Goal Fish AppMY ROLE: UX-UI DESIGNER
DURATION: 3 WEEKS
OVERVIEW: Goal Fish was an original idea created by my teammate and I as an assignment for my ux-ui boot camp. The mobile app was inspired by the idea that many people have planners and calendars that they use to keep up with everyday living, but there is a higher chance that they will not fulfill their goals if they lack accountability.
The Problem: Many people attempt to set goals for themselves but can often fail to follow through. These people encounter many obstacles that cause them to lose sight of their goals, ultimately feeling disappointed in themselves, resulting in no progress towards achieving their goals.
The Solution: We thought we might solve this problem by developing an mobile application that would help people set, track and monitor the goals they wanted to achieve. By providing guidance on setting achievable goals along with accountability through reminders and progress reports that show accomplishments, it will increases the users likeliness of achieving their goals.
Research
Upon doing our research, we discovered a research study that helped to back up our hypothesis. The study claimed that “science has shown that 92% of people that set up goals fail to achieve their objectives.” We aimed to discover the wants and needs pertaining to goal-setting for the success of the potential users of the app by conducting user interviews, both on-the-street interviews and in-depth interviews with consenting participants. We also incorporated the use of social media surveying, in which I personally conducted quantitative research on the topic of goal-setting with the help of the Instagram story feature, shown with a gif animation of the survey below.
Surveys
We also incorporated the use of social media surveying, something I believe I will continue to experiment with along my ux-ui journey. The questions followed a similar format to the questionnaire, with a bit of a twist to adapt to the Instagram story format.
Definition
Once we collected our data, we started to define what the ideal user of our mobile app would look like. Something significant we found in our research was that we had two demographic groups with slight differences.
“The younger demographic (18-34 years old) showed a higher commitment to the goals they set and a desire to share them with their peers for accountability, while the second demographic (35-65 years old) had no desire to share their goals with anyone because they showed greater control and self motivation.”
Affinity Diagram
With these findings, we were able to carve out a user persona that would be the ideal user of this app and would benefit from it the most. We focused on the younger demographic, as they showed the most need for goal setting.
Moving forward with the research gathered, we decided to create an affinity diagram to help us sort out the wants and needs of our users.
We were able to divide our user research into the following categories: apps used, shared goals, strict deadlines, how lists were created, how often goals are completed, feelings when goals aren’t completed, personal rewards when goals are completed
Ideation
Once we defined our user, we began deciding on the actual features and design of this app, including the name and branding. We began to sort the research using a few design thinking tools, including Feature Prioritizing and the “I like, I wish, What if” Using these tools helped us to narrow down the features our mobile application to begin designing the interface.
“I like, I wish, What If”
Feature Prioritization Matrix
We did some market research to find direct and indirect competitors of the app that would become “Goal Fish.” There were mobile apps that had similar features to our proposed application, including the Remente App and the MinimaList App.
We understood that it was necessary to propose a mobile application that would provide a unique experience for users. We wanted to visualize what that user experience would look like based on the wants, needs, and goals of our user persona Erika. We created a user journey map to show the stages of the possible user experience.
Screenshot of the goal fish splash page
As far as features for the app, we brought a lot of focus to the goal-setting function. We wanted to think about the type of questions that would help someone set reachable goals. We decided to base the questions for the guided-goal feature on the popular S.M.A.R.T. Goals Model, which stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.
We wanted to ensure that users who are not familiar with goal setting but have the desire to do so would not be isolated from using this application. We also wanted to provide a way to make this app a bit different than our direct and indirect competitors within the market.
Prototype
We began to decide on the design and interface of the goal fish app by sketching out ideas, which led to digital wireframes, which we eventually combined into a final mid-fidelity prototype as required for the project. During this process, my partner and idea re-iterated our design because our users had different needs. One of the features we ended up going with after a few user tests mid-prototyping was the “notes” feature. The results showed that users were in favor of the feature because it is something that many of them already utilized on their mobile phones. We decided to do individual sketches and wireframes in order to later combine the ideas together for the final vision of the Goal Fish App.
Sketches
Below are my personal sketches, where I laid out a vision of what the app could look like, focusing on the features decided on with my teammate. I tried to create very detailed sketches to ensure that the digital wireframes could be designed in a timely manner due to the tight deadline on this project.
These sketches focus on the splash page and onboarding for the Goal Fish App
These sketches went into a bit more detail about how users would track their progress when they set their desired goals. I also started to think about the goal-setting tool and how it could help with the user experience.
I also chose to go with an easy sign-up page which would take you to a simple, yet effective dashboard.
Digital Wireframes
I eventually moved on to a digital low-fidelity wireframe (see the gif below) to bring some of my ideas to life. It was important that to me to understand the technical and design limitations when creating Goal Fish.
Final Outcomes
It is important to note that my teammate and I conducted user testing during all stages of the design process in order to ensure our app was designed with a user-first approach. The final result of this project is a combination of the designs of both my teammate and me.
We were able to combine our digital wireframes almost seamlessly due to some prior planning about the approach to the wireframes to keep the project completed within our given deadlines. You can see the final outcome of the low fidelity project here. Feel free to also view the gif below as well.
In Conclusion
This was my first UI-UI design experience and I learned a lot of skills that I have been able to use to create more dynamic projects over time.
I also learned to embrace collaborative work, because as a creative person, it can sometimes be difficult to put your trust in others to create a vision that reflects your personal talent and skills.
Working within a short period of time, I was able to see that I can effectively work under pressure and do what is expected of me. For example, this project did not require a high-fidelity prototype due to the fact that my classmates and I were UX-UI design novices but we were able to rise to the challenge.