Kick It
Kick It is a mobile app for people
trying to quit a habit. This app was
done by a team of 3 people. I primarily
handled the UI design of this project.
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Overview
Kick It is a mobile app that encourages users to kick a bad habit for a period of time, and rewards the user when they reach their goals. We wanted to use positivity to help people start slow and set realistic goals for themselves. We help the user achieve these goals by using a streak system and rewarding the user with badges after reaching their goal. My focus on this project was UI Design.
This is my most recent project, it took place over the span of 4 weeks, and was worked on by myself (UI Designer/UX Designer), Alex Bain (User Research/UX Designer), and Rebecca Rose (FE Developer/UX Designer). Though the time frame was smaller, I feel that we accomplished our goal of designing and building out this mobile app.
Research
For this project, we conducted 5 user interviews. The responses we received gave us insight as to what kind of apps users currently use to track their health goals, if any. We asked what methods of motivations might work best for them, how comfortable they would be receiving notifications, and if they have ever participated in any month-long challenges where they gave up a bad habit. Additionally, we asked if they would find it beneficial to connect with others users for support.
Ideation
From our research, we found that most people were interested in an app that would help them track how long without a bad habit they have gone. Users liked the idea of having progress visualization to keep track of their goals. The main concern users had was privacy over their personal information. Additionally, most users were not interested in receiving too many notifications, but wouldn’t mind occasional positive messages.
Affinity Diagram
Data from interviews organized into categories.
Jorge McPherson is a 27 HVAC Technician from Lawrenceville, GA. He has tried quitting nicotine a few times but finds it difficult to remain accountable. He is looking for a non-intrusive app that can help remind him of his progress. Frequent notifications annoy him. He likes to feel recognized for his good work.
User Persona
Empathy Map
For the analysis, the direct competitors that we analyzed were Days Since, Fortify, and I Am Sober. All three of these apps are focused on quitting habits. The indirect competitors were health apps like Peloton, FitBit, and Headspace. We chose these because we wanted to dig into how they reward the user when completing “challenges”. We found that Peloton specifically uses badges.
Competitor Analysis
Prototyping
With the ideas for the application set out, we began to wireframe a very basic structure of the app. We wanted to focus on simplicity, since this app was designed to be something that you check infrequently.
User Flow
LoFi Designs
HiFi Designs
Testing
We conducted 3 usability tests for the LoFi & 3 for the HiFi. Through these, we found that users tended to really enjoy the simplicity of the app, however there were a few areas that could be improved upon. These areas included the reset button for habits, a more interactive community section, and more health tips to keep the user motivated.
Future Iterations & Conclusions
Based off of the feedback from our usability tests, our future iterations would include the following:
Add reset button to reset tracker
Add dropdown menu to easily switch between different habit trackers (ability to track multiple habits at once)
More analytics displayed on homepage, different options for progress visualization
Allow for homepage customization
Include what the app’s goals are during the onboarding process
Remove report icon on replies to threads; will still be able to report if user clicks on reply
Overall, this project was a great success for my teammates and myself. We really enjoyed working on this together, and we’re all passionate about the app’s purpose to help people live healthier lives. One of the obstacles we faced during this process was scope creep; we spent lots of time coming up with different ideas for the progress visualization. Another factor that came into play was that we were working on this project over the Thanksgiving holidays, so we had to work around each of our different plans for that week. One of our group members also traveled, so it was more difficult for us to make time to work together during this time. Lastly, we had a small team consisting of 3 members, which meant heavier workloads on each of us in order to complete each task in a timely manner.