Project type
Academic
Product / Client
Life-Time
Using persuasion strategies to reduce digital overconsumption
Background
This project was completed as part of the Persuasive Design course taught by Prof. Geoff Kaufman at Carnegie Mellon University. My team and I utilized some of the persuasive strategies taught in class to create Life Time, an app that helps users reduce their digital overconsumption and actually do the things they say they want to do.
Team
3 UX researchers
1 Product designer
1 Content Writer
My Conributions
User flows
Wire-framing
Visual design
Prototyping
Timeline
4 Weeks
Tools
The Problem
Young adults are spending excessive time using digital devices despite recognizing that they do not wish to do so
Our research concluded that young adults often felt addicted to their digital devices, particularly smartphones, spending excessive amount of time scrolling on the internet everyday. This leads to feelings of restlessness and anxiety (Bellis, M. A., Sharp, C. A., Hughes, K., & Davies, A. R. ,2021).
8 out of 10
Participants reported that they spend more time on their digital devices than they wish to
9 out of 10
Participants think they should be spending more time on their hobbies
6 out of 10
Participants had previously attempted to decrease their screen time
Design Challenge
How might we make it easier for young adults to spend more time on their Life-Time activities so that they spend less of it scrolling on their phones?
Our Approach
We decided to use persuasive strategies to make it easier for people to participate in Life-Time activities, thereby reducing excessive screen-time
We found out that people had desire to spend time on their hobbies and social activities but they often ended up spending time consuming digital media due to its ease and convenience. Therefore if we can make the desired activity easier and convenient, people may spend more time engaging in them.
Making values salient
According to self awareness theory (Duval and Silvia, 1972, 2001; Scheier and Carver, 1977) making people aware of their values behind why they wish to do certain activity make them more likely to do it.
Psychological distance
Thinking about a task abstractly (the reasoning and emotions) and also concretely (the time, day and space at which to do it) can increase likelihood of doing the task.(Based on CLT by Liberman and Trope, 1998, 2003)
Hypocrisy induction
If people are not acting in accordance to their values, making them explicitly aware of it and causing cognitive dissonance may motivate people to change behavior (Aronson et al. 1991)
Conformity and social proof
People wish to be consistent with societal norms and be accepted as part of their group, Therefore if activities are planned with friends or loved ones they are more likely to be followed through. (Cialdini, R. B., 1984)
Design Principles
We questioned what core values our solution should hold based on which our design principles for the product were established
User flow and Information Architecture
Team brainstormed feature ideas based on which I created a user flow for the MVP and sketched low-fi wireframes.
Visual Design
The team discussed that the experience should feel like scrapbooking. Inspired by this idea I created a mood-board which helped me define the visual language and style guide for our app.
UI Design
I converted wireframe sketches into higher fidelity UI screens as our final MVP.
Reflection
The concept holds a lot of potential for designing delightful interactions by adding motion and sound. Team also discussed ideas for using short quizzes and tracking activity across other apps to suggest life-time activity ideas to the user.
While adding new features it will remain important not to turn the app into another over-stimulating social media platform, as that will be opposite of what we're trying to achieve.