Project Proposal & Narrative

Mindspace is a digital detox app that helps users reduce unwanted screen time by allowing user to set personalized targets based on usage behaviours.

Its a tough task to create a one size fit all solution for regulating digital usage. Some users may need to cut down endless social media scrolling while other need to cut down messaging. Maybe a user need to reduce endless scrolling on Instagram while still needing access to Instagram DMs without locking themselves out of the app in the name of reducing social media usage.

Mindspace helps users reduce repeated actions rather than reducing app usages. Through a short monitoring period, the app detects repeated actions and gives users the choice to increase or decrease that action.

The aim for this system is to seamlessly allow users to use their devices however they wish while training themselves to cut down on unproductive actions they themselves recognize as unproductive during the act.

Problem space

Phone addiction has been one of the main harmful byproducts of advanced technologies. With the increased complexity of technology and human life, the regulation of phone usage is also increasingly complex.

Many existing solutions opt to lock users out of apps entirely which can be problematic for users of large multi functional apps such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and more. What if a user needs access to Twitter DMs while wanting to reduce endless scrolling on Twitter's discover feed?

Existing solutions are also complex in setting usage targets. Often, they ask users at the start to set limits for how much they want to use various apps. This can be a difficult task for a user who has little knowledge about how they are using their devices and what actions they need to reduce.

Key user

User Frustrations

Matthew wants to reduce the time he spends endlessly scrolling through Instagram and Twitter feeds.

However, Matthew he has multiple work related group chats on both Instagram and Twitter which require his constant engagement. Thus, he cannot delete those apps to reduce his usage.

While he is within these apps for work, he constantly finds himself bouncing into endless scrolling due to easy access while already being on Instagram and Twitter.
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The frustration arises from work related tasks being done on the same apps that cause unproductive behaviours.

Personalized Targets

Mindspace uses a 1 week monitoring period to learn repeated actions and behaviours. When a specific action is repeated often, Mindspace asks the user if they want to do that specific action more or less.

On some days, a user might feel they want to cut out an action entirely. On other says, the user might feel they want to do that action a bit more. The point is, At the end of monitoring period, Mindspace will take the averages of the user's response to create accurate usage targets.

Since targets are specific to actions, users can have the option to use various parts an app while cutting down on other parts of the same app.

Targets to habits

Mindspace sets personalized targets that eases users into sustainable habit change.

For example, if a user scrolls through instagram 5 hours a day, the Mindspace target for them will be 2.5 hours per day. If another user who does the same activity for 2 hours per day, they will get a target of 1 hour per day.

This system makes sure usage targets are set realistically based on the user's normal behaviour rather than a cold turkey approach.

Gradual habit change

With gradual increase and decrease of targets, users would better ease into long term habit change. As secondary research revealed, long term habit change is better achieved through cycles of easy and intense chage. The aim is to have users stick to their screen time commitments long term.

The targets for the first month would be drastic while the second month would be a bit easier. The third month would then be more drastic than the first month and so on.

Monetary commitment and gamification

Research

Primary research started with user interviews with 2 selected groups of users. Users were asked questions about phone usage and their digital usage habits.

During secondary research, a literature review was done on scientific papers about phone addiction in young adults. Furthermore, a study and analysis was done on a documentary about phone addiction which was recommended by the project’s mentor.

Lastly, a competitor analysis was done on some of the top digital detox apps available at the time.

User Interviews

The first group of users I interviewed were interaction design students at Emily Carr University. Being interaction design students meant this group dealt with high mobile phone usage due to constant testing of apps alongside regular usage. I aimed to get deep insights about this group's phone usage habits and the factors that contributed to those habits.

Interviews were conducted in groups of 3-4 participants in the format of an open discussion.

Interview questions:

1. How can someone know what parts of their screen time is good or bad screen time? How can users stay motivated to keep up better phone usage habits?
   

2. How can we avoid situations were users continue with poor phone usage habits even when they know those habits can be harmful? Similar to knowing smoking is bad but continuing to smoke.
   

3. If you could choose how much you can limit your phone usage, how many hours per day would you use your phone?
   

Insights from Interviews

• Some phone activities might be useful for one user but not useful for another user. For example, a social media manager might need to actively use social media while a student might need to cut down on social media usage to spend more time studying.
  

• The judgment between good and bad screen time can be unclear.
  

• Asking users how many hours they want to use their phone is a tough task without usage data.
  

• An effective motivational factor can be a reward or penalty because on user success.
  

Interviews round 2

The second round of interview was done with my project mentor, Haige Armen, who was also my instructor during my final year of Interaction Design.

A one on one interview was conducted with Haige about topics pertaining habit formation and long term habit breaking techniques. The goal of this interview was to gain deeper insights about Haig's views on a solution for managing phone addiction.

Being an interaction designer himself, Haig was able to give me some good insights while also recommending secondary resources for further research.

Interview discussion topics:

1. How can we categorize screen time into productive and unproductive? How can we make sure it accommodates different types of users who each have their own usage types?
   

2. What are some methods to incentivize users to stay on track of targets?
   

3. Should users be charged a monthly fee?How can there be gamification or a reward system?
   

Gathering insights

• Cold turkey of quitting habits rarely works. Gradual period of high detox and low detox may be more effective in forming long term habits.
  

• Consider a monitoring period for the app to understand what screen usage to reduce.
  

• It's difficult to categorize screen time into productive and unproductive because most usage cases are not so black and white. Productive and unproductive tasks are more of a spectrum.
  

Competitor Analysis

Competitor analysis was done on some of the top digital detox apps on the market at the time. Each competitor was analyzed for key features, strengths, and weaknesses. Below is the summary:

Key weaknesses identified

• Most apps during setup ask users how much they want to use their phone (Example, 1 hours, 2 hours, 3 hours etc). This is a difficult question for a user to answer without much knowledge about their own usage.
  

• Most competitors lock users out of apps entirely which can be tough for users that use large multi-purposed apps like facebook or instagram.
  

• There is a lack of features to motivate users to stay on top of digital detox goals. There are no repercussions to not following targets.
  

• There is a lack of long term vision for habit change. Most competitors simply ask users how much they want to use their phone and keep those targets forever.
  

Key improvements

1. Motivation

Motivation is an important factor to keep users committed to habit change long term. Without this, the user may quit.  

2. Realistic targets

Rather than asking users how they would like to use their phone, the user needs some guidance about their own usage and what targets are appropriate for them.

3. Gradual habit change

Usage targets need to be adaptable with time and heading towards a common objective. There should not be a requirement for the user to continue updating usage targets.

SWOT analysis

Using the project pitch, A SWOT analysis was done with a group of interaction design students to pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of the project idea.

Mindmap

A mindmap was created as an exercise to make connections between problems that arise from phone addiction and how they relate to the systems that exist today. This mindmap helped with identifying the addictive properties of phones that lead to mental health problems. The following are some of these identified areas:

• Phones have been made to be pleasing to use.
  

• Social media algorithms promote continuous scrolling.
  

• Seeing life of others on social media leads to FOMO (fear of missing out).
  

• News can bring stress and anxiousness.
  

• Digital content is designed to shorten our attention (example: short form video content).
  

Insights from SWOT and mindmap

These activities helped in identifying addictive factors of phone usage.
The following are the identified addictive activities:

- Endless social media scrolling
- Constant messaging
- Viewing social media stories
- Endless watching of Youtube videos
- Endless short form content scrolling (Tiktok/Youtube shorts)
- Posting for likes and comments
- Engaging in likes and comments
- Playing games
- Reading news

Moodboard

Early design phase started with creating a mood-board to capture the feeling of being freed from phone addiction.

Design development

Working from the moodboard, concept sketches of Mindspace's UI was created.

Sketches to UI concepts

Sketches of various screens of Mindspace.

Sketch to design

Sketching initial designs gave inception to Mindpace's monitoring period feature for setting up targets. The aim of doing this was to be sensitive to the spectrum of a task being somewhere between productive and unproductive, an insight gained during research.

The sketch above introduced a "more or less" option for doing a specific action. This UI gave rise to the idea a monitoring period.

Monitoring period would allow the app to learn the average responses of a user with regards to specific phone activities. This would allow Mindspace to set personalized targets for users and avoiding a tough target setup process proposed by competitors.

Modifying targets

After the 1 week monitoring period, Mindspace compiles all user inputs into average targets. In this screen, users will be able to check how long they can do certain activities for the next month.

Users will have one final opportunity to adjust targets and lock them in for the next month.

Below are sketches of this feature leading to the final design.

Final result

The final result of this project is a strong concept and prototype ready to be taken further into further building and development. The following are key UX points addressed:

1. Realistic Targets
Through a 1 week monitoring period, users will be able to choose what repeated action they want to do more or less. With a focus on repeated actions, users will be tracked on cutting down specific actions rather than being locked out of apps entirely. This will allow users to still utilize parts of apps they might view essential.

2. Motivation
With the app's monetary gamification, users are encouraged to keep on top of targets. Mindspace's 5$ per month usage cost becomes free to users who have successful months. Users will also earn awards for consecutive successful months which can be used to make an unsuccessful month free.

3. Gradual habit change
Mindspace takes users through periods of high and low digital detoxification for sustainable habit change. This would ensure users can ease into targets without failing.