Designing a therapeutic application to help people fight cellphone addiction.

Master’s Thesis

Experience Design, Design Research

September 2021 - March 2022

My Responsibilities: Problem space identification, User research, synthesis, prototype development, UX design, branding, project pacing.

Deliverables: App Prototype, Insights, Frameworks, Final Thesis Presentation.

Overview

I completed a 6 month thesis project as the culmination of my master’s degree. This was a solo research and design project where I had free reign to select an area of interest and plan a project which aligned to my own individual goals. I focused on investigating cell phone addiction through the lens of mental health, developing a prototype of an application in Figma – titled Intermission. I presented this work as the final step of receiving my master’s, and received positive feedback recommending I explore bringing Intermission to developers.

Opportunity

Impacted by my own negative relationship with my phone and social media, I was drawn to the space of cell phone addiction and wanted to create something more impactful than the boiler plate screen time restrictions on cell phones.

I started this work by thinking about cell phone addiction as a medical condition and expanding to understand cell phone usage in relation to mental health issues. Ultimately, I found that peoples’ phone usage and mental health were tied together in a destructive cycle where each negatively impacted the other. I identified an opportunity to create personalized, responsive application which integrated and interrupted daily phone usage rhythms when mental health was suffering.

Process

Problem Space Identification

After focusing on aging gracefully, we spoke with aging adults as well as their adult children/caregivers, to get a better sense of their changing needs as they age. We unpacked their relationships with technology, cleaning, and the changes in the parent/child dynamic.

We synthesized this research and identified four key insights:

  • Need for Interaction: Without human interactions, aging adults lose motivation to complete asks they know are essential for their mental and physical health.

  • Trust & Acceptance: In order to accept help for tasks around the home, many need to be able to trust that the help they receive will be done to their long-held standards.

  • Sense of Purpose: As some adults age, they become less active, which leads them to rely on daily chores as a source of purpose in their lives, making it difficult for them to give up ownership of these tasks.

  • Changing Care Dynamics: As parents age, adult children transition into caregivers for their parents. In order to delay this transition, children want to provide resources to help their parents complete tasks in the home, but need a sense of assurance that these tasks are being completed safely.

Impact

After presenting our work to our clients at iRobot, we received resounding positive feedback, both from our client and from our professor.

This project was significant for my individual growth, having given me the chance to act on my project manger skills and grow them in a consulting and strategy setting. This project was also particularly exciting as it was the first time I was able to design work in person since the start of my master’s program – we got messy with sticky notes and project boards, and were able to be as visual as we wanted with our frameworks.