UX / UI Design Case
TIMEORANGE is a mobile phone application used to track screen-time usage. It sets the budget for daily screen time usage and reminds the user of any smartphone overuse. I personally developed this project from conception through to delivery, utilising problem identifying research and developing product prototypes in 2016.
Individual UX/UI project
Individual logo design project
Sept - Dec 2016
Back in 2016, many people in San Francisco are using smart phones. I use iPhone 5S myself and I spent tons of time on it everyday. I started to noticed that I was addicted to the phone and letting the phone to controlled my life. I looked into people like me and believe this is a problem to many of us.
Mobile phone overuse (mobile-phone addiction, problem mobile phone use, or mobile phone dependency) is a dependence syndrome seen among mobile phone users. Some mobile phone users have even been shown to exhibit problematic behaviors similar to that of substance use disorders. Increased phone use has also been shown to lead to adverse effects on relationships, and some users even experience a feeling of depression or anxiety if separated from a mobile phone or sufficient signal for an extended period of time. [1]
Excessive smartphone use has also been associated with physical health problems. Users have been linked to an increase in the risk of ocular disease, dysfunction of the fingers, neck pain and other musculoskeletal problems. [2]
I made some survey and interviews to understand my users. Their answers are showing that mobile phone over-use is a common situation in San Francisco. The results shows that 70% people star to check their phone when they wake up, 56% people check their phone before go to sleep. 48% people check cellphone every 30 min over the weekends and 51% check phone during homework/work every 30 minutes. Most importantly, I find 44% people admit feeling anxious when they don't interact with cellphone for over 2 hours.
When research went deeper, my goal became clear that the mobile app observes screen time spending behaviour and alarms the users. I came up with a list of features that could help a user to realize how he uses his phone in a typical day.
The list has up to 10+ features and I used card sorting method to prioritize the features and limited to five key functions:
1. to collect screen time usage data; 2. to show daily spending timetable; 3. to set up daily screen time spending budget; 4. to set up alerts on the time budgets; 5. to show time usage history including daily details on each app.
My target audiences are smartphone users. This is a very big group of people that I need at least three personas to represent the teenagers users and the working class families. The users ages' range from 12 to 60.
The wireframe test results showed a positive support to my design. The steps are simple to follow and the dashboards are clear to show spending data. Users' favorite two features are the dashboards of daily spending bar on each app and the calendar summery of weekly spending history.
