Epipha-me!
A mobile app experience for struggling college students experiencing frustration and anxiety.
Overview
Epipha-me! is a conceptual project. The productivity app that offers swift and practical solutions to struggling students. It aims to alleviate the frustration that comes with being stuck on an assignment by streamlining the process of seeking help from various sources.
Problem: How might technology be used to help students overcome the challenges they face due to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as piling assignments and short deadlines, and improve their learning experience?
Duration: 5 months
Role: Product Designer
Problem
The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for students, who are facing immense pressure due to piling assignments and short deadlines. As a product designer, I wanted to explore how technology could help students overcome these challenges and improve their learning experience. My challenge was to create a productivity app that would offer swift and practical solutions to struggling students, helping them stay on top of their assignments and reduce their stress levels. Through user research, ideation, prototyping, and testing, I developed Epipha-me!, a solution that addresses real-world problems and improves people's lives. By creating a visual narrative of how college students would interact with the app, mapping out their journey, and identifying pain points and opportunities for improvement, I was able to create a product that meets the needs of the target audience. The insights gained from this project have informed my approach to designing products that provide real value and are accessible and relevant to the realities of people's lives.
Project Goals
My primary goal was to create a productivity app that would help students stay on top of their assignments and reduce their stress levels. To achieve this goal, I had the following objectives:
To understand and learn about the specific habits students exhibit
To learn what outcomes trigger these responses
To discover what students feel about nervous ticks
To learn about what students do to overcome these habits
Research
To gain insights into the experiences and perspectives of college students, I conducted user interviews to understand their motivations, identify pain points, and determine how they typically respond to stressful situations. I set specific goals for each interview to ensure that I gained a comprehensive understanding of the target audience. Using the affinity mapping method, I organized my observations and identified key themes that emerged across multiple interviews.
Through the user interviews, I identified three key themes:
Life Pre-Pandemic vs. Now
Stress Factors
Feelings Because of Stress & How to Cope
These themes were crucial in understanding the experiences and perspectives of college students, particularly in the context of the pandemic. Family pressure to perform well academically emerged as a significant source of stress, and social media platforms were commonly used as an outlet for students to vent their frustration and seek advice from peers. Additionally, many students continue to depend on their parents, highlighting the need for solutions that are accessible and relevant to their real-life circumstances.
To better understand the target audience for Epipha-me!, I created the persona of Antsy Abby. Drawing from the common characteristics and experiences of the four candidates I interviewed, I used affinity mapping to identify key traits such as a desire to please loved ones, social pressures, and a tendency to isolate oneself when facing stress. By synthesizing these findings, I created a persona that embodied the struggles and behaviors of the target audience. This persona was crucial in guiding my design decisions and ensuring that the final product would meet the needs of the target audience.
Antsy Abby represents a college student who is trying to balance academic and social expectations while dealing with the stress of everyday life. Her struggles with isolation and pressure to impress her loved ones are common themes among the target audience, making her a relatable and effective persona for my product design project. This persona was crucial in guiding my design decisions and ensuring that the user’s needs would be met.
Using divergent thinking and my hypothesis ("I believe that creating an app which allows people to create groups, stay organized, and motivated will result in the development of efficient study habits and self-confidence for my persona"), I generated a list of questions to guide my design process:
How can we redirect Abby's isolative tendencies when under pressure?
How can we develop an effective routine to improve Abby's performance at school?
How can we inspire Abby to be optimistic when faced with the possibility of failure?
Storyboarding was a critical step in the design process as it allowed me to create a visual narrative of how the persona, Antsy Abby, would interact with the Epipha-me! app. By mapping out Abby's journey, I was able to identify pain points and opportunities for improvement in the user experience. In the storyboard, Abby was portrayed as feeling overwhelmed and stuck with her homework, highlighting the real-world problem that Epipha-me! aims to solve. She then turned to the app for help and was connected with a community of peers who had already completed the same assignment, demonstrating the app's key feature of connecting students to a community of peers who can provide support and guidance. The storyboard helped me identify areas where the user experience could be improved, such as providing more personalized recommendations and making it easier for users to connect with others who have similar interests or academic backgrounds. As a result of the storyboard, I was able to refine the app's design and ensure that it met the needs of the target audience.
Ideation
Based on the user research findings, I created multiple concept wireframes that explored various design possibilities. The initial ideation phase involved sketching rough wireframes on paper, which allowed me to quickly iterate and refine my ideas. After this, I moved on to Figma to create more detailed wireframes that included different elements and features. The wireframes helped me to envision the app's overall functionality and layout and served as a blueprint for the final design.
When creating the design for this project, I followed several design principles to ensure a visually appealing and functional product. These principles included:
Simplicity: I aimed to keep the design simple and clean, avoiding clutter and unnecessary elements that could distract or confuse users.
Consistency: I maintained consistency in the design by using a consistent color palette, typography, and layout throughout the app.
Hierarchy: I used visual hierarchy to guide users' attention to the most important information and features, ensuring an intuitive user experience.
Contrast: I used contrast to create visual interest and make important elements stand out, such as buttons or calls to action.
By following these design principles, I was able to create a design that not only looked visually appealing but also functioned effectively in providing an optimal user experience. To create a well-designed app, I aimed to balance simplicity and visual appeal. I chose a cool color palette to evoke a sense of calmness and serenity, while also using sans-serif fonts to ensure legibility and ease of navigation. By incorporating a clean and modern design, I wanted to create an inviting and approachable experience for users. Throughout the design process, I iterated on different layouts and typography options to achieve the desired look and feel and also took user feedback into account to refine the design.
The key feature of the app was designed to prompt the user to take action on their problem as soon as they open the app. By doing this, the feature encourages users to explore different methods to resolve their issues promptly. The prompt only appears if the user has not checked off an assignment before the deadline, which helps in reducing procrastination and increases productivity. Additionally, this feature can help users stay organized and on top of their assignments, ensuring that they don't miss any deadlines.
To ensure a positive user experience, I developed a high-fidelity prototype using Figma. The prototype allowed me to test different features and optimize any unclear designs. To ensure that the final product met user needs, I conducted three usability testing sessions with college students, where I assigned each participant three tasks to complete and asked for their feedback on the platform's functionality. This process helped me identify and address any issues early on, resulting in a more user-friendly final product.
Prototype
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Epipha-me! app is designed to help students stay on track with their assignments and reduce their stress levels. Through conducting user research, developing personas, ideating, prototyping, and testing the product, I have demonstrated my ability to create solutions that improve people's lives.
One of the most surprising insights I gained from this project was the continued dependence of many students on their parents. This insight has the potential to shape the design of products or services aimed at college students, highlighting the need for solutions that are accessible and relevant to the realities of their lives. Overcoming obstacles is a crucial part of any project, and for me, the greatest hurdle during this project was analyzing the vast amount of research data I gathered. However, implementing the affinity mapping technique helped me to break down the data into subcategories, allowing me to identify patterns and determine which proposed solutions would best align with my project objectives. To ensure the effectiveness and usability of my designs, I prioritize thorough user research and usability testing.
In the future, I plan to recruit a diverse range of participants to gain a variety of perspectives and identify potential areas of improvement. By creating intuitive and user-friendly designs, I aim to improve the lives of those who use my products.