Seeme
Dynamic/proactive visualization of data to encourage persistence and engagement in weight control
Duration
3 Weeks
Oct 2020
Project Feature
Mobile interaction design
Behavior change
Health and wellbeing
My Role
Research & Strategy Lead
Concept and Story Design
Prototyping
Team
This is a solo project
Project Background
Overweight and obesity are important lifestyle-related public health problems worldwide. In China, due to the improvement of people's health awareness and income level, the fitness industry has risen rapidly in recent years. Various fitness services and products emerge. Nevertheless, the retention rate of such services is high and the obesity rate in China has still been rising.
The Challenge
How might we empower(?) average users suffering from overweight and obesity issues to better practice weight control/fitness management?
The Solution
A mobile app service that features dynamic visual projection of users’ body shape based on their daily health data input
How I got there?
1 — Exploration
Understanding the problem space
I conducted secondary research on the health trend in China and also the domestic fitness industry. The research includes publications, data, academic journals, and business reports. This step helped me to better understand the problem space and hypothesize the potential causes of the rising obesity and overweight rate in China.
Analysis:
The speed of China’s weight gain and the quirks of its consumer culture suggest that the economic and social impact of a fatter population could be particularly significant
Secondary research: Why do people give up weight control in China?
2 — Primary Research
Market research and analysis
Despite their good intentions, many fitness products and services today are inaccessible and difficult to use, especially to people who do not practice fitness management as their daily routine. As a result, people give up easily. It is worth noticing that the user retention rate of digital fitness products is particularly high.
User research
I talked to 6 people for in-depth interview on their experience of weight control. This step helped me generate insights from the users’ perspectives and understand their pain points and needs.
3 — Insights and Opportunities
Despite their good intentions, many fitness products and services today are inaccessible and difficult to use, especially to people who do not practice fitness management as their daily routine. As a result, people give up easily. It is worth noticing that the user retention rate of digital fitness products is particularly high.
User Persona
3 — Ideation and Prototyping
Finding the right cognitive model for design intervention
Based on our research finding, effective self-control and monitoring is key to successful weight control to our target users. Therefore, we decide to look upon an integrative dual systems model of self-regulation drawn from cognitive neuroscience to guide design efforts (Figure 1).
In brief, this model distinguishes between automatic, non-conscious ‘System 1’ control, that is, well-learned habits or instinctive responses triggered by external stimuli and internal states; and deliberate, conscious ‘System 2’ control triggered by goals, intentions, and rules held in working memory.
Ideation
Low-fidelity prototype
Wireframe
4 — Final Design
How does it work?
Users let the app know their basic information and typical meals in a day. The app will generate their basal metabolism (BM) and average daily calorie intake as the basis for calculating weight change. **Users do not need to enter what they eat every day, which is tedious and hard to persist.
Users can customize their avatars to reflect their true body images. The changes include hairstyle, body measurement, and accessories. This helps them to better relate to the avatar and achieve optimal results.
Users will be asked to give the app permission to share health and fitness data with Apple’s Health app. The app then knows how many calories the user has burned in a day.
If users ate anything high in calories besides their typical meals, they can choose to “confess” their guilty pleasure. After hitting “confess,” the avatar will turn into a red demon for a second. This data will be counted towards everyday calories intake for calculation and projection.
Users can move the sidebar to see future projection of themselves through the avatar. Based on the accumulative calories intake, the system will calculate whether the users will gain weight or not. If the user is on the right track to lose weight, the avatar will show green light; otherwise, it will show red light so as to alarm.