ORBit
A habit-forming companion to keep the stress at bay
Young adults go through pivotal changes like going to university and self regulating their state of being can feel mentally overwhelmed. How can we help them establish self-determined goals outside of school that lead to more balanced lives? ORBit’s mission is to support young adults to persist in goal orientated habits that benefit their physical and mental health.
Time frame:
Sep–Dec, 2022
Teammates:
Alice Nie
Nicole Louie
Rosie Ji
Anahita Sehgal
My role:
Product Design
Skills:
Research
Information Architecture
Wireframing
Prototyping
UI Design
Prototype Testing
Video Editing
Users can track their weekly and monthly progress to stay on track of habit building. They can also easily update their activities and orb setting to better adapt to their evolving goals and needs
05
GOAL TRACKING &
CUSTOMIZATION
Introduce how ORBit works and what to expect
Tap the orb upon completion of activity. Users and their friends can see who has completed their activity first, as indicated by the color change, encouraging a healthy and fun level of competition.
Once each person has completed their activity, they get a celebratory message on the app along with a motivation quote that’s read aloud.
Set a bigger goal (e.g. do regular exercises) to achieve in the long-term, followed by a smaller activity (walk for 30min/day) that can be completed easily everyday.
04
CELEBRATE ACHIEVEMENT
03
CONNECT A FRIEND,
COMPLETE AN ACTIVITY
02
DEFINE GOAL
01
ONBOARDING
For your best viewing experience and to see the full design process, please view on desktop:) If you can't access desktop right now, here's an overview below
Primary research:
Identifying college student's mental model of wellbeing
We interviewed 10+ CMU students to gain a better understanding of how they perceive well-being and cope with stress. To uncover their mental models, we utilized Dan Lockton's New Metaphors design tool and asked participants to identify relevant metaphors. This approach allowed us to understand how students conceptualize abstract feelings of loss, stress, and mental health.
After identifying time allocation as a major hurdle to maintaining a balanced life, we conducted direct storytelling sessions with more students to gain deeper insight into how students currently employ well-being practices and the challenges they encounter, and developed a persona based on the insights:
Secondary research:
Learning the science and tactics behind decision-making and habit formation
After consulting 10+ academic papers and three experts in the field of habit formation and well-being, we found reminders, goal setting and framing, performance-sharing, and low-stake routine to be critical in keeping students engaged early on and successfully promoting positive habits. Synthesizing these research findings helped us decide on the three design focuses:
🎁 Reward
Allow students to celebrate wins for accomplishing goals with their friends and maintaining the habits in the long term
📈 Achievability
Setting bite-size goals and realistic expectations that eventually lead to a bigger goal to remain consistent
🤗 Personalization
A highly personalized approach to habit formation can motivate students to keep up with their habits
A portable orb that lights up for you and your friends to help form long-time habits
For your best viewing experience and to see the full design process, please view on desktop:) If you can't access desktop right now, here's an overview below
Our research led us to brainstorm 60+ ideas that eventually were downselected to three most promising concepts that address users' need for habit formation solutions that are low-stakes, incentivized, and provide social proof. In the end, we came down to the orbit idea I proposed–we see the potential of a physical object being used in energizing and creative ways to initiate intrinsic motivation. In addition, it doesn’t impose a particular goal-setting activity (such as letter-writing or goal visioning) like many other apps, but rather leans into the importance of social support for goals as its centerpoint.
66 IDEAS
3 CONCEPTS
2 PLATFORMS
1 PRODUCT
Affinity Clustering
For your best viewing experience and to see the full design process, please view on desktop:) If you can't access desktop right now, here's an overview below
For your best viewing experience and to see the full design process, please view on desktop:) If you can't access desktop right now, here's an overview below
1. Adding an onboarding experience to provide better context and set user expectations
Followed by rounds of usability testing from low to mid and high fidelity with both the physical and digital products with 9 participants, we made several improvements to designing an experience that would encourage continued engagement.
Designing elements of the orb
The concept of the orb went through several rounds of change from its look and feel to the sound and color integrated. Taking limitations such as cost and mobility into consideration, we kept the shape spherical, and decided to play with the light and sound effects that celebrate user’s completion of activities.
2. Using a more lighthearted tone and friendly design language
3. Introducing different forms of celebratory moments
Style Guide
For your best viewing experience and to see the full design process, please view on desktop:) If you can't access desktop right now, here's an overview below
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"Seeing the orb was a wow factor for me.
It helped enhance the personal relevance."
Orbit is a win!
The physical aspect of the orb is really popular among users because it has less distraction and its presence is harder to ignore compared to digital notifications.
What could be done differently
Due to time constraints, we had to run most user testings within a short duration, which mad it hard to test how users are motivated by the orb itself. To further evaluate the impact of our prototype, we could run a long-term diary study where users take their orbs home and perform the activities on their own time. After they have finished one complete cycle (achieving one goal), we could ask users to bring back their diaries for us to review. To measure their attitude change during the process, we could ask them to fill out an attitude scale questionnaire before, during, and after the test period.
On the design side, we would look further into the connection of multi-sensory features and communicative effects, specifically the various parameters of personalization we could embed in ORBit (such as the shape and character on the orb) to make it more engaging, relevant and fun.
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Students find the social factor effective in staying consistent with their goals.
Utilization of customized light and sound made users feel more energized and encouraged triggering user's motivation.
College students often experience stress and a sense of imbalance in their lives due to an overwhelming workload that they feel they cannot control. This can have adverse effects on their mental and physical health, leading to lack of motivation to improve the situation. We hypothesize that supporting young adults in cultivating self-determined goals and self-motivated habits can promote a more balanced lifestyle.
How might we make young adults committed to long-term habits on a daily basis?
PROBLEM
We’ve found that students who have at least one established, self-determined goal outside of school tend to lead more balanced lives. Our goal is to help students in forming enduring habits by developing a product that aligns with their daily routines and understanding the ways they become self-motivated.
Support young adults in achieving incremental, manageable goals that help them effectively manage their stress
PROJECT GOAL
After three months of research, ideation and testing, we have created ORB-it, an IoT-powered physical orb and mobile application that allows users to connect with their friends and participate in friendly competitions to develop self-determined habits.