CLIENT EXG-wear
CATEGORY UX/UI Design
TEAM Derek Rodriguez, Erin Piccinati, Yours Truly
ROLE UX/UI Design & Research
GOAL Take extensive research and present in a way that the general user can easily understand their brainwaves and find the information useful and not stressful. Begin the developing stage of screens that will go along with EXG's wearable earbud.
TIME 3 weeks
TOOLS Figma
WHO ARE THE EXG?
EXG-wear is a start-up who develops wearable solutions to augment workplace wellness and productivity. Their X-buds are an intelligent earbud that helps employees in high stress environments to dynamically measure and effectively manage their stress levels before the human mind can realize they are getting stressed.
Stress Levels screens: Light and Dark mode.
THE CHALLENGE
Our challenge for these three weeks was focused on research, especially since we did not have a pre-existing app to work with. We needed to learn more about people’s behavior and how they manage when they are feeling stressed out, as well as learn what realistic information the earbuds are capable of capturing.
Chronic stress is the leading cause of major diseases, including hypertension, heart attack, and abnormal sleep. In addition, it is very difficult for the human brain to detect the stress at its early stages before it turns into bad symptoms. The X-buds are an intelligent earbud device that uses biosensors and artificial intelligence to measure a variety of early stress indicators including brain-wave signals, and provides dynamic alerts and biofeedback to the users at the onset.
Brainwaves screens: Light and Dark mode.
RESEARCH METHODS
User Interviews & Survey
User Journey Maps
App Map
Competitive & Comparative Analysis
Three Personas
Feature Inventory
THE KICKOFF
At the start of the project, I was very excited about learning more about the product and its potential. The founder of EXG was very eager to share with the team his vision for the product and all of his dreams to see the product succeed to help people manage their stress levels. There was a lot of research to be done, and many different directions we could go for, but in the end it was most logical to do as much research we could and then deliver quantity over quality in regards to design.
We used a Gantt chart to assign tasks and keep up with our workflow, as well as make sure that we were sticking to our timeframe. It was very helpful and kept us all accountable throughout the 3 weeks.
Gantt Chart to keep track of our tasks.
COMPETITIVE & COMPARATIVE RESEARCH
We not only researched competitors, but also comparators that could help us gather information on what to include for X-buds. X-buds sense the brainwaves and can detect when stress levels arise, and therefore we wanted to look into meditation platforms in order to learn more about how to manage stress. In addition to meditation platforms, we also wanted to look at other branches such as fitness, tracking and subscription platforms, as EXG's founder mentioned he is interested in a subscription-based platform for his X-buds. Those platforms also helped us learn more about goal setting and how to properly report information to users in an understanding and clear way, as well as prepare us for creating an app map for the mobile application.
Research: Feature Inventory & App Map.
USER RESEARCH
Our team put together a survey to gain a better understanding of how users could interact with an earbud device that monitors stress levels based on brainwave activity, as well as we each conducted two in-depth user interviews. Our goals were to learn more about people’s behavior and how they manage when they are feeling stressed out.
WHAT WE LEARNED
From both our survey and user interviews that we conducted, we learned that people de-stress in a lot of different ways, and there is no one magic solution to curing everybody's stress levels.
Therefore we knew that we had to stop and rethink our process. We came to the conclusion that, based on research, we needed to focus on quality over quantity, and focus on what really sets EXG apart, which is that their earbuds monitor brainwaves. We needed to find a way to display the information gathered from the brainwaves and how to represent that data in a way that is intuitive and easy to understand for the general user.
A few outtakes from the survey we conducted.
THE DISCOVERY
It was clear that users overall experience stress fairly frequently, and there are as many methods of de-stressing as there are users. 91.2% of survey-takers experience mental stress, and most of them report being stressed while at work.
It became evident to us that a lot of people experience stress on a daily basis. Therefore, there is a need for a platform where people can access their individual stress level information and brainwaves data in order to be proactive about their health rather than react after they are already stressed out.
PERSONAS &
PROBLEM STATEMENTS
Following the survey and user interviews, we synthesized our research findings and were able to create three personas and create user flows and problem statements for two of them.
Cece Jones is the CEO of Insurance Co. She is happily married with two kids and has goals of starting her own insurance company one day. She wants to be a leader for her company and be someone that her employees look up to, so it is important to her that she keeps her stress levels low and stays mentally and emotionally strong.
Dan Kim is a Senior Portfolio Executive in Dallas, TX, who needs a better way to track his stress at work and at home so that he can stay on top of his game as a leader and manager.
Sarah O'Brien is a Graphic Designer from Los Angeles, CA. She loves self care, and because of that, she would like a simple and intuitive way to track trends in her mental health and productivity so she can be her most creative self.
THE DESIGN
Based on the research we did and learning more about what the founder of EXG was looking for for his product, we knew we had to focus on simplicity in our design and provide a platform that does not overwhelm the user. The main idea for the X-buds is that they monitor users' brainwaves and track their stress levels. Therefore, the platforms associated with the product cannot add to the stress of the users that are already feeling uneasy.
With this in mind, we did a lot of crazy 8 challenges as a team where each of us sketched out iterations of every frame of the user flow, one minute each, as well as I sketched out some illustrations to better understand the direction we wanted to take with our visual design. We were able to come together with each of our best ideas and combine them into low-fidelity wireframes.
Crazy 8 Sketch Iterations.
LOW-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
There was a lot to take on with all the research we had done, but as mentioned before, we knew we had to put all our energy into the two screens containing the information for the stress levels and brainwaves. Therefore, we did a lot of iterations for each screen until we had a final set containing a few low-fidelity wireframes.
Low-fidelity wireframes.
ILLUSTRATIONS
When brainstorming for the final visual design of the app, we kept going back to how animations and illustrations can provide a beautiful, yet calming feeling. Therefore, I sketched out different ideas for the visuals, and was able to create a few final illustrations for our high-fidelity wireframes.
Illustrations created by me.
High-fidelity wireframes: Light mode.
High-Fidelity Wireframes: Dark mode.
SOLUTION STATEMENT
X-buds by EXG-wear solves users' problem of detecting stress levels rising before the human mind can notice. With the use of the earbuds, users will be alerted right away when their stress gets too high, which allows them to take a break with their choice of meditation or de-stressing method.
LEARNINGS
These past three weeks have been extremely invaluable, and I am very greatful for everything that I have learned throughout the research process and our communications with the founder of EXG. The founder is a dreamer, and had a lot of ideas and big visions for his company going into the project. My amazing team came up with a lot of great ideas that eventually will be very helpful and exciting for next steps. However, since we only had three weeks, we recognized that based on research we needed to focus on quality over quantity and not get stuck on either finding one magical solution for stress or have the app link to every single resource out there.
NEXT STEPS FOR
EXG
- Usability tests
- More market research
- Research possibilites with epileptic users
- Integrations with other apps
- Design the rest of the screens for the mobile application
- Import our design file to Zeplin for a development team
- Design EXG's website