Assignment brief

UXD720

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In this module, ‘UX Design’, blog posts document the prototype assignment progress each week. The assignment is to create and design a high-fidelity prototype based on a problem statement. The solution aims to include the innovation of creative technologies and engaging interfaces and interactions. Each week covers different topics of user experience design. I will apply the content and learning to the assignment and my development as a UX practitioner.

Research

The first step is choosing a concept for the prototype. It was not an easy task to do quickly. However, I solved this issue by researching and using websites, such as UX Challenge to spark inspiration and ideas. Another good starting point is to look into existing apps that have problems with the potential to be developed. It is more difficult to invent something from scratch, so it is better to look into an existing idea to build upon it (Feldbacher 2020).

I looked into health care and found an issue related to the booking of NHS appointments. However, when speaking to the course leader, she suggested I focus on something bigger, such as the Oura ring that offers personalised health insights.

Personalisation is the ‘holy grail’ of technology as it provides tailored experiences for customers (Oinas-Kukkonen and Harjumaa 2009: 492; Earley 2017: 74). I am drawn to health and well-being because I am interested in creating bespoke user experiences to enhance people’s health, which has become prominent during the COVID-19 pandemic.

I found an interesting article that revealed a woman using an Apple Watch detected thyroid months before her diagnosis (Raiken 2022). The woman’s heart rate was below average. However, the device did not alert her of these changes due to the notifications being switched off. Had she been notified sooner, she would have brought this to the doctor’s attention and quickly found a solution.

The article led me to research, and I discovered Heart disease is the number one leading cause of death in the UK. The disease can be preventable by changing one’s lifestyle, particularly nutrition and diet (Kingston and Rowley 2021). This sparked an idea to focus on mobile health applications supporting health and nutrition with heart rate.

Below is my proposed problem statement and hypothesis.

Problem statement

“I need a simple and accessible way to monitor my heart rate to know and understand what I need to do to improve my health. I need a way to self-manage my nutrition easily that is in line with my specific dietary requirements.”

Hypothesis

We believe that creating an accessible way to measure a person’s heart rate (HR) can provide them with the data to understand their heart health. The mobile application will include a biometric measuring feature in the camera to measure a person’s HR using their finger. A self-managed personalised nutrition plan will be designed for users to support and improve their overall health and wellbeing.

How might we statement

How might we measure, educate and support people to self-manage HR by creating a more accessible, personalised and effective solution using nutrition?

I am still refining my brief and exploring new ideas and features. Once I carry out interviews, I will have a clearer understanding of the target users. Moreover, I will be implementing a competitive analysis next week to discover new features.

References

EARLEY, Seth. 2017. ‘The Problem of Personalization: AI-Driven Analytics at Scale’. IT professional 19(6), 74–80.

FELDBACHER, Christian. 2020. ‘49+ Innovative Mobile App Ideas Users Will Definitely Get Hooked On’. Medium [online]. Available at: https://medium.com/@themobiledev/49-innovative-mobile-app-ideas-users-will-get-hooked-on-60f1482125c [accessed 3 Feb 2022].

KINGSTON, Hannah and Dominic ROWLEY. 2021. ‘What Are the Top 5 Causes of Death in the UK?’ Let’s get checked [online]. Available at: https://www.letsgetchecked.com/articles/top-5-causes-of-death-in-the-uk/ [accessed 14 Apr 2022].

OINAS-KUKKONEN, Harri and Marja HARJUMAA. 2009. ‘Persuasive Systems Design: Key Issues, Process Model, and System Features’. Communications of the Association for Information Systems 24, [online]. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/cais.

RAIKEN, Amber. 2022. ‘Woman Reveals How Her Apple Watch Detected Thyroid Condition Months before Diagnosis’. Independent, 11 Feb.

Images

‘What time is it?’. 2017. Unsplash [online]. Available at: https://unsplash.com/photos/0zAHoJ1gnGg [accessed 12 Feb 2022].