My main focus in 2021 has been honing my skills as a UX designer. I enrolled in the UX Design Institute, and designed Fly UX as part of my professional diploma in UX Design.
The challenge was to design a prototype flight booking app for a conceptual startup airline called Fly UX, running through all the fundamental stages of the UX process. Whilst being smaller than rival airlines, the aim was to use well considered design as the competitive advantage over these larger and better resourced businesses.
User Experience Research, Interviews, UI/UX Design, Graphic Design, User Testing, Prototyping, Wireframing
Adobe XD, Miro, Camtasia, Mirror 360, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop
Spree is an exercise app for reducing the risk of frailty in older adults, and encouraging communities to support at-risk individuals. It went on to win 1st prize at the Global Design Challenge for Sport and Physical Activity 2021, and a €10,000 development grant. It was a joint effort by Ross Dowd, Danann Cumiskey, John Glynn, Shane Keating and Tom English.
UX is a process, and the development of Fly UX followed a set design methodology to achieve the best results possible.
The onset of frailty in older adults brought on by continued social isolation can result in very serious consequences. Falls in older adults can cause significant physical and psychological injury to the individual, and send them to the hospital where they could contract further illness. Impaired strength and balance contribute to most falls in older adults. Improving stability requires a specific, fully tested and safe exercise programme and ongoing commitment by the older person. However, people are feeling isolated and alone, often with little motivation to keep active when there are other concerns to worry about.
The onset of frailty in older adults brought on by continued social isolation can result in very serious consequences. Falls in older adults can cause significant physical and psychological injury to the individual, and send them to the hospital where they could contract further illness. Impaired strength and balance contribute to most falls in older adults. Improving stability requires a specific, fully tested and safe exercise programme and ongoing commitment by the older person. However, people are feeling isolated and alone, often with little motivation to keep active when there are other concerns to worry about.
Strength and balance exercises have been shown to reduce the instances of serious injury sustained in a fall in the elderly and less physically mobile. Adherence to strength and balance exercise programmes such as the Otago Exercise Programme can prevent the occurrence of serious falls by as much as 35 - 40%, and has been proven in studies to significantly reduce the risk of death and falling in older community-dwelling adults.
Although many, many exercise apps are available, we found the overwhelming majority are targeted at a much younger audience, both in terms of their content and usability. Setup of new apps was found to be a pain point for a significant portion of our users. Creating an appropriate and accessible app for adults over the age of 65 is our priority.
The onset of frailty in older adults brought on by continued social isolation can result in very serious consequences. Falls in older adults can cause significant physical and psychological injury to the individual, and send them to the hospital where they could contract further illness. Impaired strength and balance contribute to most falls in older adults. Improving stability requires a specific, fully tested and safe exercise programme and ongoing commitment by the older person. However, people are feeling isolated and alone, often with little motivation to keep active when there are other concerns to worry about.
The first step in the process was to research our competitors in the airline app industry to identify best practices and conventions to follow. I was trying to establish how best in class apps solve their problems and what could I emulate, as well as identifying what these apps are not doing so well and what could be improved upon. I researched a range of apps, including Southwest Airlines, Ryanair and Easyjet.
This research gave me a very strong understanding as to what general conventions are used in flight booking apps and might be worth adopting in my own design. Unique to each app, I also took note of the good and the bad, some of these findings include:
After conducting these competitive benchmarks, the next step was to see how an objective user interacts with them. I planned and conducted usability tests to gather qualitative data on user’s behaviors, actions and mental models as they used these flight booking apps. I created a test script for myself to help streamline the usability testing, which included the instructions for the task at hand, as well as specific questions to ask the participants along the way. I tested two apps (Ryanair and Easyjet) with two participants. They completed the tasks on a phone, which was mirrored to a display and recorded, allowing me to review and study the footage later.
I took shorthand notes during the usability, and further extensive notes on reviewing the footage. I found the testing to be extremely informative, in both listening to what the users said, as well as motioning what they actually did. A few of the many key insights were:
Strength and balance exercises have been shown to reduce the instances of serious injury sustained in a fall in the elderly and less physically mobile. Adherence to strength and balance exercise programmes such as the Otago Exercise Programme can prevent the occurrence of serious falls by as much as 35 - 40%, and has been proven in studies to significantly reduce the risk of death and falling in older community-dwelling adults.
Although many, many exercise apps are available, we found the overwhelming majority are targeted at a much younger audience, both in terms of their content and usability. Setup of new apps was found to be a pain point for a significant portion of our users. Creating an appropriate and accessible app for adults over the age of 65 is our priority.
Once the initial research was gathered, the next step was to discern meaning from it all. I ran a virtual affinity workshop with a peer of mine over Discord, while we collaboratively worked on a shared Miro board. The goal was to interpret and group the data gathered throughout the research phase, and to use these insightful groupings to spot opportunities for the product.
Our focus was to provide the support and encouragement required by our users to keep active. We researched what drives people to exercise, and what motivates individuals to keep up habits in general. Involvement with family and friends was high on that list, and drove our design iterations throughout the process. Our competitive benchmarking also uncovered that while there were a number of app and web products available that could provide instruction on frailty prevention exercise, the technical barrier to entry was often too high for the intended audience.
It was at this point we wondered what if that technical barrier to entry could be offloaded to another? And what if these same individuals could not only assist in setup and familiarising the older adult with their exercise tool, but could act as their personal coach in their exercise journey? And could a more social exercise journey provide more incentive to keep active?
Based on these insights, we expanded our app design to incorporate three different user roles:
Spree's "Champions" are near-frail older adults who will be guided through accessible and appropriate exercises to maintain their mobility.
The Champion is provided with exercises that are appropriate to their frailty level, as catalogued by the Spotter and a baseline frailty test. Exercise instructions are delivered in a clear and concise manner, using a combination of text and looped videos. The Champion has the choice to follow along with the exercise videos at their own pace, or to call their Spotter to remotely exercise and have them coach through it.
"Spotters" nominate and aid their Champions in the initial setup, and act as their personal coach.
A Spotter has two clear roles, onboarding and coaching. By allowing the Spotter to create their Champion’s account, we make the onboarding process simple and streamlined. By reducing the barrier to entry, we aim to encourage more older adults to take up exercise via their smart devices.
"Supporters" are the friends and family of the Champion, cheering loudly from the sidelines.
The friends and family of the Champion are invited to download the Spree app as a Supporter, a distinct app mode solely devoted to noisily and proudly cheering on your fitness heroes. On the Champion completing an exercise, the Supporters receive a notification prompt to congratulate them. This support system is in place so as a family, a neighbourhood, or even a local GAA club can rally behind their local heroes and cheer them on during their fitness adventure.
The groupings from the affinity workshop went on to inform a customer journey map. The user’s experience and sentiment was rated as they navigated the typical booking process on an airline app. I took note of the satisfying moments and of the pain points, noting where best my product could provide an intervention.
I translated what I considered to be the primary use case scenario into a user flow diagram. I found generating the diagram to be very beneficial, in terms of collecting my thoughts on the process, as well as streamlining my duties later on when I got to the sketching and the prototyping phase.
The user flow allowed me to create preliminary sketches. Based on the feedback I had received during the usability tests, my goal was to create a UX experience and visual language that was not mentally taxing or overwhelming for the user.
This is only the start of the Spree journey, as we look to develop our dream into a fully fledged app.
The interaction sketches were translated into a medium fidelity prototype using Adobe XD. The prototype was made to represent the booking experience as closely as possible before committing to a high fidelity prototype, including scrollable elements and transition states. Feel free to try out the interactive prototype below, and for your convenience, please see listed the primary interaction use case it is designed for.
Finally, wireframes were created containing all the necessary details needed for a development team to work off of. The annotations I provided were detailed, noting the various element states, transitions, and element affordances among other comments, to ensure the developer would not be left unsure as to what was expected.
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