Bootcamp Report #3 : Look Mum No Hands!
Episode 3 of my UX/UI Design journey at Ironhack bootcamp in Paris
After a 2nd week full of learnings with the Bio C’Bon presentation at the end, it was time to remove the training wheels and focus on my first individual project at Ironhack: designing a Wellness app! Here is a summary of my project that I’ve developed this week. Unlike the previous reports, this one is not structured on a day-by-day basis, as I wanted to focus more on the UX process I went through during this project.
The Idea
I’ve been a smoker for a couple of years now, and I’ve recently been very keen to finally quit smoking. Some friends of mine told me about quit smoking apps (such as Kwit, or Quit Now), but all of them seemed very similar to me, with no real impact on my smoking habits. I wanted to check whether other smokers who were willing to quit, were feeling the same and looking for something different.
The User Research
I was quite excited to start my research on this topic as I knew the smoking habits were based on multiple psychological, behavioural and social dimensions that I wanted to dig deeper into. I launched an online survey to get some data about smoking and quit smoking attempts. After 2 days, I received more than 80 responses, which was enough to identify the following patterns:
- Profile of the smokers: 66% smokers are 25–35 year old women
- Smoking frequency: 67% of these women smoke more than 6 cigarettes per day.
- Their favourite cigarette moment: 70% of these women consider evenings with friends as the most difficult moment to give up cigarettes.
- Their attempts to quit smoking: 84% of these women have tried to quit smoking at least once in their life.
- Their top reasons to quit smoking : Health comes first, and then money. Smoking becomes more and more expensive.
- Their favourite tools to quit smoking : a strong will and perseverance are obviously key to make the first step. People also mostly use nicotin patches or E-cigarettes as substitutes.
With these findings, I then interviewed 5 smokers who wanted to quit, to dig deeper into the psychological and behavioural aspects of smoking. I was able to identify the following behaviours:
- Smoking is a social habit: people who go out with their friends and drink alcohol tend to smoke much more than during the rest of the day. Smoking is a pleasure people share when they’re in a nice, festive environment with their friends.
- Smoking is a behavioural habit: many people I interviewed told me they felt smoking was part of their personality. They unconsciously link the gesture of smoking with glamour promoted by the movie stars from the 50s, and it’s a pleasant vision of themselves.
The Problem
After empathising with my users to understand the different dimensions associated with smoking, I was able to build my Persona. Her name is Claire, she is 30 years old, working in Marketing in Paris. She is a casual tech user and loves brands like Zara or H&M. She is a heavy social smoker, with the following frustrations and needs:
- Her frustrations: She has already tried to quit smoking several times in her life, without success. She is quite sceptical towards all the quit smoking tools such as nicotine patches, E-cigarettes or apps. When she hangs out with friends, she is always tempted to smoke, while she drinks alcohol and see her friends smoke.
- Her needs: She would like to quit smoking for once and for good, to live a healthier life. She also needs to save money, as smoking is expensive. Lastly, she would like to experience a smoke free way of life!
When she tries to quit smoking, she is quite happy to see that she saves money. However, she notices that these savings are often used to buy drinks when she is out with friends, and these are always situations when she is tempted to smoke again. Based on this, she would love to find a new way to spend her quitter’s savings to hang out with her friends, that would not involve the temptation to smoke…
As a UX designer, how might I design an app that would help my users change moments associated with smoking, into fun smoke free moments with their friends?
A fun and focused quit smoking app : Smoky Vault
After lots of ideation with my fellow Ironhack classmates, I came up with the idea of Smoky Vault: this app enables the users to see how much they’ve saved since they stopped smoking, and use this money to buy tickets to go to events with their friends. Each event is pushed to the user, based on his smoker’s profile, his main areas of interests, and the money he managed to save since he stopped smoking.
A first prototype of the app
The Onboarding
After the user has downloaded the app, he is asked a series of questions, to know more about his smoker’s profile, areas of interest, and his likelihood to smoke again. You will see below a first prototype of the onboarding.
After testing this onboarding phase with my users, I was happy to see that 100% managed to fill in all the information successfully. 2 of them had comments on the wording of some questions, and they were a bit concerned that the only login option was through Facebook. I will address these comments in the next version of my prototype.
Transferring Money on the App
Once the user has filled in all the information, he is all set and can start using the app. One of the key features of the app consists in the 2 following elements:
- Savings tracker: The user is able to see how much money he’s saved since he stopped smoking, based on the information he provided during the onboarding.
- Smoky Vault: The user is also able to put money on the app according to the maximum amount shown on the savings tracker. For example, if he’s saved 30€ since he stopped smoking, he is able to put up to 30€ on the app to spend them on tickets for events.
After testing the concept and the prototype with my users, I identified 2 main challenges:
- Security: it is absolutely critical to show the users that the money they transfer on the app is in a safe place. In my next version of the prototype, I will then include passwords and Verisign technology to put security as my first priority.
- Payment process: besides security, I also have to make sure that the payment process is as smooth and fast as possible, with clear information, guidelines, and icons, to provide the best service to the user.
Booking Events and buying Tickets
Once the user has put money on the app, he is able to browse through a list of suggested events, based on his main areas of interests (cinema, sport, culture etc…), his smoker’s profile and his likelihood to smoke again. For each event, the user can see a progress bar, that shows how many days without smoking the user needs in order to save enough money to unlock and book the event.
I have tested this feature with the users, and received the following feedback:
- The progress bar: For 3 of my users, the progress bar was not really clear, and they were confused about its meaning.
- The event information: For 2 of my users, there was not enough information on each event page. They would have also loved to see the price of the tickets when clicking on each event, to realise how many days without smoking they need, and save enough money to book this event.
What’s next?
I can see 3 main areas of improvement of my MVP to focus on:
- Event curation: In order to attract more users, I need to ensure that all the events suggested on the app are truly tailored to each user and their profile/areas of interest.
- User Interface: I will work on a UI that will be as clear and enjoyable as possible to the user. I also need to convey a sense of security, so that the users feel safe putting money on the app.
- Joint accounts: During my research, I noticed a lot of smokers have tried quitting together with their friends. It would be nice to offer the possibility to open a joint account, where several people could contribute money to unlock bigger events (holidays etc…) in a shorter period of time.
My key take aways from this 3rd week
It has definitely been an intense week, but I really loved working on my individual project with a topic I am really interested in! This week concludes the 1st module of the bootcamp focused on UX Design. I cannot wait to start the 2nd module tomorrow, now focusing on UI Design!
Thanks for reading this 3rd Bootcamp Report! Feel free to clap, applaud and leave comments if you liked this article! Let my journey to become a UX/UI jedi continue!
