Design Process Overview

Conceptualization

The initial idea of Unlocked was driven by the team’s discussion about the deep seated implications behind the excessive use of electronics, specifically mobile phones. Research showed the problem was paramount among young children and adolescents, due to early exposure in their childhoods. Hence our team is focused on intervening during their adolescent years, where we create an application that promotes effective time management while building inter-family bonding and trust. Consequently, this should counter any lead-up to a mobile addiction.

Research

Research revealed numerous factors that contributed to excessive use included early exposure, lack of self control and awareness, harsh and regulative parents, stress, and social network size. These insights drove our team to incorporate gamification methods, and led to critical decisions in designing Unlocked.

Gamification and Persuasive Technology

Unlocked aims to persuade users to change by making the process of correcting a behaviour enjoyable. This is done by gamifying the experience, which provides as a strong motivation for teens to use the application. Badges, achievements, and rewards provide users with a feeling of self accomplishment and personal affirmation, boosting their self efficacy. Initial design included a leaderboard, which would trigger the competitive spirit in users to do better, however it was removed after user testing indicated it had minimal to no effect on them.

Trust instilling a sense of responsibility

Through analyzing existing applications, we determined that successful applications were designed for users to learn independently, and applications that failed were designed for parents to restrict their children. Unlocked limits the power given to parents for monitoring and controlling their children, and gives teens the freedom to set their own tasks and rewards. This creates an independent learning environment based on trust, instilling a sense of responsibility for teens to do better, and foster good relationships rather than drive them apart from their parents.

Development and User Testing

Initial surveys indicated that designing an application that balanced authority and independent learning would be a challenge. From surveys it was clear that parents wanted more options and tools to monitor their child, whereas teenagers expressed that too much permissions given to parents made them feel controlled and without freedom.

Our team initially started out with pencil sketches and wireframes, then paper prototypes. Finally, a high-fidelity prototype was developed to allow for user testing through a mobile device. Although the testing was scaled down to allow for higher quality data to be collected, the live interactions made for a realistic experience with Unlocked.

At the end of every prototyping phase, an extensive and in-depth user test plan for both parent and child interfaces was planned and created. These targeted Aesthetics, Functionality, and Navigation of both interfaces and through testing our prototype, we gained numerous insights on how to improve our design.