UNDERSTAND
Primary Research
Key Findings
We ended up receiving responses from users aged 18-30+ and our key findings consisted of:
of participants have felt burnt out from work or school.
of participants are interested in learning a new skills, such as a new language, in their free time.
of participants answered that their creativity may have decreased as they age.
For those who felt like their creativity has decreased with age, we asked them why and here's what we found:
Q: Why do you feel like your creativity has decreased with age?
"I think there are conceptual blocks (mental barriers) resulting from society that may prevent us from thinking creatively"
"Lack of time. And building up disposable income to make time/space to do what creative things I want to do..."
"The feeling of burnout, the amount of criticism, feeling more nihilistic, learning more about reality"
Key Takeaways
- Users need a way to escape burnout, especially during their busy schedule.
- If given the time, users would take the time to learn a new skill even if it's unrelated to their current career.
- Users have less opportunities to be creative as they grow up due to work, school or just reality.
- Burnt out is a common feeling that working individuals deal with.
What's the problem?
From our key takeaways, we began to define our problem statement. Burn out is a common feeling among users or those in school or the professional field so...
How might we re-connect with our own inner child,
where curiosity grows and learning never stops?
Who's our target audience?
For our target audience, we wanted to aim for university students and working individuals (ages 18+). This is because we wanted to focus on rekindling their inner child as my partner and I have also experienced burn out frequently in our university careers.
What are our goals?
Goal 1
Reconnecting older individuals with the sense of wonder and curiosity they had as a child.
Goal 2
Sparking curiosity in everyday life and surroundings, because learning never stops.
Goal 3
Being able to learn and discover new things daily, and get a break from their hectic schedule
User Personas
Once we gathered and went through all our findings, we created two user personas to have a thorough understanding of our pain points and target audience. These two personas consist of individuals of different careers and age groups, but face similar pain points.
Meet Emily and Jose!
Feature Brainstorming
We ranked these features from least to most important.
Competitor Analysis
As part of our secondary research, we looked into other available apps in the market that have similar purposes to what we wanted to achieve. Using SWAT analysis, we looked at BeReal, Instagram, and Procreate to get a better sense of these social media or creative apps.
User Flow
To keep track of the screens and wireframes we needed to design, and ensure the best user experience in Cre8, we created a user flow. The user flow was created based on the main features the target user would use with our app.
Low Fidelity Wireframes
To start visualizing the screens we wanted and their layouts, we created low-fidelity wireframes.
Style Guide
For consistency and the overall style of Cre8, we wanted it to be approachable for users. Our main goal for Cre8 is to be a place where users don't have to worry about their work for a short time and be able to express their creativity.
Keeping this in mind, we went with a colour palette that is more associated with feelings of tranquility and comfort as we want Cre8 to be something where users can take a break and be relaxed.
During the designathon, we were given the opportunity to attend mentorship sessions with industry professionals in the UX field! Here are some of the things that ended up changing in our final solution as we received feedback.
Originally, we wanted users to be able to learn a new language while doing their daily drawings. For their drawing of the day, they would be able to translate their phrase to the language of their choice and also see what other users learned for the day.
Feedback: It seemed like it was just thrown in with no relation to the drawing idea. We should just stick to one idea as it is solid by itself and having the translation aspect may overwhelm the user.
Result: We narrowed down our app to only focus on the creative aspect and letting users unleash their creative side through daily drawings.
Feedback: Increasing user interaction can help spark curiosity between users rather than leaving it as a solo experience. This can be through users guessing what others' drawings are or commenting what you see in their picture.
Result: We added more social media features, such as commenting, to allow for more interaction between users.
Originally, our colour palette only consisted of the colours from our style guide, no white.
Feedback: Since it is a drawing app, white can be used to represent a blank canvas that users are able to draw on.
Result: We switched to white for our primary colour and the colours from our style guide as secondary colours.
Hi-fidelity Wireframes
Onboarding & Homepage
Networking & Profile
See a turtle in the clouds? Snap a pic of it and draw out the turtle using Cre8 or any another shapes you see.
Explore your creativity daily. Cre8 sends out a notification when it's time to take a picture and draw
what you see in your surroundings.
Not sure what to draw for the day? No worries! Cre8 has AI that scans your photo and gives you inspiration
on what to draw.
View others' drawings for the day and add you drawing to their comments if you see something else in their picture!
Then, we were able to create the prototype of our app. Check it out below!
I'm honoured to say that my team, Team Perina, received the award for the Most Innovative and User-Centric Solution! 🏆
Although we didn't get to present our solution in the finals and place in the Top 3, I still feel happy as I was able to create a solution I'm passionate about and learn a lot during the designathon!
Check out our final pitch! 👇
Key Takeaways
- Importance of colour palette and decisions: Colour psychology has such a strong impact on not only the overall aesthetic and accessibility of a product, but also the emotions the user experiences. Identifying the emotions you want to convey in your product is an important thing to consider when designing.
- Focusing on user interaction: Interactions are inseparable from user experience. It plays a part in determining the usability of the product and interactions are all about what the user experience when using the app. By focusing on this in our solution, we were able to design a more user-centric product!
- Simplifying features: As mentioned, one of the feedback we got was to simplify our features. I've learned that if designs are on the more complicated side, users are more likely to give up on trying to use the product. By keeping our design simple and minimalistic, we can keep users engaged and satisfied.
Next Steps
- Emphasizing feasibility: One of the comments we got was that we can go deeper into our solution and ensure feasibility even further. This includes doing more research and testing to see if there are ways that the user can be more motivated to use Cre8.
- Updating UI: Make it more appealing and user friendly to ensure a straightforward and accessible experience while they create their masterpiece!
- Increasing creativity: Another comment we got is that AI might hinder user's creativity. It would be interesting to consider taking this out so users can take more time to explore their creativity. Maybe another way without AI could be finding inspiration from other users, which could encourage more interactions.
