TRYBE

my role

ux designer and project manager

• created agile, 4-week plan for end-to-end project

• led weekly client and internal meetings as the primary liaison between client and design team

• spearheaded user research including survey and interviews

• ideated and designed low, mid, and high-fidelity prototypes

• facilitated usability testing and identified key areas for improvement

why is personal growth important?

health, career growth, community impact

Personal development is essential at both the individual and community scale. On the individual scale, those who are motivated to grow are more likely to lead healthier and happier lifestyles and invest in their professional development. On the community scale, these individuals are more likely to possess a strong sense of purpose and maximize their potential to contribute on a broader, societal level.

the problem

obstacle to growth: loss of motivation

After surveying 20 users about their experiences with personal-development , 47% of respondents cited loss of motivation as the main obstacle to growth.

why are users losing motivation?

We conducted five in-depth interviews to find out why users are losing motivation when setting goals. The main catalysts include:

01 difficulty achieving metric-based goals due to lack of time and competing priorities

02 pressure to achieve radical transformation overshadowing signs of progress

03 lack of external support for inspiration and accountability

the solution

personal journey, shared growth

let’s motivate each other!

Trybe is a mobile application for users to create and join group challenges within various growth-oriented categories such as mental wellness, health & fitness, community impact, and more.

Instead of putting pressure on stifling metrics and radical transformation, Trybe focuses on the qualitative journey of self-development by encouraging users to celebrate progress through reflecting on the process. Furthermore, Trybe provides the space to authentically share the growth experience with like-minded friends for support, accountability, and inspiration.

how did i arrive at this solution?

read about my process below!

01 user interviews

understanding the journey of personal growth

After surveying 20 users interested in personal development about their experiences , 47% of respondents cited loss of motivation as the main obstacle to growth.

In order to dig deeper into why users are losing motivation, we conducted five detailed interviews. These key questions guided our conversations:

•  what prevents you from achieving your goals? 
•  what motivates you to achieve your goals?
•  how do you reflect on progress?  
•  how do you define success?

affinity diagram

We discovered valuable insights about obstacles and motivations, the reflection process, and definitions of success in relation to personal-growth. When arranging the insights by affinities, some key themes emerged:

key interview insights

users are losing motivation with personal growth because:

01 difficulty achieving metrics-based goals with busy schedules and competing priorities. Users prefer a qualitative over quantitative approach to personal-growth.

02 pressure to achieve radical transformation. It’s difficult to see signs of progress when users erroneously focus on the end goal only and not the process and smaller wins.

03 lack of external support. Close friends and family provide inspiration and accountability.

02 secondary research

understanding the impact of community on personal growth

Stanford psychology professors, Geoffrey Cohen and David Sherman conducted extensive research to validate the hypothesis that self improvement is most successful as a community effort.

In their self-affirmation theory, they suggest that sustaining commitment to personal growth is facilitated by the involvement of community. Their reasons include:

•  mutual reinforcement is a powerful tool for garnering motivation
•  exchange of empathy and advice accelerates adoption of behavior change 
•  accountability increases chances of commitment 

key secondary research insights

community is essential to personal growth because:

01 mutual reinforcement creates a shared momentum that propels motivation.

02 exchange of empathy and advice within a support system accelerates the adoption of behavior change.

03 having accountability will increase the chances of committing to ones goals.

competitive analysis

identify strengths and weaknesses of competitors

We conducted a competitive analysis of three products with similar goals of motivating self-improvement, including Strava, 21-Day Challenge, and Habitus.

01 Strava

why Strava?

an industry-leader in the fitness tracking industry, also includes social network features

strengths

• recommends challenges to users based on activity
• custom challenges

weaknesses

• don’t understand Active tab in Groups
• most group features locked as premium feature

02 21-Day Challenge

why 21-Day Challenge?

unique focus on challenge creation rather than habit tracking

strengths

• community feed boosts engagement
• encouraging, positive brand voice

weaknesses

• user not given much control over customization of challenges, restricted to 21 day timeline
• UI weak contrast between background and text, is inaccessible

03 Habitus

why Habitus?

example of typical habit-tracking app

strengths

• categorization of challenges
• reminders

weaknesses

• data-entry/tracking heavy, increases time on task and may cause abandonment and/or discouragement
• cold, analytical experience

key competitive analysis insights

Knowing that users value a qualitative approach to self-improvement as well as external support from friends, the following insights will guide design ideation:

01 customize experience by recommending challenges based on activity

02 adopt encouraging, social-proof focus of challenge creation products

03 avoid data-heavy, analytical experience of habit tracking products

defining the problem

Synthesizing all three research methods, user interviews, secondary research, and competitive analysis, we identified three key insights to explain why users are losing motivation with personal growth.

01 users struggle with achieving rigid, metric-based goals

evidence

user interviews:

“When I made metric-based goals, they felt more like obligations and I usually had to adjust them.”

competitive analysis:

• avoid habit-tracking, quantitative approach
• emulate challenge-setting, qualitative approach

02 focusing solely on radical transformation overshadows progress

evidence

user interviews:

“I struggle to see progress with open-ended, lifestyle changes.”

competitive analysis:

• a feed allows users to share progress so that they are reflecting on the process along the way

03 external support systems strengthen motivation

evidence

user interviews:

”Externalizing goals and progress with someone I trust helps me with accountability and inspiration.”

secondary research:

• community is essential for personal growth because mutual reinforcement, exchange of empathy, and accountability strengthen motivation

user flows

The three key flows users will take within the mobile application are challenge creation, challenge tracking, and community engagement.

The challenge flows will incorporate features that facilitate a qualitative and process focus on self-growth such as defining milestones and journaling. The community engagement flow will incorporate collaborative features such as a social media feed.

01 challenge creation

• create custom challenges
• define goals and timing
• invite friends to join

02 challenge tracking

• log and journal your progress
• share your progress with friends

03 community engagement

• visit social media feed to see friends’ progress
• interact with posts
• visit explore page to join public challenges

sketches

We started by sketching options for screen layouts of key flows: challenge creation, challenge tracking, and community engagement.

mid-fidelity prototypes

We proceeded to up the fidelity so that we could have a comprehensive prototype to test on users.

usability testing

goals

We conducted usability testing with five users interested in personal growth by observing them complete tasks in a clickable prototype.

The goal was to identify usability issues with the three key flows: challenge creation, challenge tracking, and community engagement.

findings

We asked the users to rate how easy or difficult it was to accomplish each of the three tasks on a scale from 1 to 5 to add quantitative findings to support our qualitative observations.

issue 01: users struggled with sharing progress

observation

• 4 out of 5 users navigated to the ‘My Profile’ tab to create a status update instead of the ‘Community’ tab

• once on the correct tab, they struggled to find the icon to create a post

solution

• allow users to post from either the ‘My Profile’ or ‘Community’ tabs

• give post icon more visual hierarchy with a text box and suggestion text or brand-colored plus button

issue 02: users struggled to find friends’ posts

observation

• 2 out of 5 users struggled to find their friends’ posts

• users prefer to have a searchable friends list vs. checking up on their friends in the community feed

solution

• add friends list to ‘My Profile’ tab

• add ability to search friends in the community feed

issue 03: users did not know who their posts would be shared with

observation

• 2 out of 5 users were hesitant to share progress as it was unclear who their post would be visible to

solution

• add a privacy dropdown to allow users control over visibility of their posts

creating a brand identity

goals

Because Trybe is a new startup, there were no pre-existing branding assets. Our team developed brand attributes and a mini design system to visually convey Trybe’s mission to empower personal growth through camaraderie and community.

brand attributes

supportive
fun
curious
inspiring

mini design system

final designs

Aggregating the feedback from usability testing and established brand identity, we created wireframes and a high-fidelity prototype for each of the three key flows.

01 join or create group challenges

Join or create your own custom challenge. Define your goals, set a timeline, and invite your friends to embark on the challenge alongside you.

02 journal your progress and share

Journal your progress-- the good, the bad, and the ugly. Share your text, photo, and/or video posts with friends.

03 support your friends by interacting with their progress

Check-up on your friends’ progress in the community feed for social motivation. Leave likes and comments for encouragement and support.

reflection

lessons learned

communicate the importance of UX research

We started the project with a client-provided hypothesis that a community approach to personal growth would spark motivation. In our kickoff meeting, we emphasized the importance of conducting UX research to validate this hypothesis, ensuring that we have user-supported evidence to add value to Trybe’s mission.

work under an agile timeline

We had four weeks to complete this end-to-end design project. Not only did we learn to work at maximum efficiency, but we also learned to prioritize frequent communication to ensure we are incorporating stakeholder input and approval.

measuring results

does a community approach to personal growth actually help?

We would like to find out if Trybe successfully increases motivation with its community approach to personal growth, ultimately helping users achieve their goals.

To test this, we would have two groups embark on the same challenge on Trybe. One group invites friends and the other does the challenge individually.

While we would record quantitative data about the success rate of both groups, we learned from user research that success with personal growth does not necessarily mean meeting a metric. We would compliment the quantitative data with qualitative data and analyze the journal entries from both groups. Does the group taking on the challenge with friends have a more positive, motivating experience and are inspired to adopt healthy habits long term?

future plans

usability testing of high-fidelity prototype

Moving forward, we would like to conduct an additional round of usability testing of high-fidelity prototypes to ensure we developed the right solutions for pain points that users experienced while testing the mid-fidelity prototypes.

potential revenue stream

As discussed with our client, the initial iteration of the Trybe app will be free to the public in order to establish a healthy user base. Once the product has gained popularity, we would like to evolve the app to include paid premium features such as the ability to utilize coaches that are experts in the field. The goal is that the coaches will add social motivation through a unique, educational experience.