Bobble

1. Prototype link (Please submit a link to a playable prototype, not a link to your design file) Link

2. Describe your project (max 150 words) Bobble is a mobile application designed to assist undergraduate students in developing and keeping up with a consistent exercise routine. Bobble was created with the understanding that academics and extracurriculars remain the top priority for most students. As such, Bobble serves to integrate exercise into users’ lives by working around their pre-existing class schedule which is synced into the app, all while making exercise more enjoyable and engaging.

Users should keep their Bobble companion happy and healthy by completing personalized exercises and other activities designed to promote a consistent routine - They can do this by themselves or with friends. They will also earn coins in the app that they can use to spruce up their Bobble’s apartment or their Bobble’s appearance.

Apart from promoting consistency, Bobble also ensures that users are executing the exercises correctly by using AI to analyze the user’s form - providing feedback or guidance where needed.

3.Describe your research process and findings. If you conducted any surveys or interviews, please include the survey form and/or interview questions here. If you conducted secondary research by pulling from online sources, please include a link to your sources. (Max 500 words)

I started my research process with the goal of identifying a challenge that would impact a significant number of undergraduate students, as I wanted to contribute towards a solution that could help as many students as possible. Starting with secondary research, I found that the prevalent theme overwhelmingly pointed towards undergraduate students primarily grappling with mental health challenges [1].

Though I would typically delve a bit deeper into the problem of mental health challenges, my belief that the problem was very complex was quickly affirmed. - There were far too many causes for it to be productive for me to look into in 3 days [2]. So, I decided to take a little more unorthodox approach by looking into what simple and effective ways there were to push us to - or keep us in - healthier mental states.

At this point, I remembered a study that I had recently read in Shawn Achor’s book “The Happiness Advantage”, where patients with depression were studied to assess their relapse rate under different conditions - 38% of the medication-only and 31% of the exercise-medication combination group relapsed, whereas only an astounding 9% of patients in the exercise-only group relapsed. Upon researching further, I came across a finding by the Journal of Happiness Studies - as little as 10 minutes of exercise a day is enough to boost happiness levels.

This caused me to switch gears into a narrower scope - What problems were there for undergraduate students when it came to exercising? Through more secondary research, I found that many students struggled with exercising consistently [3], citing reasons like i) busyness due to academics, extracurriculars and social life [4], ii) lack of motivation [4] and iii) feeling self-conscious and intimidated [5].

I cross-checked with actual undergraduate students, conducting 7 user interviews with these questions: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jea_k6Oy-4cDguBYqcJU6Q5OMCVP2eD8Mnh5F6tO59U/edit?usp=sharing

I used an affinity map to help me extract key themes. My findings agreed with the secondary research - 1. Students prioritize academics and extracurriculars over exercising as there are immediate negative consequences to the former. 2a. For some, exercising with peers increases likelihood of meeting desired exercising frequency due to increased accountability and fun while decreasing feelings of intimidation and self-consciousness. 2b. For others, exercising by oneself increases likelihood of meeting desired exercising frequency - Allows for increased flexibility and feelings of peace while decreasing feelings of self-consciousness. 3. Students’ main motivation for exercising boiled down to two very distinct groups - (A) Those that wanted to do it overwhelmingly because they (i) Wanted to feel good/happy and (ii) Wanted to become stronger, and (iii) Appearance was a small factor and (B) Those who were the opposite - appearance was much more important than the other two.

Interestingly, when I used my affinity map to trace back to who belonged to groups (A) and (B), people who fell into group (A) were much more likely to report meeting their desired gym frequency over a long period of time rather than (B).

Sources: http://tinyurl.com/sourcesbobble

4.Describe your most important design decisions. What research findings and/or user testing results led you to make these decisions? (Max 500 words) My design decisions focus on cultivating intrinsic motivation for consistent exercise. Research highlights that users who genuinely enjoy the exercise process are more likely to sustain long-term commitment. Recognizing the challenge of transitioning from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation, especially for users with body image challenges or mental health concerns, my design aims to retain users on the app long enough to establish a routine and facilitate this transition.

In order to increase the app’s chance of retaining users, one of the first screens involves Bobble asking for the user’s timetable. By planning for exercise around the user’s schoolwork and extracurriculars (their main priorities), this reinforces the commitments mentally and increases the chance that they will exercise, which in turn increases the chance that they will keep using the app.

In one of the last few frames, the app also encourages users to pick “first choice slots and “second choice slots” as sometimes users feel more tired from school than they expected. In this case, the app should emphasize flexibility so that users do not feel pressured to force themselves to exercise. This prevents users from losing motivation while still increasing the likelihood of users’ meeting their goals by allowing them to reschedule to a later day in the week. This in turn increases the chance that users will continue the routine.

The questionnaire is used to recommend users when first choice and second choice slots. Users differ in their energy levels across the day - and to complicate things, some students want to reserve their high-energy moments for work whereas some prefer it for exercising. Also, depending on the user, one might be genetically predisposed to being more or less energized after exercising - and this might affect if they should plan it before or after class. It is important to know this information to guide the user to pick the slots that will maximize their chance of enjoying the exercise.

Another insight was that some users reported being self-conscious when exercising in front of others, though they did enjoy the exercise itself. They were afraid of being judged for performing the exercising poorly or inaccurately. Two features were built to combat this pain point - Going with peers, which has been reported to diminish most or all feelings of anxiety, and using AI to analyze the user’s form and give real-time feedback.

Finally, I integrated a game to give exercise more meaning and enjoyment. One interviewee told me that he preferred hiking over gym because gym goals tend to be self-imposed, resulting in there being less of an incentive to achieve those goals as opposed to the end of a hike - a goal set by the environment. I attempted to emulate this in two ways - Reward and pain. The user would be rewarded by tangible improvements to their Bobble’s quality of life whenever they exercise. Conversely, their Bobble would suffer if they didn’t exercise after a while as the health and happiness bars will decrease overtime.

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