InTouch Final Design

Summary of Design Proposal:
The final result of this course is InTouch, an application that allows family members to find mutual free time between schedules without the headaches. They simply enter their schedule for the week and our app will do the rest. InTouch will then find compare family members’ schedules and highlight the free time.

As a calendar application, we also provide a way for people to stay healthy by allowing their vital signs to be checked when the phone application is used with our phone case. The application will store the information and display it in an easy to understand manner. Should any health irregularities arise, the application will be notify other family members which further promote family connection.

Click to interact with the interface

Final Scenario of Design Intervention: 

In our final scenario design, based on the user feedback, we have completely merged the health menu with the calendar system. By logging into the application, the finger scan will be able to automatically record the health status of the user, therefore the user will not need to go out of their way to go into the health menu to have him- or herself tested. By moving the health status panel into the calender, the user can choose to look at their family member’s health at efficiently. In our final scenario, James was able to quickly look at his mom’s health condition and immediately give his mom a call.

Rationale & Issues addressed: We found our design to be easy to understand during user testing, but we listened to the concerns the users did have and addressed them. The first thing users will be greeted with is a finger scan (via the phone case) to improve privacy especially since our application deals with sensitive health information. Also, we made the health section more integrated with the calendar instead of making it separate parts of the application. Now current health status is always accessible with one press within the calendar. Also, a Health button allows one to see a detailed view their history throughout the day. Furthermore, we allow the user to drill into the daily view when they press on the date in the calendar to see exactly when the mutual free time with a family member is. These improvements will make our application more efficient and enjoyable to use which is necessary in order for users to actively use the app which will result in more effective mutual free time results.

What We Learned: 

We learned that whenever designing a product, it is imperative to have a concrete user in mind. We can expanded our knowledge of our design with cultural probes which can be used for information and inspiration. After that, by further strengthening our theoretical users with personas and journey frameworks we eliminated the elastic user made everything easier as all the group members were working off the same user in mind. Additionally, during the design process, it is very helpful to continually conduct user testing and refer back to your findings and focus your decisions based on one’s findings. We had troubles focusing our designs in the beginning and we made decisions based on ‘feel’. However, we managed to redirect our design to information found when doing participatory workshops and user testing which gave our design more of a reason and a more likely chance of it being accepted by our actual users.


Due to various reasons: Our video is not available at the moment. Please refer to the mid-fi prototype video below.

Mid-Fi Prototype

InTouch

For our medium-fidelity prototype, we made the large shift from a cup to a smart phone. While we liked the idea of a humble cup, we decided that a phone would be more practical. A phone has all we need to make our concept a reality. A smart phone can notify the user via vibrations and sound, has a screen, and is always connected to a network. We chose to integrate the health sensing element of our design into a case that will fit onto the phone which would sense vital signs and display the information on the screen.

We are also listening to feedback from our lab that concerned privacy issues. The user probably doesn't want their emotions being broadcast every time they touch our design, so we decided to take what is familiar and make it better: a Calendar.

We often know the general schedule of our family to a small extent; suppose a mother has to work from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM and her child has to attend classes from 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM. Does this mean that it is impossible for these to talk during the entire day? No. But we often treat it that way. Our calendar part of the application allows family members to enter their schedules which will then be analyzed for mutual free times. These free times will be able to be seen easily and the user may also choose to receive notifications for free times. The users will be able to take advantage of previously unused spaces in schedules to connect with other family members.  

Users will have their own code which they can share with other family members. After adding other members, they will be able to compare schedules. Parents will also be able to monitor their child’s schedule by looking at the app. While it is possible people other than family members to share calendars, we are focusing solely on families. Our device may be sold in family packs. 

Privacy 
From our lab and participatory workshop feedback, some had concerns about privacy. Therefore, for calendar events, we allow users to set different categories. For example, an event under a custom 'personal' category may be created whose details are not visible to other family members. By adding a privacy aspect to our application, the user will not feel the need to keep a separate calendar to mark down their events which will allow our app to accurately find mutual free times in family member's schedules.

User Testing

We conducted the user feedback tests by making appointments with a single father and three students from our participatory workshops and talking to them individually. First, we asked them to try out our app without telling them what the product is for or how to use it in order to see if our product is understandable and meets our purpose. Then we interviewed the users with the rest of our questions.

We asked them the following questions:
1. Do you know what is the product for?
2. What are your feelings towards the product's interface?
3. What are your feelings towards the product's usability?
4. Would you use it? Why or why not?
5. Would you recommend your family member to use it?
6. Do you think it will help to tighten the relationship between you and your family members?

To summarize our findings, the users all knew the app was for keeping a schedule and also some health related function at first glance. After we told them that their initial impression of the product's use was correct. They said that they liked that the buttons and text on screen were large and easy to press although three users said that they would like to see a more seamless integration between the calendar and health sections of our app. They liked the fact that the vital signs checker was integrated into a case that serves also to protect the phone. One user said that he would use the product if it the case worked for many phones. The three younger users said they would use if mostly for the calendar part and one said they would like if they would compare their schedules with their friends'. They all would recommend it to their family members because they would like to see how it would work out within their families. All four users said that they thought it was neat to be able to find free times because they don't get to see family members often. The students expressed regret they couldn't spend more time with their respective parent and hoped appreciated our concept. They said that they could definitely see our project serving its purpose of tightening the family relationship and time management.

Lo-Fi Prototype

We decided to go beyond technology for our lo-fidelity prototype and have a cup that people will hold that is able to detect vital signs like heart rate, blood pressure, and temperature. The cup would also be able to send the health status to a family member to notify them if anything is out of the ordinary. Additionally, the cup would be able to detect emotions when being held and provide some sort of status update for people, primarily family members, who are subscribed to your updates. We chose a cup because it could be with the user both in the office and at home.

The cup would have a comfortable and easy-to-hold grip and a screen that will give the user feedback for their vital signs or when they are sharing emotions with others. There are also illuminated strips on both the top and bottom of the cup so the cup which change colours to tell the user their vital signs are in check or if another family member (using a similar cup) is experiencing something happy or sad. Even if one is not able to communicate with family members because of incompatible schedules, one is able to passively experience their emotions by looking at the cup and share their experience when time permits.

During the labs, we got feedback from the class where some suggested it would be neat if these health/emotion sensitive objects are able to extend to a whole line of products instead of being limited to a cup. Some suggested enabling it on the more ubiquitous mobile phone. Others also noted that one may not want to share their emotions constantly, especially very intimate emotions.

Synopsis of how our studies influenced our design

Cultural probe:
There was not enough communication between the single parent family members. Children had busy school schedules while the parent had busy work schedules. Sometimes the workplace would be far from the school so face-to-face communication was not be possible.
Therefore...
We want to provide a way for them to communicate (even family members are far apart) with the limited amount of leisure time that they may have overlapping.

Personas:
We developed two personas, Jim Jackson: a student and son of a single parent; and Mary: single mom, busy taking care of her son and going to work. Jim had some communication issues with his dad, causing strain between them. Mary, on the other hand, had to worry about her son, go to work, and had to worry about her health condition.
Therefore...
For our persona we decided to stay with Mary and her son. The main problem that caused their lack of communication was that they were both very busy that they don’t have time and they don’t know whether the other person has free time to make the communication. In order to solve that, we have developed an app for the smartphone that asks the users to input their schedule for the week and also individual events as the week goes on so that when both family members have shared free times, the application will send a push message to notify them so that they know they both will be available to communicate.

Journey Framework:
We liked our health care idea a lot and we want to stay with it and improve it, as we look back at our journey framework. We found that Mary was very busy throughout her day. She has to manage her work / transportation schedule around. And often she forgets to take her medicine which may lead to health problem.
Therefore...
In order to solve that, we have designed an iPhone case which helps detect the vital signs: heart rate, temperature detection, blood pressure, and respiratory rate. It will report its results on to the users’ iPhone application, and there is another option which the user can choose to either send the result to their relative or not.

Participatory Workshop:
From the participatory workshop, the children said that they wanted to be able to personalize what gets shared with their parents. Also they wanted the device to be customizable in appearance.
Therefore...
So, in order to encourage the child to use our application while not having to share every little detail of the events, we will give the user the option to set privacy options for each category of event. For example, all the details of work- and school-categorized events will be shared with the parent, while personal events like parties or other things may appear as just time blocks in the calendar. By giving privacy, it will encourage children to use our app and not feel the need to use a separate application to keep track of their personal events which will compromise the effectiveness of the app to find mutual free times. Also, our app’s theme will be customizable and the phone case will be available in different styles. The case will be soft touch plastic to not feel like a medical device.