Product Design | Heart2Heart : Human Connection Design Project
Jenna Park, Samantha Canon, Sara Cheng, Chih-ling Kuo, Annalee Robins
Role is in the last row
Project Length : 6 Weeks
Macbook & HP / Adobe Xd, Illustrator, Photoshop
Project Overview
We had a 6-week collaborative project between User Experience Design class and Industrial Design class. Our team consisted of 3 UX students and 2 Industrial Design students. We were supposed to use the Design Method Kit to figure out and solve current issues in our society and daily life. Our final goal of the project was to design a physical product and its mobile app. Our team conducted the research process together and divided our roles in the designing part. Once we finished the research, the Industrial Design students finished designing the actual product and then UX Design students completed building wireframes and creating high fidelity prototypes.
Brainstorming
Our team started the project from categorizing the given cards of design method kit. We categorized the cards in 3 groups and created the short scenarios for 3 virtual users of our design.
Person A is new to the city and wants to make new friends. She/he tries to make friends but has no idea where to go and how to meet new people. She/he feels lonely and bored in the big city and wants something can help her/him.
Person B always cares a lot about the environment so tries to protect it and prevent pollution. She/he wants an actual product or technology that can contribute to the eco-friendly activity.
Person C is a traveler who loves exploring new places. She/he usually travels with the smartphone, but it often goes out in the middle of traveling, so she/he loses the ways. She/he wants something that helps find directions without using data.
We decided to proceed with the first one and began to improve the ideas since there are already some social apps promote meetings and activities between new people. As the usage rate of smart device in the old generation increases, our team developed our ideas by creating a physical product and mobile app for building valuable human connections between the youths and seniors.
Research
By 2031, the agency predicts that nearly 1 in 4 Canadians will be over 65. - Stats Canada, 2017
More than 7.3 million Millennials (age 18 to 37) are living in Canada. - Canadian Millennials, 2018
Our team conducted the desk research and tried to make points between the top 5 principle of designing delightful digital experience for seniors and Millennials’ behavior patterns of digital experience. Seniors tend to be focus on real life instead of having interest in new technologies, but most of Millennials are relying their lives on smart devices. They are heavy web users and have high expectations about digital experiences, smart life, and user interfaces. On the contrary, the elderly prioritize something obvious and meaningful.
User Persona
To better understand our future users, our UX team created the personas based on the research and suggested ideas. The user personas were created to reach and fulfill the user needs and goals.
Ideas for Improvement
Our team took an idea from a hobby called Geocaching and reimagined it in a city setting.
Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity, in which participants use a GPS with a mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers. We developed our ideas with the concept of geocaching.
We established the concept of practical design on the basis of all the research and design ideas.
Our target users will be people of all ages, but especially youths and seniors who own smart devices and are willing to use our product and mobile application.
We expect our design will promote social interaction and interchange among people of different ages by exchanging letters and sharing the stories.
Our team sincerely hopes that this design will establish a valuable relationship and connection between the elderly and youths.
Sharing experiences to enhance our daily lives
& Create valuable human connections
The official name of our work is Heart2Heart Human Connection Design Project.
The main purpose of the project is sharing experiences to enhance people’s daily lives and create valuable human connections within all ages (youths and seniors).
A multi-generational gap between these two groups of youths and seniors will be prevalent. To bridge this gap, our main concept is to create a cube (mailbox)dedicated to exchanging letters and gifts between the youths and seniors. The cube’s functionality will work hand in hand with the Heart2Heart app where it will monitor the status of the cube’s content, and scan and unlock the cube’s QR secured slots.
Physical Product Design
Our team members from the Industrial Design class designed the physical product called Heart2Heart portal (cube). Users will have access to the cube by scanning their own QR code and will share letters and exchange gifts. The product will be located near community centres, public libraries, schools, and also retirement residences.
Features
Our Heart2Heart app will provide incentives to encourage users to utilize the app. It will also provide multiple ways for the youths and seniors to connect with one another.
The Points System motivates and encourages users to use the app.
The app can locate the closest cube to the user’s current location.
Each user will have a unique QR code to make connections and access the cube’s contents.
Users can exchange conversations with other users and receive confirmation details on their cube’s slot reservation through the Messages page.
The Dashboard will display weekly local events where users can register and participate.
The Letter Writing program allows users to exchange handwritten letters with seniors.
The Letter Writing program will have a matching system that allows users to write more personal letters and form a meaningful connection with their recipients.
The Gift Exchange program allows users to help a senior fulfill their gift exchange request.
Point System
In order to motivate and excite users to use the app, we implemented a point system. Users can accumulate points by participating in various activities and can exchange their points for rewards.
Local Events
On the user dashboard, there will be a list of local events where it’ll display the details of the event and how many points a user can earn by participating in the event. Users can also use the calendar picker to view what events are happening week by week.
Letter Program
The letter-writing program allows users to exchange handwritten letters with matched ones. To start making new connections, users will have an option to either be matched with a writing partner or write letters anonymously to other users. After users have started to connect with a number of others, they’ll see a list of users’ profiles. On the seniors’ profile, young users will have an option to send letters or exchange gifts with them.
Gift Exchange
Users have 3 ways to exchange gifts.
Users can simply go to the closest mailbox to them, and exchange gifts with a slot that has not been reserved and has an item inside.
From the user’s matched contacts, users can exchange gifts with a selected contact.
Users can go to the Gift Exchange section, and help fulfill other users’ gift exchange requests.
How it works
Wireframe
After the physical product was designed, we UX team started building wireframes based on all the research and ideas we had developed for a couple of weeks.
High Fidelity Prototype
After we made the wireframes, we had quick user tests before creating the prototypes. We asked for feedback from 2 users and they understood the user flow well. We edited some user interfaces and completed creating high-fidelity prototypes.
Feel free to browse our Heart2Heart!
Next Steps
Usability Testings
Role
I participated in the entire process of the project including brainstorming, finding problems, idea developing, and designing. And highly contributed to creating personas, wireframes, and designing the high fidelity prototypes.