Time-Out — UX Case Study. App to enable people avoid…
By: Aishwarya Ejoumale
Tags: UX Research, User Experience Design, Ux Portfolio, Case Study, Media Psychology

Problem Identification

Unlike other case studies where we usually begin with a particular problem to be addressed, this piece of work was started with an open-mind to find out what are the issues that our target audience face while interacting with social media. This was done through dedicated focus group sessions, the details of which will be explained below.

“Human-centered design is a design philosophy. It means starting with a good understanding of people and the needs that the design is intended to meet.” - (Norman, 2013).

The first step of the design process is to empathize, and to do this, a non-linear brainstorming technique called ‘Storyboarding’ was implemented. A team of college students were asked to think about the following statement:

“What do you use social networking technology for? What do you like about it? What don’t you like about it?”

Each person wrote his/her answers on a post-it and stuck it randomly on a wall. When the brainstorming was complete, the items were sequenced and categorized by moving them around the surface. Popular opinions that could be used for further development and negative aspects that could be overcome with innovation were discovered in the process.

The answers were categorized on the basis of the 14 Core human values proposed by the BBC, and the 3 most comonly occurring values amongst the responses were identified.

The next step was conducting a focus group session…

No. of Participants: 9

Age Range: 20–30 years.

Location: University of Salford -Greater Manchester.

Time: One hour.

Background: University Students.

OBJECTIVES:

1. Stimulate a discussion of how people use technology to

fulfil the following values: pursuit of pleasure, feeling inspired,

and connecting with others.

2. To identify an area that could be improved by a product.

3. Active participation of members in the group discussion.

The session commenced with an ice-breaker activity where each group was assigned with one of the 3 human values and were asked to think of an animal that best represents that value and discuss their answers with the larger group.

The second activity involved distributing 3 different colour post-it

notes corresponding to each of the values and asking every participant to write the ways in which technology satisfies each of those 3 values.

And finally, participants were invited for a group discussion talking about their personal bad experiences with digital technology or the media.

After analysing the results from all the above activities, a Point of View was created and and ‘How might we?’ questions were listed according to the Interaction design foundation protocol.

Problem Statement How might we provide or improve a simple meaningful digital connectivity without demanding too much of the user while avoiding the problem of over-connectivity?

Psychology in Action:

Why is it so hard for people to stay away from social media in the first place?

Evidence shows that people develop a form of social anxiety called ‘Fear of missing out’ (FOMO),where the person compulsively feels worried that he/she might be absent from a rewarding experience and desires to stay constantly connected with others. Nearly three-quarters of young adults reported that they have experienced this feeling. According to the Self-determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985), this feeling might arise due to chronic deficits in the satisfaction of basic needs of competence, autonomy, and relatedness. And platforms like Facebook and Instagram would seem like an attractive solution to this issue with its continuous flow of newsfeeds and instant messaging features. When a person abstains the use of social media, the withdrawal symptom FOMO might kick back in.

Taking this into account, our app would be particularly beneficial to first-time smartphone users like young students to regulate their online behaviour starting from their early engagement stages. One study shows that students refraining from social media feel a slow-down of time which led them to switch to other practices like reading, writing or taking up hobbies which resulted in increased productivity. They also reported being able to do tasks more ‘Mindfully’ (Lepik & Mengel, 2019).