on the fact that portability was not really required:
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During co-design, we found that most stress factors are at home.
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When the user is away from home, there aren’t any caretakers around anyways: so the signal sent to the caregivers would be useless.
Furthermore, using a static product allows a larger interface and also makes it easier to implement instant feedback options.
The additional app can display a weekly overview. It is also possible to fill in the mood while away from home, so the overview will still be updated. On the physical product, it is possible, next to fill in the mood, to fill in if the user wants to talk or not. This possibility is not given in the app, since it is not possible to talk to the caregivers while away from home anyway.
This decision was also supported by the results from a session with our co-designer where we discussed possible product requirements and which ones she thought were most important.
Some first ideas, still really exploring different shapes and options
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Final Design Challenge
After completing the background research and the first sessions with our co-designer, it became clear that our co-designer experiences difficulties informing her supervisors when she is experiencing any mental problems. She feels like she is lacking a proper communication and/or feedback system. Based on these first findings, the main design-challenge was stated as follows:
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During the co-design sessions afterwards, it became clear that she had some additional functions that could help her. Among these was her wish for a system that provides her with options if she wants help or not and the option to take it with her. To keep the feedback system relatively simple to use, she also wanted a physical product
In the end, the design challenge could be stated as follows:
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" We want to design a product or system that helps our co-designer to communicate her stress and mood. "
“ An application (supported by a physical product) that helps Wendy to keep track of her stress and allows her to decide if she wants to get support. “
Development of the Final Concept
The basic shape had been determined: a stylized speech bubble, to represent communication. Before further development, two mood boards were created. One for the overall style of the product and one for the app, these were used to get feedback form Wendy and base our detail and interface style on.
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The product is supposed to look calm, friendly and inviting. It should feel approachable and easy to use. There is one main difference between these mood boards and the design of the product: while these mood boards are quite colourful, the product is supposed to be more neutral.
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Once the basic shape had been developed, it was time to further develop the interface design.
Interface development
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The interface is divided into three parts, each part a different ‘button type. The button types are:
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Mood buttons
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‘Talk’ slider
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OK confirmation button
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Mood buttons
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We made versions without smileys and versions with black smileys printed on them. The black smileys were a bit obnoxious: they had a childish look to them. However, they did work clarifying: users who might be unfamiliar with the colour system, or who are colourblind, could benefit from the smileys. Therefore the decision was made to make the smileys indents in the button: in this way, they were more subtle.
The buttons are large and easy to press. The use should be intuitive.
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‘Talk’ slider
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By using a slider instead of buttons, the user can easily see their current (or: last filled in) status. Initially, the slider was accompanied by a text (Wants to talk, neutral, don’t disturb) but this was changed into icons, to make it more suitable for users who have issues with reading, or who don’t understand English. These icons were made grey (instead of red, orange, green) to avoid an unwanted association with the mood buttons.
The slider itself is a speech bubble that says TALK.
OK confirmation button
The third and last button-type is the ‘OK’ button. This button is used to confirm the input data: when OK is pressed, the mood and talk status are sent to the app.
When a user has filled in a certain mood (f.e. red) by pressing the (red)button, the OK button will light up red. Once the user confirms their choice, the button shortly lights up white, and then the light goes out again.
Button orientation and positioning
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The mood buttons are placed on top, as those are the most important feature of the product. Below, on the left, there is the slider. It was also considered to put this slider on the side, but we decided against this: it would make the slider seem too insignificant.
The OK button is placed in the bottom right corner. This follows (digital) interface conventions and also makes sense with the Western reading direction, where the text ends at the bottom right corner.
Button Types
The mood buttons can be used to fill in the mood. There are 3 different options for filling in the mood. This matches with the co-designers wish: she is used to having three options and also used to those having 3 different colours. When we experimented with using 5 different mood options in the diary, she found this confusing: it was too much for her.
Next to mood, another type of data can be filled in: whether the user would like to talk or be left alone (or neutral). Such an additional feature was necessary because sometimes when Wendy is feeling ‘red’, she would like to be left alone while other times she would like to talk about it.
The mood buttons are grouped together through similarities in appearance (size, shape, the smileys), alignment and because they are grouped in an indent. To avoid confusion, the orientation of the slider and the mood buttons had to be different: again, to make sure there would be no unwanted associations between those. Therefore, the buttons are horizontal and the slider is vertical.