An app for ADHDers
Racacoonie
Brief:
For my wellness project in the Ironhack UX/UI bootcamp, I decided to explore the topic of ADHD, and more specifically ADHD management. In two weeks I had to go from doing all of the research to creating a MVP of an app.
Main Challenges:
Currently there are already many apps that help ADHDers manage some of the struggles brought on by their condition. These apps can be timers (like Pomodoro), planners, anxiety and meditation apps, etc… However the main issue of these apps is that they are not made for ADHDers, and the apps which are targeted are paid with very little trial time, so for someone with ADHD this can mean one of two things, either they know the trial is too short and quit before they start, or it means an impulsive purchase, which might not even be worth it in the long haul.
In order to truly understand why these apps don’t work for ADHDers as long term solutions for their struggles I started this project by focusing my research only on people who had an official ADHD diagnosis, or were in the midst of getting one. This last group consisted of people who were followed by doctors closely (be it psychologists or psychiatrists) and were in the process of getting diagnosed with those same professionals.
Research Insights:
I started the research itself by conducting a survey, and while waiting for responses I also gathered insights from competitor analysis and secondary research. Even though it might seem premature to some I also took this chance to start building my moodboard using my visual competitive analyses as a base.
From the survey resulted a lot of interesting insights. Firstly, a confirmation to an assumption: Every ADHDer in the sample pool had tried apps to manage some of the struggles brought on from the symptoms. Out of these a substancial amount had such negative experiences that they avoided trying new apps.
But why did these ADHDers have such a poor response to apps? Well there were several reasons mentioned in the survey, such as: Apps being targeted for, and suggested by people who “incorrectly” self diagnosed; Being overall uninteresting; forgetting they existed; working only when complementing usage with ADHD medication; etc…
Naturally the following step to the survey was to conduct live interviews. From the interviewees the responses were fairly similar, however it started to became apparent that there was one common denominator behind these negative experiences. Someway or another their feedback all seemed to relate to Executive Dysfunction. A major complication that ADHDers struggle with. Another issue point out was Object Permanence.
For those unfamiliar with the afore mentioned terms I shall make a small break to give a bit more of context before moving forward to the creation of our define stage. Executive Dysfunction is “ term used to describe faults or weaknesses in the cognitive process that organizes thoughts and activities, prioritizes tasks, manages time efficiently, and makes decisions.” Meaning that the brain doesn’t fully connect what ADHDers know they have to do, to the actual action. They can be aware of what needs to be done, but not being able to perform it without explaining why. This generates a lot of negative feelings related to anxiety, self-loathing, depression, etc… which in turn leads to an increase of frequency of the executive dysfunction creating a toxic, never ending cycle.
As for Object Permanance it refers essencially to what we know commonly as “out of sight, out of mind”. Once something isn’t visually clear and of constant presence, it will naturally disappear from the reccollection of an ADHDer. In the present case this translates to them installing an app but by not seeing it everyday, or not be reminded of it, it ceases to exist from their mind, and as such, loses its purpose.
Defining and Ideating:
With all of this insight gathered it was time to proceed onto the creation of a user persona. For this case let’s consider Daniel Costa, 27, from Lisbon. Daniel is someone who was very self aware from a young age that they were not like their peers. When mentioning this concern to the school psychologist he was dismissed and simply told to try harder. Because of this early dismissal it wasn’t until Daniel was young adult that he faced the courage to seek a diagnoses once again. His aim in a diagnoses was to feel reassured that he was doing enough, and that there was in fact something physically wrong.
The fact that Daniel was dismissed as a child meant that he tried to manage his whole life by trying several different external factors, such as apps, forums dedicated to ADHD, methods, psychologists, etc… Due to him have tried so much, and in specific, so many apps, it became easy to pinpoint a specific problem statement:
In other words: How can I create an app that provides enough stimuli in a constant manner in order to increase long term usage, and by doing so, help Daniel manage his ADHD?
Ideation and Design Process:
Since I already knew I wanted my product to be an app, the only thing left to ideate was on how it was going to work. After brainstorming and coming up with a lot of different user flows I came down to one particular idea. My goal was to create an app that helped any ADHDer focus on a struggle of theirs, but only one at a time (setting multiple, unrealistic goals, was one of the factors that lead to an overall bad experience). After selecting their goal they can choose one of two ways to work on it: A) by creating a virtual pet that reflects the work the ADHDer does on themselves or B) Gamifying their struggles through a little healthy competition.
Why these two possibilities, and why can they only focus on one goal. This has several purposes that can be directly traced to the insights gathered in the research stage. Firstly starting small is the key to success. ADHDers have the tendency to bet big, and it feels great when they manage to achieve something even though they skipped a bunch of small steps, but when it doesn’t work out it becomes a very frustrating experience. Secondly by working on this with only one methodology provides the ADHDer with a more tailored experience where they can control the environment in which they perform best, either by compaction or by pressure and competitiveness. By selecting a method, however, it doesn’t mean that they are locked in and must follow through with their decision, they are free to alter their preferred method anytime.
In fact, this brings us to the main reason why the app is to function as described. When the usage of the app lowers, as we know from our research that it will happen eventually, the app can motivate the user to retry the app by exploring something new. Either a goal, or a method, and as such the range of novelty becomes much wider, and consequently so does the dopamine of trying something new.
For this specific solution I decided to unite the concept testing with the low fidelity prototype. Afterall, what better way is there to test a concept with ADHDers than to have them actually interact with it directly? This concept testing was received greatly by the testers who provided very positive and useful feedback.
Since the concept testing proved to be a success, I felt confident in recreating them in mid-fidelities. Once these mid-fis were completed I put them through testing with a new sample of ADHDers. This time, even though the feedback was still positive, I was given a lot of useful insight that could be applied instantly. These were mostly small desires of the users like, cutting down on text and buttons, making design more intuitive, etc…
I took all of the feedback given in the mid-fidelity testing's and I thoroughly applied them in the high-fidelities. Of these I created two versions varying in color and fonts and created a desirability testing to see which one better conveyed my brand values, and made the users feel more intrigued. I also got my versions analyzed in a class design critique. Once again I was given valuable feedback which I applied to the most liked version before testing the prototypes. More than feedback on the functionality of the app, this time it focused almost exclusively on aesthetic values: Text not as readable as it should be, over complex background, button text size, amongst other small details.
This time I applied all of the feedback instantly so that I could test the high-fidelities as soon possible, and more importantly in time for my final presentation. Much like it was the case for the low-fidelities, the last tests of the app, now with the official name of Racaccoonie, had positive feedback without major wishes for change.
The next, and final step of the project consisted on recreating 3 screens of the app in another device other than the main one. Since this app is all about management, and the prototypes flows are all focused on Executive Dysfunction as a goal, it made the most logical sense to recreate this app in a Apple Watch. For an ADHDer to be able to use the app on the watch would imply a whole other way to make the app a more constant, yet organic part of their life. Hopefully this would translate to an aid in maintaining higher, longer term usage rate.
Next Steps:
For next steps I want to focus on prototyping the entirety of the app so that its fully functional as a prototype. Following that I would update the style guide, and prepare the file for developers. In an absolutely ideal world, I would like to actually create and publish the app, but for now I’ll focus solely on finishing the prototypes.
Another thing I would like to explore in next steps are the full range of possibilities for the app on other devices, creating prototypes and consolidating their viability/need through testing and further user research.