The domain that Quarter Life Crisis (QLC) has chosen for the project is “Community”. In exploring how communities would improve the experience of a person through social and mobile technology, the QLC team noticed that there might be a gap in the market for a product that helps with consistency in goal achievement.
Goal Achievement theory is a broadly discussed topic when it comes to understanding the motivation somebody has when attempting to achieve a goal. Goal achievement theory is based on two types of goals: mastery and performance. While mastery looks at developing competence in a specific topic or area, performance relates to demonstrating to others that expertise has been reached (King and Watkins 2012).
The scope of the project that QLC wants to implement refers to this second type of goals, performance goals. While goal achievement theory tends to explore individual goal setting, there is interest in QLC to create a product that uses performance goal but in a group driven scenario. In a study with a women's college sporting team, it was found that group-focused individual goals were better at enhancing motivation, improving group cohesion, and goal achievement orientation than goals set by individuals themselves (Barbieri 2012). The study gave some evidence that when a group collaborates on setting goals for an individual, they are more likely to come up with more achievable results than if an individual sets goals without any help or feedback.
Apart from the study on group-focused individual goals, there is also interesting research on strengths-based group supervision. Strengths-based group supervision is a framework that is used in which the particular abilities and talents of a person are reinforced as a force to motivate them in different areas, that including goal achievement. In a study regarding psychiatric rehabilitation, early evidence showed that a strengths-based approach and group supervision could be particularly helpful in goal achievement (Rapp et al. 2014).
QLC wants to implement a concept that addresses the problem domain of goal achievement through the use of communities. The areas of concern that we will be addressing is the following: how can we use social technology and solutions in creating a community that can foster group-focused individual goal setting in combination with a strengths-based approach in order to create consistency in achieving performance goals.
Following from the domain described before, the scope of the project is to create a system that facilitates the creation of virtual communities to aid individuals with motivation and goal achievement. The platform aims to address user dropout when it comes to consistency in the program or benchmark they have set.
Currently individuals wanting to develop and better themselves in aspects of their life are confronted with so many avenues or programs to aid in this development. From workout programs, to 30 day challenges, the amount of resources available is near endless.
However, retention rates and success rates vary a lot, and many users choose to drop out instead of pursuing their initial intent. While there may be several reasons for this dropout rate, we want to focus on the lack of supervision as well as setting unrealistic goals. The problem lies in the consistency and ultimately commitment to following through with a program, plan or goal that has been tailored for a particular person.
To target the lack of supervision and setting unrealistic goals, the system we will be creating will base itself on creating a community from a user’s existing pool of friends. These social community can provide both supervision, progress checking, and accountability while also being able to monitor whether or not a member of the community has set an unrealistic goal for themselves. The idea behind the scope is that those around a user can help them enforce task completion towards a goal, while also having better knowledge than strangers on what sort of goal is appropriate for an individual of the group.
Various services have attempted to solve this problem of consistency/commitment through developing communities around their service or program. With the goal being to give users a reason to keep using the service, whether because of the competition, the moral support or other aspects. However, most of the users in one's community are not friends from real life, meaning there's very little accountability for users involved, and retention rates still consistently diminish.
The main premise for this project is creating a social platform for encouraging users accountability towards a task, plan or specific goal. The solution is to develop a platform where a user is able to invite a set of friends to validate and/or hold the individual accountable for completing a goal, with group defined rewards/consequences. Some of the functionalities available to the users as tools to maintain accountability and promote consistency will be messaging, system notices, overview reporting, and collective goal setting.
Users can set a goal they would like to achieve such as going to the gym three times a week for a month, then they invite their close friends, specifying one or multiple people to validate a task is completed (eg. housemate, or photo/video evidence within the application). With a final consequence/reward set and voted upon by members of the group for the completion/failure of the task.
Members of the community have input on the goals set by each member before they are accepted. This will be implemented as a check for the group to maintain realistic and achievable goals as defined by members of each community. Once the goal is accepted, the system will allow for the goal to be set and support its completion by providing an accountability and consistency check.
As briefly mentioned before, the system will allow the submission of evidence such as photographs as well as individuals or group setting penalties if a goal is not achieved.
- Increase user consistency/commitment towards goal achievement
- Eventually decrease reliance on friends for accountability
- Facilitate the creation of support systems within groups of friends
- Allow for realistic goal setting through the use of collaborative interfaces.
- Ease the tracking of goals through a progress checking platform
- Create persuasive interfaces to increase motivation within user groups
The primary target audience of this application is Gen-Y: the age group of 18 - 35-year-olds. This group is typically known for being highly active on social media – in particular: Facebook and Instagram (Nanji, 2017). They are at pivotal points of time in their lives: starting or graduating from school, getting jobs, leaving home, etc. Often, this age group is unused to dealing with large blocks of unstructured time in which they don’t have to answer to anyone. Users in and around this target group are focussed on self improvement and building skills for professional and/or personal development.
The users are of 2 main types: motivators and those in need of motivation. A user can enter as a person in need of motivation to complete a task, but also provide motivation to a friend in need.
As the target group is well versed in many (if not all) forms of current social media applications. This implies that we can complex interactions that are pre-existing in other social media apps. Ease of use and effectiveness of an application has been shown to be directly related to its quality of performance. This provides strong support for the implementation of a strong visual layout and interface (Salimun, 2013).
This application does not target users younger than 18 because they generally still are under the guidance of teachers and parents. It is more useful for people with an unstructured lifestyle.
Jill is a 22-year-old girl that has recently moved out of home for the first time. She finds it difficult to motivate herself to get out of bed unless she absolutely has to.Without her family to push her, she often ends up relying on her friends to keep her going. However, it is becoming increasingly challenging to spend large amounts of time together to help her out of her slump. Jill is heavily reliant on social media to keep her connected, and uses at least 4 social media applications at a time to communicate with her social circle.
Goals:
- Build self-esteem
- Become self-reliant
- To keep herself healthy and in shape
Frustrations:
- Easily loses motivation
- Drives even the smallest distances
- Reckless spender
William Tate is in his late 20s. He is the first of his group of friends from high school to settle down with a partner and a job. He is a construction worker, and also has a workshop in his garage where he likes to build things out of wood and metal. His friend circle has diminished through the last 5 to 6 years. The few remaining friends he maintains contact with are very close to each other. He wants to see them succeed in life and has taken on the role of a mentor to them.
Goals:
- To build his life and family
- To motivate his friends to achieve their goals
- To continue having meaningful relationships with his friends
Frustrations:
- Making time for everyone (friends/family)
- Being lied to
- Getting everyone under one roof
As mentioned in section 1.1 Domain Challenge/Problem, there are currently various solutions for the problems of user consistency and commitment to goals. Where this solution differs from current options available is primarily in its openness and flexibility. The application has been designed to be a framework for users to adapt to best suit their motivational styles. As not all users respond to certain motivational elements such as reminders or rewards the same way, the system has been designed to provide as many different options as possible, to cater to all users. This focus on the system as a platform is the main differentiation between this system and existing products, with the five main elements of the framework being individual/group goals, reward/consequences, evidence, checkup system/reminders.
When using the application users have the option for setting an individual goal that they themselves must complete alone, or setting a goal for all/some members of a group to complete. This option differs from current solutions which force users to pick one or the other, and within groups commonly not made up of real friends.
Users also have the option to set up rewards and/or consequences for completing or not completing a task. The recurring idea of flexibility is also present here, with the reward being open for the individual or group members to decide upon, with the reward being anything from food, to creating a social media post etc. Systems available currently primarily reward users through intangible rewards such as points and achievements, or in terms of person to person betting force users to use their inbuilt system (from which they take a profit, and charge for the service). This system allows the user to set up their rewards, adding another potential benefit as a certain reward may be more of an incentive than money or a digital asset.
Evidence for the completion of goals or parts of goals is also a feature while not specifically unique in itself, its use case is innovative. Within this app, users are able to choose whether they allow friends to see the evidence, and how in depth they want this evidence to be. Options include photographs, videos, GPS location/tracking and potentially third party integration, with all options customizable.
Similar to that of evidence tracking is reminders, with the main forms of innovation being the level of customizability and depth of control a user has access to. Current systems have predefined times, and consistencies for reminders, commonly causing users to become annoyed/frustrated with a system. This system allows a user to set when or if a notification should occur, and when/if other group members are also notified. Specific events can be set up to trigger notifications,
The final innovation in this solution is the inclusion of users own friends, and the framework/platform provided. Users are able to either import friends from Facebook or allow them to sign up with basic contact information (requiring only name and number), reducing the barrier to entry. Differing from existing solutions which focus on creating an ‘additional’ community external from that of an individual's friend group. In the hopes of pairing like-minded individuals, and ideally creating a profitable user base outside that of industry standards such as Facebook/Instagram etc.
All of these different elements as mentioned focus on the theme of openness and flexibility, allowing users to customize the platform to best suit themselves. This focus on the platform as a framework as opposed to a guided system, distinguishes this application from other existing solutions, resulting in a user friendly innovative design.
The incorporation of support groups, visibility in goal setting and accomplishment, and progress tracking among group members brings several theories and frameworks into consideration for this project.
Below is a short list of theory that will aid and guide us through the design process, and that we should attempt to follow and include.
Support Group: Slightly touched upon on the domain section of this document, there are benefits of having a support group. If group members focus on a strengths based approach, then the support group may have more success in creating motivation. However, a design consideration here is to work to prevent on too much negative competition and social comparison too. The system must be built as a support network and not so much as a competitive outlet, as a study that carried out several experiments on goal theory discovered that as some users achieve their goals, other may find it demotivating and reduce the participation they have (Briers, Chan 2013).
Social Translucence & Awareness: There is social visibility on the progress that every user is making. There is no hiding and so users can react to people from the pack falling behind or those who are powering ahead. The system will allow for transparency among all users making it easy to provide feedback and motivational pushes.
The creation of a multi-user translucent system raises some concerns regarding design directions. For example, in a study of a multi-user system for domestic use it became apparent that for translucent systems to work within the context of multiple users, the system should not “judge or prescribe behavior” (Niemantsverdriet, Broekhuijsen et al. 2016). This study will become relevant to the the concept as we will be threading thinly in making an interface that persuasive but not pushy, reminding of shortcomings but not judgemental, etc.
Another study on workplace environments using a platform that showed co-worker’s availability explored how social translucent systems would better fit in users’ lives without becoming invasive. The study identified that while status visibility is important, there should also be a mutual understanding and contextual analysis in situations (Szostek, Karapanos et al. 2008). This means that the users of the system need to understand that while they have status visibility, the status itself does not communicate the full picture of what is happening.
Semantic & Social Relationships: The system proposes to combine two types of relationship together in terms of social technology: semantic & social. This refers to a system that will provide a platform for groups of people that already know each other and may have commonalities among them. In addition to this, there will be a semantic relationship as the platform will provide a system, for accountability and goal setting related to a specific topic such as fitness, dieting or even daily social challenges or activities.
Collaborative Displays: The design will take into consideration collaborative displays. While the collaboration may not be driven by one specific task, users can make additional benchmarks and goals to be followed by the users. It will be important to consider how new input and changes are introduced into the system. How will the users view the information, and what type of control flow will be implemented?
Location Based evidence: As part of the accountability system, the application would enable location tagging based on GPS so that the users can tick the completion of a task in a specific location. For example, if the user had to study on the weekend the confirmation can be actioned by the device being used within the university campus.
Vicarious Goal Fulfillment (challenge): There is a major obstacle in the development of the project that needs to be addressed, and that is the concept of vicarious goal fulfillment. This theory relates to how individuals accomplish their own goals when there is a common group goal. In a study to understand this idea more, there was evidence that in a group setting some individuals experienced other members’ accomplishments even if they had not reached a goal themselves (Kulow, Kramer, Bentley 2015). This vicarious experienced then made it more likely for those individuals who had not reached a goal to underperform as they related a group accomplishment as their own.
As we are dealing with both individual and group based goals, this theory will be key in working around consistency in goal accomplishment. Some of the methods implementing in the studies differ from the scope of our implementation. For example, the studies grouped strangers, whereas our system deals with acquainted individuals. In being acquainted, the group will know what characteristics binds them together which is also a difference with the studies on vicarious goal fulfillment where the participants were just told they they were similar to each other. In combating this problem, the QLC team will pursue to implement persuasive interfaces and technology onto the system to promote individual consistency and accountability as well as group driven goals.
The problem space will be considered from both a design and technical perspective throughout all phases of the project. As such, the team will work in a self-organising and cross-functional manner and attempt to limit compartmentalisation of tasks based solely on individual attributes.
Quarter Life Crisis will work in an agile environment, which will require every team member to be hands on with whatever the requirements of the project are at a given point. This means that while some members may have stronger skills in specific aptitudes, they will be required to participate in every aspect of the process as the design sprints come through. Below is a list of each member and their particular strengths.
Sebastian Zuloaga - 44577083 (Leader)
- Front End Coding
- Writing & Editing
- Process Design
- Interaction Design
Sanjana Bhatnagar - 44376352
- Visual Design
- Process Design
- User Experience
- Front End Dev
Liam Bordon - 43538546
- Graphic Design
- User Experience Design
- User Interface Design
- Front End Development
Daniel Homer - 43553745
- Front End Development
- User Experience Design
- Back End Development
- Prototype Design
Mitchell Woods - 43592986
- Initial Mockups/Design
- Prototyping
- Front End Development
- User Testing/Feedback
Work allocation will be based around various team members abilities and their desired tasks. Additional members will work alongside each other when necessary to allow for synonymous group collaboration and success. All group members will contribute equally and fairly to the workload and agree to meet any completion deadlines of assigned tasks. Where team members are unable to complete a task in the designated timeframe, they will notify the rest of the team whom will reallocate the task to another member or assist in its completion.
The team leader is primarily responsible for organising team meetings, booking studios, classrooms and computer laboratories. They will also facilitate any resources (outlined in section 5.2 Resources) needed by the team as well as any external services. However, the team as a collective is still responsible for delegating and organising all required tasks between themselves.
Each team member has equal rights and authority in decision making. Any team decisions will be decided by a majority vote. If a majority decision cannot be established by the team, the team leader will decide on the path of action for the team. When a decision is made, all team members are to accept, commit and support the decision.
If any difficulties are faced between members throughout the project, the group will primarily handle it internally. If further issues develop that the team cannot handle effectively or that is above their jurisdiction, then tutors will be notified and involved in rectifying the situation. If any member/s are unresponsive to the previous steps outlined, then formal proceedings will be conducted.
Google Drive link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0ByCNRVNpo7N6NHpxSE9ycjVmV0E?usp=sharing
GitHub: https://github.com/deco3500-2017/quarterlifecrisis
Disclaimer (As the semester has progressed, various materials have been uploaded to github and Google Drive, however some materials may not be present in both locations (the are in one or the other) as in certain instances, the team utilised one platform for convience. Every effort has been made to include all material on git, but their may be some mismatches in naming and location).
All documents to be completed for submission will be named according to their title within the course. Once a document is submitted, its relating material will be moved to a dedicated folder, with the name corresponding to the project title. Meetings minutes will be titled with the date, and any other non-code based items will be named to depict their purpose as accurately as possible.
The team will use a private channel in Slack as the main method of communication. If there is an urgent to address, a team member may be contacted through Facebook messenger as it may be a quicker turn around for messages.
Communication will be based primarily in Slack to allow for consistent and convenient communication between all members. We will also use the workshop and practical times to convene and discussion the project. Additional meetings will be held when required due to time restraints, workload or if any further difficulties are faced. We will coordinate our work through Google Drive to allow for efficient and effective collaboration on the project as well as file sharing for any additional resources. We will also use Github to assist in this and serve as a means to collate our work.
Working with GitHub allows us to use ZenHub as a platform to keep track of progress. During every meeting as project progress is discussed, team members will use ZenHub to create a lists of tasks that need to be accomplished. This will allow for progress tracking among members and visibility of where everyone is. This will help with the agile development framework and will also aid in recording the work that every team member has participated in.
The team will work in unison throughout the semester to deliver solutions within the relevant problem domain. This will be done primarily through fortnightly sprint cycles.
- Initial brainstorming of potential solutions within the problem space.
- Further research of similar solutions within the chosen problem space.
- Identification of primary user base.
- Establishment project plan and timeline.
Goal: Establish the specific user needs and wants on the system. Create mockups and prototypes for the individual tasks that the system will support such as viewing statistics or creating a goal. At this stage the prototype does not have to be interactive or connected.
- Idea refinement from stand-up feedback.
- Reevaluation of end user goals.
- Further research into use cases.
- Further research of the primary user-base in order to prioritise feature requirements:
- Specific task development
- Reward and consequence specification
- Interaction mechanics between users
- Create low-fidelity prototypes/mockups.
- Conduct initial user testing of low-fidelity prototypes.
Goal: The third sprint of the design process will consist of testing and evaluating the designs from the previous sprint. The information from the test will be used to create the first interactive prototype that must show the basic user task flow for a full user scenario (creating a goal, tracking progress, accomplishing a goal).
- Conduct further user testing of low-fidelity prototypes to document user interactions and identify improvements to the user experience.
- Collate and analyse low-fidelity user testing results.
- Idea and design refinement from stand-up feedback and analysed user testing results.
- Reevaluation of end user goals from analysed user testing outcomes.
- Create initial interactive prototype based on low-fidelity prototype user testing outcomes and refined user goals.
- Conduct user testing of the interactive prototype.
Goal: The final design will consist of the final design iteration. New testing session and evaluation will be conducted for the prototype on sprint 3. The results will be used to correct any oversights on the design journey and be used to add any bells and whistles onto the final prototype.
- Collate and analyse prototype user testing results.
- Idea and design refinement from stand-up feedback and analysed user testing results Reevaluation of end user goals from analysed user testing outcomes.
- Create promotional material.
- Refine prototype with consideration of user testing results.
- Create documentation to accompany prototype.
- Documentation of project progression over the semester including:
- Justification of design decisions and refinements of the concept
- Changes resulting from user testing feedback
- Reflection on decisions made and context refinement
The following table outlines the intended project timeline and key deliverable dates.
Throughout the project there will be two main areas in which various resources will be required, during design phases, and during prototyping/user testing phases. The team has a range of skills using the different resources, so before using any of the resources there will be a discussion on the specific concept requirements to assess what tools are the most appropriate.
Below is a list of the tools that we have in our tool kit. Some of them we believe we will use (marked with an *), while the use of other will be on a needs basis.
- Boords.com
- Storyboardthat.com*
- Adobe Experience Design*
- MarvelApp
- Invision App*
- Proto.io
- Adobe Muse
- Unsplash.com
- Gratisography.com
- Iconfinder.com
- Freepik.com
- Adobe Stock
- Typekit
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe Muse
- #community
- #awareness
- #coordination
- #reflective
- #conversation
- Community Accountability System
- Social Group Goals
King, R. B. and D. A. Watkins (2012). "“Socializing” Achievement Goal Theory: The Need for Social Goals." Psychological Studies 57(1): 112-116.
Barbieri, J.A. 2012, The Structure of a Team: The Influence of Goal Setting Type on Intrinsic Motivation, Group Cohesion, and Goal Achievement Orientation of Division III Female Student-Athletes at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, The University of the Rockies.
Rapp, C., Goscha, R., & Fukui, S. (2014). Enhanced Consumer Goal Achievement Through Strengths-Based Group Supervision. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, 2014.
Salimun, C. (2013). The relationship between visual interface aesthetics, task performance, and preference (PhD). University of Glasgow.
Nanji, A. (2017). The Most Popular Social Networks With Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers. MarketingProfs. Retrieved from: https://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2017/31792/the-most-popular-social-networks-with-millennials-gen-x-and-baby-boomers
Niemantsverdriet, K., et al. (2016). Designing for Multi-User Interaction in the Home Environment: Implementing Social Translucence. Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems. Brisbane, QLD, Australia, ACM: 1303-1314.
Szostek, A. M., et al. (2008). Understanding the implications of social translucence for systems supporting communication at work. Proceedings of the 2008 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work. San Diego, CA, USA, ACM: 649-658.
Katina Kulow, Thomas Kramer, and Kara Bentley (2015). "All For One and One For All: Individual Vicarious Goal Fulfillment in Group Contexts". Advances in Consumer Research 43: 601-601.
Barbara Briers and Elaine Chan (2013). "When Social Comparison Is Demotivating For Goal Achievement". Advances in Consumer Research 41.
Nutrition Nourishment (n.d) Recipe of the Week: Barley and Raw Veg Power Salad. Retrieved from: https://nutritionnourishment.wordpress.com/2017/05/08/recipe-of-the-week-barley-and-raw-veg-power-salad/
Pom Pom Comedy (2014) Nike + Running. Retrieved from: http://www.pompomcomedy.fr/nike-running-joggings-en-forme-penis/
The Odyssey Online (2016) Why Running is Perfect for Everyone. Retrieved from: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/why-running-is-perfect-for-everyone