Focus Forest
SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS • STORYBOARDS • INTERACTION DESIGNA delightful and engaging game for parents in higher education to manage academic and parental responsibilities with their families.
Project Context
• Master's level course project
• Fall 2023, 15 weeks
• Team: Ellie Park, Jisu Kim, Aby Kottoor, Ziyi ShaoRoles and Responsibilities
Weeks 4-8
Adapted from ‘Being a Student Parent, how we Balance Studying and Family Life’, University of Sunderland Podcast, Youtube, 2023.Insight #2: Heightened “Time-Squeeze”
Several academic sources we investigated provided anecdotes about how student-parents experience heightened “time-squeeze”, resulting in “less time to spend on every other domain (time spent in academic work, with children, sleep, leisure, etc)” [2]. This lack of time has a negative effect on various aspects of the parent’s life, particularly the relationship with their spouse and child.
As shown in a documentary produced by Feather River College, student-parents utilize time management strategies to cope but have difficulty keeping up with them.
[1] Williams, B. (2022). Many Determined College Students Are Also Dedicated Parents: A Preview of the Student-parent Affordability Report. Washington, DC: The Education Trust [2] Augustine, J. M., Prickett, K. C., & Negraia, D. V. (2018). Doing it all? Mothers' college enrollment, time use, and affective well‐being. Journal of Marriage and Family, 80(4), 963- 974 • Figma/FigJam
• Adobe Illustrator
• Qualtrics
• MS Office (Excel, Teams)
Weeks 9-13
In a Snapshot…
Process
Weeks 1-3
Background
In one of my core classes in Georgia Tech’s MS-HCI program, HCI Foundations, we formed teams of 5 to design in a problem space of our choosing. From the get-go, our team was interested in exploring the jobs of parents, and we brainstormed a few related user groups, including first-time parents, teen parents, and parents who have kids with special needs.
Eventually, we chose to design for student-parents, whom we define as parents enrolled in higher education with at least one child under the age of 16. While researching problem areas, we found that despite the challenges and responsibilities student-parents face, there is not much recognition of their needs in digital systems.
Primary Tools
• UX Research: Literature Review, Survey, Semi-Structured Interviews, Affinity Mapping, Task Analysis
• UX Design: Ideation, Wireframing, Visual Design, Prototyping, Design Language StudyDefine
LITERATURE REVIEWBeing a student and parent — a unique situation.
Weeks 14 and 15
Student-parents are a fast-growing population; according to the National Center for Education Statistics, approximately 25% of all college students are also parents [1]. Our team conducted an in-depth literature review on 6 academic and 3 non-academic sources to acquire a baseline understanding of the challenges that student-parents face and their goals.
Insight #1: Social Stigma
According to the University of Sunderland podcast, student-parents “experience stress about raising their children, receiving support, and managing their finances”, but are hesitant to reach out for resources due to stigma on campus.
Adapted from ‘A Look into the Lives of Student-Parents at Feather River College’, YouTube, 2021.SURVEYTime-squeeze is a bigger problem than we thought.
With insights from our literature review in hand, our team set out to gain information about the severity of student-parent challenges to identify the most pressing stressors. We developed a survey in Qualtrics, which we distributed on student-parent forums across several social media platforms including Facebook, Reddit, and Discord.
As part of our survey distribution, we aimed to get a diverse set of responses to make our quantitative and qualitative data richer. Our team ensured that only student-parents could submit responses. We received 16 responses in total, and I was responsible for analyzing the data below.
Results
68.8% of student-parents are either married or have long-term partners.
Insights
68.8% of student-parents are either married or have long-term partners.
The majority of student-parents receive childcare assistance from family members.
75% of student-parents ranked time management as either the most stressful or second most stressful challenge they deal with.
The majority of student-parents receive childcare assistance from family members.
When asked to rank given stressors (ie. time management, social isolation, finances etc) against each other from most (1) to least stressful (6), 75% of student-parents ranked time management as either 1 or 2.
Putting it all together…
Research
HOW-MIGHT-WEWith insights from our literature review and survey, our team formulated a How-Might-We statement that guided the direction of our design process moving forward. The most important finding in forming the HMW was discovering that time-squeeze is the most stressful challenge faced by student-parents.
SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEWSUnderstanding the experience with time-squeeze.
Our insights from the Define stage and our How-Might-We helped our team formulate questions for semi-structured interviews with student-parents and subject-matter-experts (SMEs) in this problem area. We decided to do interviews as semi-structured because we wanted to provide as safe a space possible for student-parents to expand on their challenges with time-squeeze and go in-depth into their experiences with juggling responsibilities and how their family is involved.
We interviewed 3 student-parents (1M, 2F) and 1 SME and received rich qualitative data. Participants were recruited from the pool of survey respondents.
Our team asked a mixture of defined and open-ended questions to ensure a richer pool of data from participants.
Interview Quotes
“I always have a thousand things to do…I’m not sure what I should be doing when!” - Student-parent
“Mundane tasks become even worse when you’re juggling two roles.” - Student-parent
Analysis
AFFINITY MAPPINGAfter analyzing our interviews, we synthesized both our quantitative and qualitative findings using an affinity map. The affinity map helped us generate themes and groups that laid the foundation for our design requirements. I was responsible for leading the affinity mapping process, which also involved “walking the wall” to add preliminary design ideas based on the themes emerging.
We used Microsoft Excel to take notes during each interview.“I have both physical and digital calendars. Sometimes I have information on one and not the other, which gets confusing.” - Student-parent
Uncovering key themes.
Themes began to emerge…
Using the themes and groups formed while affinity mapping, we created 2 personas to accurately represent our student-parents and subject-matter expert. As a team, we also created an empathy map to further empathize with the needs and pain points of our student-parent persona in a way that emphasizes how they would think and feel and what they would say or do.
Virtual Interviews with student-parents and a subject-matter-expert
“Many student-parents I’ve worked with have strained relationships with their spouse due to lack of communication and understanding.” - SME
“I like visualizing my tasks to understand everything I have to do in a day.” - Student-parent
The notetaker from each interview analyzed the interview by creating codes developed from the interview recordings and notes taken. We pulled key insights from these codes through several team discussions.
What do student-parents say, think, do, and feel?
HIERARCHICAL TASK ANALYSISDaily routines are punctuated by stress.
Next, our team created two Hierarchical Task Analyses (HTA) to visualize the morning and evening routines of a student-parent. While synthesizing our research, we found that our participants repeatedly described their day being split strictly into a morning and evening routine, with members of their family being involved at different points in each routine.
As a team, we decided that it would be beneficial to map out these two routines to identify how student-parents are managing their time during these routines and any high points of stress.
Morning Routine
Student-parent interview participants reported that their stress levels increase as their morning routine progresses. The primary reason was their children throwing tantrums during different subtasks, resulting in time-crunch during the rest of the day.
Evening Routine
Student-parents noted that spouse involvement is crucial during their evening routine to control stress levels, especially in helping out with subtasks like cooking dinner so the student-parent has time to study.
Design
DESIGN REQUIREMENTSIncreasing delight, motivation, organization, and family involvement.
Prior to starting any design work or coming up with concepts, our team worked together to create 6 design requirements that our eventual system would ideally meet. As a whole, these requirements focused on increasing motivation, delight, organization, and family involvement to alleviate time-squeeze for student-parents.
Affinity Map ThemesDesign Requirements
IDEATION10 Divergent Design Concepts.
With our design requirements in place to guide us, our team used techniques including SCAMPER and Crazy 8’s to develop divergent design ideas. We chose these techniques because as a team of 5, we found that we’d be able to generate ideas quickly and even build off of each others’ ideas.
We then consolidated our ideation into 10 distinct design concepts that address our design requirements:
AI Task Analyzer
Analyzes how time is being spent in different categories (academics, childcare, household etc) and provides suggestions on changes that can be made to improve time-squeeze.Pie 24
Digital planner shaped like pie pieces that student-parents can use to visualize their 24 hours. User can create personalized time increments on the pie.Task Stack
Digital calendar for a student-parent couple to see both their personal tasks and shared tasks. The users can “stack” the task onto their own cone or assign tasks onto other’s cone.Hologram Helper
An AR system offering holographic interactions for student-parents to connect with their children.Smart Planner
A “smart” planner that accommodates both physical and digital versions and syncs changes. Allows for categorization of tasks and customization in viewing by day, week, and month.Community Exchange Forum
Digital platform for student parents to connect and offer mutual support within their community. Exchange of services such as childcare.Calendar Sync
A tool that collects data from various
sources like calendars, Canvas, and
physical planners, and consolidates them
into a unified format.Task Adventure!
Game application that presents a challenge of tackling tasks throughout the day. Daily tasks are presented on a map and the family moves along as whole unit, gaining prizes along the way.What Should I Do?
Aids student-parents in finding small portions of their day to focus on their mental health, by utilizing user preferences for wellness activities and syncing to their calendar.Vision It!
A digital vision board that incorporates physical
components by allowing student-parents to drag
n’ drop stickers, images, and GIFs to create a
calendar that is image-based instead of text-based.STORYBOARDSEnvisioning two possible user experiences.
We converged on our top two design concepts from the original 10, which were Task Adventure! and Vision It! We found that these two ideas were most holistic in addressing our design requirements and had the most potential for being engaging for student-parents and their families.
Our team created a storyboard for each of these concepts:
Task Adventure! Storyboard
Illustrates Sarah’s journey from confusion to accomplishment in completing tasks using Task Adventure!
Task Adventure helps establish understanding and connection between Sarah, her spouse, and her child, giving Sarah motivation and delight.
Vision It! Storyboard
Illustrates Amy’s difficulty in keeping up with college assignments due to her calendar being text-heavy and overwhelming.
Upon using Vision It, she finds that visual representations help her feel clearer about her tasks and she can better keep up with her academic and parental responsibilities.
CHOOSING A FINAL CONCEPTA concept that is holistic, engaging, and family-oriented.
Our team chose our final concept using a matrix that assesses how well each of our concepts address our design requirements. Each concept was ranked from 1 (poorly addressing) to 5 (addressing well) for each requirement.
Based on the averages, we converged on Task Adventure, as we found it to be the more holistic, engaging, and family-oriented concept.
SKETCHES AND WIREFRAMESIterating on key points in the experience.
Next, our team created sketches and lo-fi wireframes for Task Adventure. I was responsible for creating the wireframes along with another team member.
Sketches
These sketches helped us lay out the key interaction points of our concept that correspond to our design requirements. We focused on laying out these components as a student-parent would experience them.
These interaction points include:
• Creating a family
• Adding tasks
• Choosing a task
• Completing tasks and progressing in the map
• Receiving a reward
Wireframes
While wireframing, we made the following changes to the main interaction points:
Adding Multiple Family Members
The student-parent can add multiple family members to ensure that tasks involve a group effort.
Progressing through the Map as Family
The daily map provides an interactive and engaging way of seeing progression through tasks.
Nudges to complete tasks
Student-parents will receive “quests” to complete one-time and recurring tasks.
Quests can be declined.
Dressing up their Character
Family members can customize their character initially and using rewards earned later on.
DESIGN LANGUAGEAnalyzing competitors’ design styles.
To build our visual design language, our team started by conducting a design language study, in which we explored several UI design trends and how similar apps approach their visual identity.
Exploring Design Styles
Neobrutalism
This style would lend itself to interesting gamified components, including buttons and characters. It would make the interactions within our system feel fun and energetic.
Bauhaus
A bauhaus style would lend itself well to more geometric, background components of our interface. This would make our interface feel refreshing and inviting.
Examining Competitors
Defining our Design Language
After the design language study, our team created a series of moodboards to help us put together our own visual identity.
DESIGN SYSTEMCreating an inviting and energetic visual identity.
We created our design system shown below, consisting of primary/secondary colors, typography, icons, components, and character design.
Colors
We want student-parents and their families to feel energized and enthusiastic to complete tasks using our system, so our primary color is orange.
Typography
We want our game to feel inviting and friendly, so we use rounded typefaces like Gotham Rounded and Nunito.
Components
Our buttons and navigation bar have a gamified feel due to their two-toned look. Gus, our mushroom mascot, guides the student-parent through the game upon first-usage.
DESIGN ALTERNATIVESDesign decisions and tradeoffs.
With a cohesive design system in place, our team went through a few iterations of hi-fidelity prototyping in Figma. Through this process, we made several tradeoffs on designs based on the needs of student-parents and prioritization of design requirements.
Family Member Icons
becameDates in the Quest List
becameGus, the Fungus
becameThe original gendered icons could make student-parents feel constricted in how they are being represented in the system, so we used more generic icons to indicate family members.
The original way to change dates in the quest list didn’t allow for enough user freedom. In the second iteration, we changed the dates to be horizontally scrollable so the user can see more options at the same time.
While ideating, we didn’t intend on including a mascot to guide student-parents. However, while wireframing, we thought a mascot would motivate student-parents and bring energy and delight to the design language. So Gus the Fungus was born!
Several iterations of Gus:
FINAL SOLUTIONA delightful and engaging mobile game.
Our final solution, Focus Forest, provides student-parents with a new lens to approach daily tasks - a family-oriented game!
Customizing Characters
• Family members choose and customize characters that represent themselves.
• Characters are purposefully gender-neutral and can be customized by body type, skin tone, and facial expression
Interactive Quest Map
• Student-parents and their families track quest progress in the quest map
• Quest map provides daily nudges and engagement through a rewards system
• Family moves as a unit through the map
• Map provides a visual representation of the student-parent’s quests
Creating a Family
• Student-parents can specifically invite their spouse to the family, who will receive an invitation by email or text
• Gus, our mascot, provides the student-parent with guidance and motivation throughout this onboarding
Adding Quests
• Student-parents can create quests for each of their household tasks
• Quests have several categories, including frequency and whether it is shared
• Student-parents can assign tasks to their spouse, boosting spouse engagement and understanding of student-parent workload
Delightful Motion Design Elements
• Game includes motion design elements such as Gus’s movements, notification pop-ups, and family member cards
• Animations give the game a bounciness, making the experience more lively and engaging
EVALUATIONThe interactive map causes some confusion for our users.
We performed moderated usability testing with 5 participants, all of whom were students and one of whom was married. Due to the student-parent user group being relatively narrow, our team evaluated our prototype using students who were not necessarily also parents. If time and resources permitted, we would ideally want to test our prototype with student-parents as well.
Quantitative Insights
We gave our participants 14 tasks to complete using our prototype. Below are some of the sample tasks:
During the evaluation sessions, our team kept track of task completion rates, as shown below. We also provided System Usability Scale questionnaires so we could collect quantitative usability data.
Qualitative Insights
Our team also created an affinity map using codes developed from our recorded evaluation sessions.
Based on our quantitative and qualitative insights, we determined that Focus Forest proves to be useful for student-parents who experience time-squeeze in their daily routines, and is perceived as fun and delightful! However, we also identified a few next steps for improvement:
1. Clear up the workings of the interactive map and continue to use Gus as a guide in the map.
2. Use other non-visual ways for users to discern between different types of tasks in the map.
TAKEAWAYSPost-project reflections.
The design process is not a fixed process.
Working on Focus Forest showed me that although the design process has a general structure, it can be tweaked based on the nature of the project. For example, we conducted a competitive analysis as part of developing a design language rather than part of research.
Developing empathy is key.
Student-parents are a very dynamic population to be designing for, and throughout the project our team developed empathy and learned how to navigate sensitive topics appropriately.
Ideation can and should be messy.
While working on Focus Forest, I learned how to turn messy and abstract concepts into concrete and complex design ideas.