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Walk With Me
Mobile application to connect walking companions with senior citizens.
INTRODUCTION
How might we connect walking companions, looking for work, to families searching for a caregiver for their elderly?
My Role
Interaction Design
User Research
Prototyping
Timeline
Dec 2020 - Jan 2021
(3 weeks)
Tools Used
Figma
Miro
Webflow
Zoom
Team Members
3 other UX/UI Designers
During my final project for UX/UI Bootcamp, my team and I designed the application, Walk With Me which connects senior citizens with a walking companion to accompany them on their daily strolls. This project incorporated all the concepts and learning objectives learned throughout 6 months of BootCamp. Such concepts included --User Experience and Design Thinking, Interface Design, Visual Design, and Web Design. I was involved with user research and UI development of the mobile app.
PROBLEM
Our Society is aging. According to the US Census Bureau by the year 2034, older adults are projected to outnumber children, and the country will require greater demands for in-home caregiving and assisted living (US Census Bureau article). Physical wellness is a significant concern for the elderly, and inactivity is one top challenges for staying healthy. The Walk With Me application will help facilitate caregiving easily from a mobile. Senior citizens’ family members can book walking companions for their loved ones from anywhere through the mobile or web application. The platform will promote a healthy lifestyle for seniors and grant family members flexibility when it comes to caretaking. Below is the final Figma prototype for the Walk With Me mobile app.
STAKEHOLDERS
Senior, senior's family, and walking companion.
There are three stakeholders I considered when analyzing the problem space.
Senior
The person in need of the walking service.
Senior's family
The person looking for a walking companion for their senior family member. The primary organizer of the caregiving service is through the app.
Walking companion
Individuals looking for work and providing caregiving services to seniors.
RESEARCH
Understanding user needs and pain points
User Surveys
What factors prevent seniors from getting sufficient exercise? We surveyed 23 participants through a google survey.
84.6%
Health concerns prevented senior from getting sufficient exercise.
61.5%
Safety concerns such as weather (rain), falling over, breathlessness prevented seniors from getting sufficient exercise.
53.6%
Lack of motivation prevented seniors from getting sufficient exercise.
“Walking 30 minutes per day seems sufficient. But most importantly the exercise should be consistent. Sometime it's dangerous for them to walk alone outside.” - 56-year-old
“I had hard time communicating with my grandpa. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. I felt pressured to take care of his physical and mental health.” - 28-year-old
User Interviews
To familiarize myself with the needs of a senior citizen, I conducted 2 of the 6 user interviews with a 23-year-old granddaughter and a 31-year-old son of senior citizen. These interviews were conducted through Zoom and lasted 30 min - 45 min each. Since they were the primary caretakers of a senior member, I wanted to gain their insights into their daily tasks when providing care, scheduling appointments, or other interactions. By interviewing primary caregivers I found that main concern involving their senior citizen family member is safety, lack of time to devote to them, health concerns (medications, doctor’s appointments, daily exercise). The common denominator in all of five interviews was that the family members were concerned about the overall safety of their elderly, specific safety during their daily exercises, and walking when stepping outside of the house. Secondly, they wanted to devote more time to them than they were currently devoting. Lately, the main concern revolved around overall health such as taking medications on time and exercising regularly.
Some of the objectives I focused on while conducting interviews were:
- Learn more about users' interactions with the seniors in their homes/communities.
- Learn about how seniors get their exercise.
- Understand users' concerns when asking for in-person services through apps.
Due to health conditions, most seniors follow the strict medication, food, and exercise schedule it was important to know their insights into their daily exercise schedule in order to design the Walk With Me app.
I prioritized some features by considering the user's needs and pain points. features labeled under the high-impact and low-complexity sections are vital for addressing the user's primary concerns.
FEATURE PRIORITIZATION
Prioritizing key features
WIREFRAMES
Low-fidelity wireframes for user testing
I mapped out the actions of all three stakeholders (seniors, senior family members, and walking companions) when scheduling a walk for the seniors. For this app design, I focused on the user flow for the senior's family member who is scheduling a walk for their senior.
The primary goal for the low-fidelity wireframes was to establish a groundwork for the interactions between all three stakeholders and incorporate must-have features that I determined in the last step.
Onboarding screens for the app prompt the user with adequate information about the flow of the app. Then allows the user to sign up and set up the senior's profile including basic information, health conditions, and medications.
Top Image: users can schedule a walk by filling out the area code, date, and time and finding a walking companion. Users can also filter out walking companions for their seniors according to pay rate, gender, and language.
Bottom Image: Users can confirm the walk-through messaging chat box and also pay by filling out payment information.
After confirming walking details users can see updates from the walking companion and see when they arrive at the senior. From there users can track their walking route, and see updates through images and map features. At the end users can see walking report which includes walking distance, time, route, photos and comments from the walking companion.
USABILITY TESTING
Accessibility is Key
We conducted moderated usability tests with 5 users to determine any design flaws or accessibility issues with the information architecture. We listed out tasks and acceptance criteria to determine the task completion rate.
Tasks
1. Checkout the exhibitions now on view
2. Find detailed info on Carolina Caycedo’s exhibit
3. Find out how much Admission is and the museum’s address
The task completion rate was 100%, but we found a few design issues
User Feedback
“Events and images on the homepage lack detail. I would like to know a little more information about the events before clicking on it”
“The arrows are confusing to operate on the exhibitions page. Not sure when the exhibitions are on display”
USABILITY TESTING & ITERATIONS
low-fidelity screens testing and editing
For user testing, I conducted 9 moderated user tests after arranging and connecting the screens in Figma. I then presented the screens through a zoom call with participants. I provided the testers with a brief introduction to the app and allowed them to go through onboarding, scheduling the walk, and tracking the walk flow.
Findings:
- "Who am I scheduling a walk for?" While scheduling a walk for the senior, users were unsure who they were scheduling a walk for. Initially, I assumed that the users will only need to schedule a walk for one senior member, but they need to see an option to select multiple senior members of their family to schedule the walk for (Iteration #1).
- Status updates of the walk got lost in the chat box. Initially, the walk's status updates were sent in the chat box as a message. During the testing, session users pointed out that they need to see the status update continuously while communicating with the walking companion. Therefore, in the next version of the mockups, I added a walking report updates sticky at the top of the chat box for convenient access to the user (Iteration #2).
- What if I need to reference previous walks of the senior family member? Originally there was no feature that displayed details of previous walks. I realized that it is an important function because the. Users might need to reference previous walking reports in order to review the amount of physical activity for the senior for doctor's visits or to address health needs (such as the number of calories burned). To easily access previous walking reports I added a calendar feature (Iteration #3).
Iteration #1
Iteration #2
Iteration #3
Onboarding Screens including basic information about the flow of the app and call-to-action buttons to sign up or sign in.
Adding a senior family member's profile: users are able to add senior members' basic information, medical information, and health conditions.
Scheduling a walk for the senior family member: users can filter walking companions by ratings, prices, gender, and languages. Then they are able to schedule a walk according to date, time, length and leave specific notes to the walking companions.
While messaging with the walking companion, users can make a payment to confirm the walk booking.
Once a walk is successfully scheduled, users can view the walking companion's location and receive alerts about when the senior member has left for a walk and returned home.
HIGH FIDELITY MOCKUPS
Based on the usability testing I designed high-fidelity mockups to reflect users' feedback.
IMPACT AND TAKEAWAYS
Walk With Me app design was the final project for my UX/UI Design Bootcamp. I could have not imagined that after 6 months of long UX learning that I could produce a complete app design backed by real user research. Initially, I was unsure about the functionalities and design of the app but after a user search and getting to know the target audience, I learned important insights into senior members' needs which drove the final design of the app. This project is specifically important to me as it focuses on community service and providing walking service to seniors to keep them happy and healthy.
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