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01
OVERVIEW
In need of improving your mental health?
In a time where everyone is working and having busy lives, we're all looking for the opportunity to stop and take a moment to relax. With the constant mentality that we must always be working to be productive, Sapling assists everyone by encouraging them to improve their mental health and bettering their life. By providing daily tasks designed to improve a persons mental wellness, users can grow a virtual garden and have a visual representation of their progress. Enjoy the beauty of taking time for yourself to relax and completing simple tasks at your own pace.
Duration
23 hours – 2021 UW/UX TILE: Designathon
Competition
Angela Nguyen
Michelle Nguyen
Iqra Malek
Ibraheem Siddiqui
Team
Miro
Figma
Google Workspace
Discord
Tools
02
PROBLEM SPACE
Why are people finding it difficult to spend their free time relaxing?
Nowadays, people are working long hours whether its in a building or remotely at home. Most of us struggle with having the right balance of relaxation and career life. After a long day at the office or on your feet, all you can think about is just going home, eating, sleeping, and repeat. Some people wish there was something to motivate them to take a breath and spend their free time positivity for their mental wellbeing.
Project Constraints
Our team had to work completely remote and all communication was through Discord. Also since it was a 24 hour competition, we were at a super high time constraint. It didn't help that it was also day light savings that night so we did lose one hour 😢.
03
USER RESEARCH
Research findings on wellness tactics
Surrounding the topic of wellness and how might we enforce positive daily tasks, we conducted a user research survey. This method allowed us to gain background information and insight to further include in future steps of the project.
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Relaxing techniques
Majority said when they're stressed they like to meditate/do yoga, go for a walk, or do breathing exercises
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97% Screen time
Case of FOMO. People said they are constantly on their phone and checking notifications very often per day
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Positive affirmations
79% said they don't find positive affirmations a necessity for wellness applications
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App features
People liked features that would remind them to drink water, take walks, or daily tasks
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Aids that helped
What calmed people? SLEEP. Most people said that calming entertainment apps helped them relax
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Goal setting
Set goals and track the progress - 40% saying to add positive messaging
Competition
When looking at other wellness applications on the market we found that they don’t have the same visual sense of progression and we wanted ours to offer a unique way of tracking wellness
Market Viability
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Wellness apps have been growing for years
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Mental health has been getting worse in the pandemic
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Definite growing market for our application
Monetization
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Does it make sense?
Monetization on a wellness app is difficult as it could seem out of place. We would want to think carefully of how we could monetize without it being ethically wrong and insensitive to others.
Our Solution
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How will our application make money?
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App could earn money by selling cosmetic upgrades to garden (different plants, pots, winter theme, beach theme, etc.)
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If the app is successful we could start creating content along the lines of Headspace
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Relaxing videos can be assigned as daily tasks, or an accessible library in a premium version
An application that captures a calm and relaxing experience that sets daily tasks and motivates towards healthy living.
04
PLANNING
Jumping on to Miro, we began planning features and the functionality of our app. How will we motivate our users and constantly thinking about engagement and ethics.
In terms of our layout, our goal was to be as detailed as possible but keeping in mind at how limited we were with time. We tried to accurately plan the flow of how the user will navigate the app as well as all the features envisioned.
Elements to consider:
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What does a user see when they first sign-up/log-in?
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Onboarding: steps users take?
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Major interactions: how many tasks?
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What will our CTA look like?
Scenario Mapping
Using a scenario map, we were able to visually represent the user experience from login to any given task, which helped us realize which screens we shouldn't include and if the flow made sense.
05
SCOPE
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How might we motivate people to take an active part in improving their own mental health?
User & Audience
Young adults who have a busy life and want to de-stress
Adults who need to set time to relax and organize their free time
Sapling is an application designed for those who want to work on themselves and relax. We cater our goal and solution around the users that need the motivation to actively take part in improving their mental health.
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Stakeholders: the judges of the competition and TILE organizers
06
DESIGNING
Wireframing
How can we structure our most important screens and include all the in-demand features in our app? We decided to save some time and focus on the core interactions and less on on-boarding
Branding Guide
✨ We chose the name ‘Sapling’ because it's compliments our virtual garden aspect of the application and the theme of always improving oneself and growing.
Prototype
Using Figma, we created 13 primary screens for our users to navigate through. To make our application cohesive, consistent, and save time, all designers followed the branding guide.
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Feedback from mentors: make sure there are clear CTAs, improve ambiguous elements, and move elements around so users have a clear understanding of what to do
Always be greeted with positive messaging when opening Sapling!
Track your goals and your mood for each day using the built in calendar!
Gain sun points by completing tasks! The more sun you give your plant.
View your virtual garden! Complete tasks to get more plant friends.
07
FINAL
Outcome
Thats a wrap! After getting less than 6 hours of sleep and designing non-stop, we successfully created Sapling: an application that motivates users to take an active part in improving their own mental health.
Having a time constraint, researching, planning, and designing an application all in one day was definitely a challenge. Since it was our first time doing a designathon and we had no idea what to expect, we took this competition as a huge learning opportunity and how we can apply what we learned from this project to others. Through this project, we definitely learned more about user experience and working under pressure.
Explore and click around our prototype ↑
Watch our pitch ↑
Watch our mini TILE experience montage :D ↑
Results
While we did not place, our team did get honourable mention and placed runner-up for their fun experience video contest!
08
TAKEAWAY
Key Takeaways
Time management
To reiterate, we only had 23 hours to plan, design, and prototype! While we did manage to complete the prototype in time, we were stuck rushing our pitch presentation due to the time-constraint. Although setting aside 15 minute breaks every few hours definitely helped even thought we slept for only less than 6 hours...
Understand what's important to include
Since this was our first designathon, we had no idea what to expect and include for our process work. We ended up spending too much time planning and incorporating data into our pitch presentation–when in the end–we realized that we did not have to go all out. Next time, I would have been selective about the type of information we should include and if there are some steps we could skip to make the whole process a lot smoother.
Communication is key
Each designer has their own style of designing and we must be open-minded to suggestions and design critiques. Learning to work as a team is a great skill to have and in the end we are all working towards the same goal.
Next Steps
User research and usability testing
Since this application was planned and designed in such a small amount of time. If we were to revisit the concept and expand further, our next step would be to gather more user research and conduct usability testing.
Expand prototype
In the future if we are to revisit Sapling, we would like to expand the prototype to include more screens and put focus towards on-boarding, app incentives, and user flow.