Challenge

‘Free-time paralysis’ is becoming more prevalent in our increasingly time-poor society. Individuals are expected to fit their life admin, social commitments, exercise and relaxation time in the small pockets of time they have around their increasingly demanding work and life commitments.

Problem hypothesis

A problem hypothesis suggests that individuals want to take control and spend their time wisely, but don’t know where to start. When there is free time, individuals are faced with an overwhelming amount of choice for what to spend their precious free time on, uncertainty on where to start, and not having a large enough block of time to do it. This often results in a paralysis where individuals don’t do anything at all, opting to scroll through social media or watching movies to de-stress for the week; however, they walk away from their free time feeling as though they have wasted it.

User Surveys

56 x surveys were conducted

From the survey results, it was evident that users:

1. Feel that they do not have a lot of free time
2. Have a desire to improve their hobbies/skills
3. Want to start new hobbies, but find it difficult to find a place to start
4. Want to share and teach their hobbies to others

The opportunity

I found that there was an opportunity to connect with others with similar hobby interests, allowing those who were experts to share their craft with those who wanted to learn a new hobby or skill set.

A large number of people spend their time watching internet videos, playing video games, and scrolling through social media. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing when done in short bursts, individuals walk away from their free time feeling lack of accomplishment and uninspired by their free time if they feel that none of it was used pursuing the things which made them feel engaged.

The issue arises when people don’t know where to start with a new hobby, and individuals who don’t yet have established hobbies find it difficult to determine what they would like to spend their free time doing. 

Problem statement

Wireframes

The initial concept design for the app was based on hand sketches. Low fidelity wireframes were created to capture the key features and content layout.

A key learning here was that I left out the navigation aspects for my prototype. This is likely because I moved straight to creating the prototype on Adobe XD after the initial wireframes were created. It would have been worthwhile to do a neater iteration of the wireframes (or create low fidelity digital wireframes) and create a wireflow before moving onto prototyping (Lesson on never skipping steps!).

Second iteration

The second iteration of the prototype in the next sprint focused on these three prioritised items that came out of user testing:

1. Users want to be able to search and browse through profiles based on their interests, rather than swipe through everyone - Notably, there was no page built out for users to pre-select their hobby interests, before swiping through user profiles to follow
2. Menu was unconventional - As the navigation between pages was hidden in the side menu, many users found it difficult at first to navigate their way through the app as they were expecting a bottom or top navigation menu - similar to the layout of popular social media apps such as Instagram and Facebook
3. Build out more of the user flow - as very minimal functionality was built out in the first iteration, users found it difficult to understand how the different aspects of the app would work holistically. I focused my second iteration on designing the screens which conveyed the core functionality of the app to users, rather than trying to build out everything and anything (like I had in the first iteration, such as building out a setting screen and a chat function)

To see a demo of my prototype, please view the demo video below.

• The importance of empathising with users - As surveys were carried out instead of user interviews, it was difficult to dive deeper into the emotions and goals which motivated my core user group towards their activities

• Seek feedback throughout the process - As I built my second iteration, post my user feedback session, I realised that there were simple things I missed out on because I was so ingrained in the concept creation and design. Had I engaged my users for feedback earlier, I would have picked up on this. A good time to conduct my first user feedback session would have been after my low to medium fidelity wireframes were created

• The value of working with a team (collaboration) - As an addition to the learning above, if I had a team surrounding me, feedback from the team would have also enabled me to create a more complete prototype, along with the ability to cross-pollinate ideas and leverage different expertise; however, as this was a solo project, I missed out on working with a team

• Build out what you will test - I got a bit carried away in my first iteration and ended up building out a lot of cool and pretty screens which didn't convey much meaning about the app when my users tested it (e.g. settings screen). A key learning here is to build out the core functionality which you want users to test first

• Slow it down - A lot of my key failings came around from skipping steps in the design process. I realised that there was a need to work quickly, but also to not skip steps, and to slow things down and think back to the users’ perspective throughout the design process