Portfolio: Picture Me Calm
A picture schedule app created for children with special needs.
UPDATE: This project is quite old. I am currently in the process of redesigning and developing the updated version
The Project
Abstract
Please pardon the personal nature of this project write up. I designed and created Picture Me Calm for only 2 users, my wife and my daughter. Let me give some context. When our first daughter was born my wife and I were ecstatic and nervous parents, reading all we could on how to raise a child. As Hailey grew, we started noticing some odd behaviors that didn’t coincide with what was deemed normal or typical infant/toddler behavior. After many doctor visits, our Hailey was diagnosed with autism. Autism? What the heck was that? We had a new challenge to tackle. Not only were we first time parents but now we had to figure out what the autism diagnosis meant. In a nutshell, we were now faced with social, physical, mental and emotional challenges that impeded growth seen in typical children. Over time, my wife and I developed strategies that aided our daughter in teaching her basic skills. One of these strategies was a visual picture schedule. Essentially it was a large board with velcro tape that held different visual aids or PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) cards.
PECS cards are basic drawings of activities that become a “communicative partner” with the person who is on the autism spectrum. Essentially, it is an exchange that becomes a request to do something. Each card represents an activity that we requested Hailey to complete.
It was a fantastic system for Hailey who could not retain multiple auditory commands in memory. She would go to the board, select the next PECS card in the sequence and perform that task. When the task was completed, she would reattach to the ‘done’ velcro strip and move to the next card. Once all cards had been flipped over, the “schedule” was complete and she could receive a reward.
This system we employed was a lifesaver. We could have Hailey complete tasks and activities without having to hold her hand each step of the way. The system was not without its problems however.
Problem 1:
As with any physical object and children, the cards would oftentimes get lost or damaged. We were always manufacturing new cards to replace lost or damaged ones. This was a labor intensive process that required printing, laminating and gluing on velcro strips. We could manufacture a new card only to find it missing a few days later.
Problem 2:
PECS cards tend to be a tad on the abstract side. They usually consist of basic tasks and are represented by stick figure drawings. Some of the more complex tasks that Hailey could do were not represented all that well with PECS cards.
Problem 3:
Some of the activities or schedules that we created for Hailey could be quite long and represented by many cards. The physical constraints of the board with velcro strips only allowed for so many cards to fit on it.
Problem 4:
After the completion of a schedule, my wife or I would have to go and ‘reset’ the schedule. This could also be very time intensive depending on the schedule that needed to be reset. Individuals on the autism spectrum need consistency. It was critical that we reset the schedule in the exact order as it was before or Hailey would notice the difference and have a meltdown.
The Idea
One day, after reseting a schedule for Hailey for the umpteenth time, I turned to my wife and said, “We should make an app for Hailey that does all this and makes it easy for us to administer the picture schedules” From that statement, the idea of Picture Me Calm was conceived. We talked about what it should be and do and we crafted a vision of what this app should be.
The Vision
Children with autism frequently have trouble paying attention to, adapting to, and understanding auditory input. They also tend to have strengths in rote memory and the ability to understand visual information.
We need to create a personalized tool used to visually communicate a series of activities or the steps of a specific activity. Visual schedules may be created with photographs, pictures, and written words.
This app will allow for a user to build custom picture schedules for 1 to many children using images of themselves performing tasks. This app will allow for an administrator to reset the schedules easily so that they may be reused immediately.
The Strategy
Research
Competitive Analysis
So I have this idea, big deal. Everyone has ideas and someone probably already had my idea and executed on it. My first task was to see what existed in the space and how good of a product it was. I began my research in the app store using basic keyword searches such as ‘visual schedule’ or ‘picture schedule’. Several offerings indeed existed. I generally like to buy rather than build and so I downloaded several of the apps to evaluate them. If I found one that I liked, and solved the problems I stated above then great, if not then I would proceed.
The apps I evaluated were Choice Works by Bee Visual,LLC and First Then Visual Schedule by Good Karma Applications, Inc. Both apps were well reviewed but in the end, my findings revealed that these apps did not meet all of my needs and were deficient in solving some of my stated problems and goals. I also found issues that I didn’t know I had yet.
I was also surprised that many of the picture schedule apps available were not built for the iPad*. Here was an opportunity to build an app that would be perfect for the large iPad screen and yet still offer it on phones for a more mobile solution.
*This statement reflects research done at that time. Since many of the apps now offer universal device support
User Research
I found reviews to be an extremely insightful way to begin my user research and find out what parents and caregivers wanted in a picture schedule app. In reading reviews, many parents and care givers complained that there were too many ways for their child to accidentally tap on a button and be taken away from the schedule. Fidgety fingers as they called it, created a frustrating experience for a child that doesn’t have the cognitive capacity to return to where they were at after an errant tap.
The lack of well designed apps that didn’t solve all of my problems motivated me to continue down the path of designing an app for my wife and daughter.
Planning
User Flows
I really like Ryan Singers short hand approach to documenting user flows. In this project, I created user flows to map out exactly how a parent should be able to use the app and how a child with special needs could use the app. It gave me great insight into actions that could lead the user into a dead end or keep them on the right path. They also allowed me to quickly explore ideas and options without the overhead of designing screens. I usually do these on a whiteboard or sketched out in my notebook, but for this write up i made them a bit more formal.
Exploration
Personas
I was not a fan of personas until I read this statement from the good folks at Cooper, “Design personas focus on user goals, current behavior, and pain points as opposed to their buying or media preferences and behaviors. They are based on field research and real people.”
I had resented personas because they seemed to be made of people that didn’t have real goals or problems to solve. They were more a character in a book that could be set aside after reading it, never to be thought of again.
For this project, I created personas that matched my daughter and a friend with a special needs daughter. They were genuinely hard to craft but gave me an excellent focal point when thinking about features and objectives. If I couldn’t say the feature would solve a pain point or help accomplish a goal then it was shelved. Here are the personas I created for this project. Names and facts are fictional but the idea represented is not.
Sketching
I began some of the initial design work by creating sketches of screens and work flow.
I quickly realized that designing for individuals on the autism spectrum came with it’s own set of rules and problems. I was not able to test the paper sketches or InVision prototypes as you normally would with typical users. Individuals on the spectrum are very literal. Ideas and concepts are too ephemeral for autistic individuals. Telling them to pretend that something is happening or represents an action was an exercise in frustration for both them and myself.
So, how do you ensure your designs are right? I shifted my focus from schedule doers to schedule creators. I sought feedback from teachers, caregivers, parents of children on the spectrum. The feedback I received from them and the experience I had with our own physical PECS card system, gave me the confidence to move to the next step of hi-fidelity designs.
Create
UI Elements
I transitioned from my sketches and wireframes to high fidelity designs using a simply style tile of common UI control elements, typography and colors.
Gestures
I really wanted to nail the issue of fidgety fingers that other apps didn’t really address. The only actions a child should be able to perform was select a schedule, tap and swipe cards and select a sticker. I still needed a way however to give parents and caregivers the ability to create and administer schedules and cards. Ultimately I settled on a 2 second long press gesture on the settings icon. If the user taps that icon, a quick message appears letting the user know that they had to hold the tap for 2 seconds. This proved really successful. In testing, autistic children were naturally curious and tapped the icon but could sit still long enough to hold it for 2 seconds (fidgety fingers, remember). Parents however had no problem with it. I added the message after the fact because long press gestures are not naturally discoverable especially when you add a specific amount of time to it.
Hi-Fidelity Designs
Once I had the hi-fidelity design work done and I was happy with both the interaction and visual design, I needed to get the app built. I was confident in my idea and confident in my design.
Development
I started reaching out to companies and individuals that could help me execute on my idea. I quickly found out that my idea was going to cost me roughly $30K — $50K to build. I was dishearten to say the least. It was a good idea but I had no idea if I could recoup that in app sales. Daunted by not dissuaded, I looked into outsourcing development to overseas development shops. The prices quoted were significantly less but still out of reach.
What to do? I had a great idea, great designs and no one to build it. I remembered my old photography meetup days and thought, “There must be iOS development meet ups!” What if I could find someone to go in on this venture with me and we split any profit?” I attended my very first iOS meetup that next month and met some wonderful individuals. They were very encouraging but politely declined my proposal to work together on the app. As it turns out, app developers are approached regularly with ‘great’ ideas.
Well that was it. My idea was dead. I couldn’t execute on it. An interesting thing happened however as I attended several of the meetups. I conceptually understood what they were talking about in their presentations. It donned on me that I could learn to code and build the app myself! This naive thought led me to picking up some books on the subject and throwing myself into the process of building an iOS app. 8 months later after working nights and weekends, I had a binary ready to submit to the app store.
The Outcome
Marketing
As it turns out, designing, building and getting an app into the app store is the easy part. The hard part turned out to be marketing the app. I built this app for my daughter and wife as I mentioned in the beginning of this project writeup. I had gone to all this effort, why not see if others would find the app useful and helpful? I contacted blogs and review sites and solicited feedback and reviews. I was ecstatic when the reviews I got were positive and those little burst of sales from the reviews were exciting.
Next Steps
An app is never truly finished and there are several things I would like to refine and add some critical features into the app that I didn’t because of my technical inexperience.
Some of the features I would love to incorporate into my next version:
- I would love to build in the ability for parents to exchange and share picture cards and schedules they have created. this would eliminate the need to recreate the same card or schedule on multiple devices.
- I need to implement a text to speech feature in the app. Some kids on the spectrum have visual impairments and need the card to ’speak to them’ so they can complete the task.
- I need to change the backend structure of how I store data so that it can’t be more easily upgraded and future proofed.
- I would like to update the visual aspect of the app to be more modern and visually appealing.
- I need to add default pictures and schedules rather than giving people a blank canvas. A better empty state experience is required.
These and many other features are on the product roadmap. The app requires a lot of constant attention and work. Changing frameworks and languages coming from Apple to the iOS platform require constant attention, which I haven’t always given to the app. I do have a roadmap of things that I would like to see completed and which have been requested of me by people that have downloaded the app. Right now however Hailey is happy with the app, my wife can administer schedules a lot easier and Hailey’s bedtime routine went from 2 hours to 15 minutes.
Feedback
I received this email from someone who was asking if I was going to create an Android version of the app:
This has been an extremely challenging project for me both personally and professionally. When I receive feedback like this, it makes this project all the more meaningful and special.
To find out more about the app, I invite you to visit www.picturemecalm.com or download the app. (Promo codes available on request)
There are a lot of details that have been left out for brevity’s sake. If you have questions, please ping me at brandonbeecroft@gmail.com or on twitter at @brandonbeecroft.
