Premise
Gamifying self-care of college students during social distancing through a plant app
Synopsis
As lockdown proceeds college students are struggling to live in this new reality of social distancing. During the college years that are meant for socializing, going out and making new experiences, all they can do is stay in their student room in isolation. Especially in these seemingly hopeless times self-care is important. Personally, I started to get this unhinged feeling that I was taking better care of my plants than of myself. With this realization I started to play with the idea of having a (digital) plant to take care of while at the same time improving your self-care. In line with critical making I created the first prototype and tested it with users. Both plant enthusiasts and non-plant owners liked the idea and so I moved along the iteration cycle until a final prototype emerged.
The Problem
The idea for this project was inspired by what I saw in myself and fellow classmates during the COVID-19 induced social distancing. Because we spend most time by ourselves anyway we started to let ourselves go, eat junk food, spend all day in sweats or play computer games for hours on end. The motivation to get up and do anything at all started to get close to non-existent. Preliminary research on the topic showed I was onto something. Countless articles with tips on improving self-care during lockdown appeared (Gavin, 2020; Geall, 2020; Williams, 2020). Further, research by Graminga (2020) showed that college students are struggling due to lockdown conditions and motivation was decreasing (Meeter et al., 2020). While at the same time, there is clear evidence about the importance of self care for well-being (Carman, 2020; Dekin, 2019). As the lockdown continues we need to find ways to practise self-care… and I thought perhaps a plant app can help.
The Approach
For people to realize the importance of and potentially improve their self-care a “plant app” was chosen. While information about self-care and activties could also be conveyed through blogs or guides, I believed that a more playful approach was better. It offered a fun format to try the new things as recommended by the articles on self-care without being patronized or criticized for the current behaviour. The plant metaphor offered a visualization that should encourage the user to think about their (lack of) self-care. Just like a plant looses it’s leaves when it does not get water, we need to maintain ourselves too in order to stay healthy. The first step was testing if that incentive of keeping the plant alive could motivate students to also take better care of themselves.
Design Process
First prototype
The first prototype was created in Adobe XD. Having no experience in prototyping beyond a pen and paper mock up, I needed to create a clickable prototype to test the concept with users. The setup in Adobe XD was easy and perfectly suitable to present an MVP to the users to test the concept. The app presents a selection of 3 challenges to the user. After completion of the challenge the plant grows and the process is repeated. If the user does not complete a challenge at a given day a leave is lost.
User Research
To test the concept I did interviews consisting of first, questions about self-care during lockdown and second, testing the prototype. The interviews confirmed my assumption that self-care of students is lacking in lockdown conditions and both participants indicated that such a plant app could motivate them to do self-care activties. Next to that, the following findings emerged.
Findings
- the user would like to have a more personalized experience
- the user needs to have more choice regarding the challenges
- different mood of the day could affect the type of challenges the user is willing to do
- simple layout is pleasant
Iterations
A welcome screen was included asking the user by name how he feels today. Then the user is presented with a range of categories to choose from which also impact the nature of the challenges. Whether 3 challenges to chose from in this scenario is the right ammount was to be tested in the next round. While the simple layout was to get the point across with an MVP, it was actually mentioned as benefit of the prototype.
Second Prototype
The second prototype was build according to the sketch above using the MIT app inventor. In contrast to a purely drag and drop interface to generate a clickable prototype, this was more challenging. It could be seen as a bridge between no-coding and coding approaches to app development as it’s building block logic allowed to get a better sense of code logic, without actually needing to write the code.
On the left, the workings of screen 1 in block logic can be seen. Further, I explored different ways through which an action could be triggered, for example: buttons, checkboxes, switch and timer.
User Research
Developing the app with the MIT app inventor had upsides and downsides. The main advantage was learning the workings of app development through the building block approach. The downside compared to the easy ways to build a clickable prototype is that it is more difficult to share the prototype with testers. It requires the other party to have the MIT app inventor app and every time a new code is generated and quickly disconnected. Due to this hassle, only one test was done online. With contact restrictions in place two friends and a housemate tested the protoype in real life.
Findings
- explaining the app and introducing user
- overview of the month
- option to check plant status
- 3 challenges is good
- include challenge rating system
Iterations
Following the user feedback, an onboarding screen was added. When the user uses the app for the first time, he can type his name and the app is explained. Additionally, users wanted to see a monthly overview of which challenges they did on a given day. This was incorporated into a calendar screen and realized through the use of icons for each category. Furthermore, people would like the option to check on their plant status at any given time, so a plant icon was included showing the plant on a seperate screen. The users do not want to see challenges they did not like again. In order to prevent that and to eventually make better suggestions on challenges, a rating system was included. Lastly, I asked about the numbers of challenge that should be provided in this category setup and testers agreed on three.
Experimental setup
Not being able to test the prototype well through online channels encouraged the idea of an experimental setup. In line with conceptual exploration, the concept was tested in real life with two housemates. Each of them was given their personal sampling. I functioned as the app in this case, giving them daily challenges and watered their samplings only after completion of the challenges. They reported that the growth of the plant was a nice incentive to do the challenge, but furthermore the option to see the plant of a peer and have your plant seen by others increased the willingness to participate in the challenges. Accordingly, the option to share your plant was added to the prototype.
Final Prototype
The final prototype was the result of an 8 week process of creating mockups while directly involving users in the development process.
Takeaways & Reflection
Through the project I openly talked about self-care for the first time. This research opened up the discussion and offered room for new perspectives. Working with this type of app builder took some getting used to and was frustrating at times. It also demonstrated how much more possibilties would be offererd through a code-based application. I would have liked to take the prototype to the next level through coding, but unfortunately failed. At least, now I know more about the inner workings of an app and how much effort it takes to make a good one. I enjoyed the critical making process and generating new iterations through user feedback. The benefit of involving the user in the design processs was one of the biggest takeaways. Trying out new things like the MIT app developer and adapting testing accordingly was a challenge but great fun!
Conclusion
The plant app is far from being a perfect solution to improve self-care, if that even exists, but at the very least it started the discussion on it’s importance. One of my testers messaged me she tried drawing, because that was a recommended challenge and she enjoyed it so much that she is sticking with it. Ideally, this research would be continued looking at the long-term implementations and how the prototype can be improved further based on the ratings. Never having given much thought about my personal self-care before, I hope that this is one thing that stays even when the lockdown is lifted.
References
Carman, N. (2020, December 03). Why self-care is vital to our mental health. Retrieved February 25, 2021, from https://www.psychreg.org/self-care-vital-mental-health/
Dekin, S. (2019, July 29). How does self-care affect mental health? Retrieved February 27, 2021, from https://sbtreatment.com/blog/self-care-affect-mental-health/#:~:text=Because%20self%2Dcare%20is%20the,living%20with%20a%20mental%20illness.
Gavin, S. (2020, May 11). 50 ways to do self care the right way during lockdown. Retrieved February 25, 2021, from https://mymind.org/50-ways-to-do-self-care-the-right-way-during
Geall, L. (2020, October 09). 5 simple self-care activities you can fit in to your lunch break while working from home. Retrieved February 25, 2021, from https://www.stylist.co.uk/life/lockdown-mental-health-self-care-ideas/381393
Gramigna, J. (2020, October 23). University students at significant risk for mental health effects of covid-19 lockdown. Retrieved February 24, 2021, from https://www.healio.com/news/psychiatry/20201023/university-students-at-significant-risk-for-mental-health-effects-of-covid19-lockdown
Meeter, M., Bele, T., Hartogh, C. D., Bakker, T. C., De Vries, R. E., & Plak, S. (2020). College students’ motivation and study results AFTER COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. doi:10.31234/osf.io/kn6v9
Williams, A. (2020, March 26). 9 ways to Practise self care during lockdown. Retrieved February 25, 2021, from https://www.adventureyogi.com/blog/9-ways-to-practise-self-care-during-lockdown/