Designing a Design Program
Design & Delight Come Together
Reveal from Awake Labs
The smallest details make the biggest difference.
Collaborating with the team at Awake Labs was such a great experience in being able to make a huge impact in the lives of families and communities. Exploring a new domain and being able to learn from the stories of people allowed us to go deep into a user's experience and psyche. Often times, the solutions and breakthroughs happen in the simplest of things and the finer details and has a lot to do with matters of empathy more than anything.
Awake Labs
Awake Labs is a young and passionate team from the Coast Capital Savings Innovation Hub, an accelerator program geared towards social impact ventures. Their product, Reveal, is a wearable device that tracks anxiety levels for children with autism. Reveal monitors the three main indicators of stress for persons with autism spectrum disorder (ASD): 1) skin temperature, 2) sweat and 3) heart rate.
These indicators allow parents, as well as guardians, professionals and caregivers who look over the child, the ability to track spikes and note triggers, locations and other elements that might cause their child’s anxiety. The data provided by the device allows the guardians to keep track of these events and note down teachable moments that over time, present the guardians with an overview of the child’s progress and development.
The Challenge
The goal of this project was to create a web application Interface that expands on the previously designed mobile app and highlights the data collected and provide insights into patterns and triggers to help them in supporting the child.
The success of the product lie in the user’s ability to understand, go through and assess the data they are looking at and know what actions they should take.
It was also very important and crucial for the tool to be engaging to the child in order for them themselves to understand and asses the patterns and join with the parents in navigating their own patterns and triggers.
Research
We had the great fortune of working with such a passionate team at Awake Labs that generously shared years of their research and information in developing the product and knowledge about ASD. They have done extensive research in terms of determining the different users, scenarios and aspects involving the scope of the product, as well as shared their insights and inputs on the world of ASD and the journey that comes for both the child and those that play a role in nurturing the him or her: the parents, guardians, professionals and caregivers.
As useful, profound and insightful this research was, we wanted to carve out our own journey and discovery with the project and world of ASD. We wanted to encounter the people, institutions and the parties who live in this on a daily basis. We wanted to experience as much as we can and take in as much in order for us to not only verify the research that has been covered, but to add in our own insights, experience, understanding and discoveries as well.
We reached out to our network and contacted teachers, parents and other professionals who were and are actively involved in the care of children with ASD. We also conducted surveys and interviews to get a general picture of the day-to-day of these people as they navigate through this journey.
Core features of the product: 1) Reveal uses state of the art sensors combined with an advanced algorithm to measure and tract
physiological signals 2) It notifies the parent, caregiver, teacher or therapist about changes in physiological signals and 3) allows them
to react to the notification and address the change.
Early prototypes of the app showcasing data from the wearable device as well as notes logged by the user.
Affinity diagram.
Key Findings
What we discovered is that every case is unique. Each party involved (from the parents, to the therapists to the educators) each have different needs, methods, systems and goals in terms of their role in taking care of the child. Reveal is a powerful device that tracks and collects a lot of data both from the wearable device worn by the child and the notes logged by the users and all of them log, store and process them differently. We learned that there are many complexities, overlaps and disparities in terms of the usage, collaboration and organization amongst different guardians, often times causing a lot of clutter and disarray that takes away from helping the child.
Nonetheless, there remains the common core goal of nurturing a better and happier life and wellness for the child, with each user having a different method or aspect in achieving so. Amidst the number of softwares, data and information one brings to the table, the one constant Why came time and time again and reinforced the gaols amongst all the parties and aligned with the business and project goals as well.
User Persona, Use Case and Scenarios
Sitemap of Web app.
Persona
The core goal of nurturing a better life for the child guided us throughout the rest of the project and gave us focus in creating a User Interface and interaction that most applied, helped and impacted the user as they go about their journey. The multiplicity of users, needs and means allowed us to pin point the unique insights of each user and their specific goals needs, wants and pain points.
Primary user persona: Tim.
Focusing on the MVP, we selected Tim, the parent, as our primary user with Ed, Ruth and Dr. Davidson, the team involved in the different aspects of Noah (the child with autism), as our secondary users. Tim's main goal for the app is to give him a good picture of Noah's day including his many different triggers, that would allow him to know how best to support him. At the same time, the app serves as a simple way to capture and view different notes from the different members all in one place in a more steam-lined format.
A snapshot of Noah's (child) team.
Planning & Design
A bulk of our work went into the planning and design of the user interface. We had a lot of areas to consider in terms of the features, layout and language in determining how this application would make most sense to our primary user and the goals they needed to achieve.
We exhausted a lot of sketching, mind mapping and other tools in order to come up with a flow that not only worked and made sense to the user but added an element of delight and ease so that the user would have a better emotional experience with the app on top of just a functional one.
Early wireframe sketches of the interface.
Not Without its Hurdles
One of the biggest challenges was being able to convey data (both qualitatively and quantitatively) in a way that was meaningful, digestible and actionable to the user in order to best take care of the child. This was a very creative and innovative endeavour for us in exploring how best we could both present and represent information by closely examining and pushing visual language and testing out different patterns to both meet a functional and emotional need. How we chunked, named and presented information to a particular user could mean the difference with them using and finding value in it or not. We took inspiration from different design patterns in various domains and industries such as fitness, music and business and sought of ways to apply existing and successful systems into what we were creating.
User testing with Awake Labs CEO Andrea Palmer and CPO Paul Fijal.
Visual Language
We wanted a visual language that conveyed ease, comfort, calmness and approachability, something that was very important in allowing the users to confidently use the app and not be intimidated by it. The softness conveyed by the typography, rounded edges and pastel-like colours that mirrored the brand and its persona. This look and feel was something we tested over designs that were much more sleek and dynamic which they found too professional, intimidating and complicated, even with the functions being the same.
We created iconographies such as stars, moons and emojis that were very easy to pick up and understand as well as are very familiar to the child’s domain. We wanted to utilize the patterns and mental models that already existed to create more familiarity and ease in interacting and relating to the app.
As it was also a teaching and interactive tool, we initially thought of creating puzzles in representing the widgets in the interface to translate existing patterns and tactile objects into the app. Our advisors and clients quickly pointed to us that puzzles are actually a common object and visual element that created negative triggers and anxiety for the child so we quickly resorted something more stable and functional and ended with the rounded rectangle.
At the same time, we wanted to present something that was very clean and simple and very unobstructive that focused on allowing the function and information aspect of it and not having to have too many sensory cues and distractions that divided ones attention.
Dual Interface
Creating dual interfaces that served both the parental and the professional level, as well as the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the app, was crucial in delivering the most impactful and usable information for the specific user.
Based on the research, the parents’ needs and goals focused more on the qualitative information and the wellness of the child more that the quantitative data which the medical professionals used more. Presenting the information that is not only suited but most impactful to the user was key in getting as much engagement, interaction and learnings from the app.
A calendar allows you to take at days at a glance with option to select the dashboard (shown) or graph view.
Profile allows for the user to edit the child's information and record. Daily logs allow for quick record keeping of areas that work and did not work that can be shared with the team while the trend summary celebrates wins and patterns for the week.
Areas of the child's life the user wishes to highlight and view notes of among the team. Other options could include; social interactions, studies, etc. and the ability to create custom ones.
Moods and triggers cards that are populated from the device and logged in by various team members that show the various activities, environments and interactions and the emotions and reactions they trigger to the child.
Other features of the app that can be added to the dashboard are: quick views of the recent messages and notes feed from other team members as well as a synced schedule. Users can move these cards around as well as add, remove and edit cards in the dashboard as they see fit.
The dashboard view for the primary user, Tim, allows him to view, keep track and take notes of areas about his child that are populated from the device as well as logged by different members of the team.
The Analytics view for the secondary user (in this case, Ruth, the therapist) showcases more quantitative data populated from the wearable device.
Heart rate data that can be populated depending on the user's choosing (average, trends, actual) as well as sorted and compared by week, month and year.
Analytics view also allows them to take daily
logs and notes for their record keeping and reporting.
Anxiety level data is an important summative metric identified by professionals in caring for children with ASD. Users can view, sort as well as compare this data similar to heart rate data.
Other features of the app similar to the dashboard view are also available and customizable in the analytics view.
Customizable Widgets
It was important for the app to recognize the different and unique needs and preferences of each user and give them the opportunity to paint an image that would help them best support the child.
Users can do a myriad of customizations to these widgets such as selecting which information to pull from the device or app as well as create their own custom entry. On top it all, they can organize the dashboard in a heirarchy and manner works for them, allowing them to do custom functions such as renaming, change positions, add a tagging, the widgets and cards they have.
Customizable widget.
Notes Feed & Team Management
It takes a village to raise a child. Enhancing the collaborative and community aspect of this app on top of providing the data and value of what the app delivers was crucial in tying in the whole purpose of the project.
The notes feed section allows you to see all the logs from the different members of your team and interact with it in a number of ways: reply with different media, share as well as sort the notes according to dates and triggers so users can get the insight they need in helping one another.
Managing teams allow the user to empower and delegate tasks and responsibilities in working together in supporting the child. The main user functions as an administrator and can select from different types of views and privileges to ensure privacy and select information is shared in the collaborative effort amongst other members.
Team management page and settings.
Notes feed section allows you to view the many different logs from your team.
Select from a number of ways to interact and share information with your team.
First Time User Onboarding
The more the user updates the app, the more effective it will be for everyone supporting the child. One of the biggest factors that would aid in usability is making the experience as easy and comfortable as possible, especially during the first time they open the app. We included onboarding screens, pop up cards and tips that explain and guide them through the features and reminders all over the user flow to assist and encourage them along the learning period and to interact with the app.
Users can opt to be guided through the different features in filling their dashboard.
