Perky Pals

Many women do not seek out breast health info, so we entice users by giving rewards for meeting goals - exercise, healthy eating, self-checks, mammograms. We motivate with customized tips & reminders.

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Inspiration

For this project, we wanted to focus on breast cancer prevention for the underserved community.

Some questions that kept us up at night,

  • How can we educate users so that they can make informed health decisions for themselves?
  • How can we specifically educate women about breast health?
  • Can we normalize this discussion and nudge our users to proactively take control of their breast health?
  • How can we provide a useful tool to encourage users to live a healthier lifestyle?
  • What might excite our users to continue these healthy habits?
  • What do they need? What do they currently not have access to? Is it time? Is it money? Is it a lack of trust in healthcare?
  • Do they have access to health care? Do they know where to get help? How can we make this fun and easy for them when they are often working multiple jobs trying to make ends meet?
  • Can we also make this product appealing for those who may NOT need the resources themselves but would want to share them with a community that is more in need?

What it does

Perky pals is a wellness tracker that continuously motivates you to create and build healthy habits to reduce your overall risks of breast cancer. We remove barriers to resources by allowing our users to earn points for healthy food, time-saving meals, and pro-bono medical care for reaching their goals. Our colors are vibrant to convey energy and positivity. The font is strong and curvy to reflect the women who use the Perky Pals. We write in a voice that is casual and upbeat to connect with women in a positive way, driving good results.

How we built it

We started by researching why underserved communities were impacted so negatively by breast cancer. We also conducted an analysis of the landscape - for existing preventive apps, resource centers – and looked for where these didn’t meet the needs of potential users.

We organized these results into 3 personas and catered the app to solve the pains for these personas. We brainstormed the overall idea for how the app would work, and then created basic wireframes that showed flow and basic page functionality and content.

We built out the front-end skeleton while the high-fidelity mockups were created.

As the sprint went on, we continued to iterate on both the design and functionality to perfect the experience for our users.

Challenges we ran into

Providing perceived value to underserved communities in order to expose them to breast health information and potential care, an area that comes with baggage for many women.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • A plan to share with users how an overall healthy lifestyle positively impacts risk factors
  • A multi-pronged approach to keep users motivated to meet their goals - through accountability, personalized tips, and rewards.

As new ideas were rolling in, we are proud of ourselves for being so agile. We continuously revised the design and refactored the codebase to adjust for any changes. Although the app is not currently connected to a backend database, the application is functional using local data.

What we learned

Building trust and accountability is a proven technique to meet goals. The issue of getting underserved women to seek breast health is not a one-size-fits-all problem or solution. We hope that the multi-prong approach to Perky Pals will help so many of these women receive the care and resources they need.

What's next for Perky Pals

App Development

  • Development of connecting with friends
  • Registration and Profile Set-up Flow
  • Integration with database of facilities for mammograms
  • Based on user activity display personalized tips and reminders
  • Implement Goal Setting Flow
  • Ability to edit goals
  • Ability to backfill activity
  • Monthly Views of Activity
  • Change entry for activities from drop-down
  • Mindfulness section - allow for tracking how many minutes of meditation
  • Implement Analytics

Future Enhancements

  • Development of buddy features like setting challenges, sending encouragements
  • Integration with 3rd party apps like Fitbit, my fitness pal, and apple health
  • Set-up ability to have push notifications
  • Ability to share on Instagram.
  • Dynamic content in the Library Section

Business Plan

  • Build out a community of pro-bono doctors/physical therapists/therapists//social workers to help connect our users with medical professionals
  • Corporate Sponsorship and Grants to fund redemption items
  • Create (or connect to existing) database of facilities for mammograms
  • Content creation plan for tips, reminders, resource section
  • Procurement of redemption items

Team members include - Eloise Takaki, Katie Lewis, Nicole Chow

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