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Starting from my own personal experience as an Asian American and observations within my social network, there appeared to be a shared experience of having similar relationships of disconnect between ourselves as Asian American children and our immigrant parents.
The onboarding steps will listen, identify, and store the user’s voice.
The app will listen to the user’s voice during a conversation and provide suggestions they would like to rephrase.
The Explore page provides practical resources to resolve conflicts, based on research.
The onboarding steps will listen, identify, and store the user’s voice.
The app will listen to the user’s voice during a conversation and provide suggestions they would like to rephrase.
The Explore page provides practical resources to resolve conflicts, based on research.
According to the 2019 Census Bureau population estimate, there are around 18.9 million Asian Americans, alone, living in the United States. “Asian American” can consist of the following subgroups:
According to NAMI:
- Family pressure due to cultural values and expectations can emerge, which also can be an impetus of great distress and even trauma.
- There is Intergenerational cultural conflict (ICC) which can be a stressor and also lead to intergenerational trauma and mental health issues.
I wanted to hear from other individuals that grew up in similar parent-child dynamics with immigrant parents, not only limited to Asian Americans, in order to be more inclusive and reach a wider net, with the following research questions:
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After conducting the 5 cognitive interviews and transcribing them, I coded my notes and organized them to find similar themes and insights:
- Fight: Users observed fights between parents growing up
- Rigidity: Some parents exhibited rigid behaviors
- Superficial: Users believe their conversations with parents are superficial
- Fear: Growing up, users experienced fear from the fights observed
- Barrier: Users identified language and cultural differences
In addition to further understand the user and help define the problem, I created empathy maps from the user's past and present. The past to show their experiences growing up and their present to show the effects of their upbringing, which I chose to focus on and explore more. With that, I explored pains & gains and created the following persona.
Finally, I chose the following HMW questions to define the problem and guide future design decisions.
The problem’s scope seemed rather large and so I first began jotting down ideas and functions that could be borrowed from other existing products through the "this of that" exercise.
Ultimately, my mentor challenged me to create a product that would help the persona the most in the problem space by mapping out different user stories.
Organizing the information architecture via the app map and user flows were vital in bringing the app to life. It helped me make decisions that were crucial to the app, focusing on the red routes and necessary functions, which was particularly satisfying.
Seeing the app come to life from sketching, to wireframing, and then wireflows was pleasing and illuminating. Each step of this process set me up for the next step, but added on to be more fruitful and informative, as iterations were continually made.
I conducted 2 rounds of usability tests, in order to identify usability issues, assess specific tasks within the application, and consider the overall UI design. The most critical issues are as follows:
1. Specify
Problem: The favorites heart icon and tab icon are confusing.
Solution: Display only one icon to reflect favorites function.
2. Clarify
Problem: The mic button is confusing at first. Is it on or off?
Solution: Create specific states of on and off in the onboarding module.
3. Define
Problem: “Chats” is confusing with text messages. Are they the same?
Solution: Change the name to “Conversation History” to better reflect the intended function.
Effortless, painless, and straightforward onboarding module, in order to utilize the app sooner than later.
Users are able to speak and use the app in a real-time conversation. As a smart app with AI, The Wise Friend listens to the user’s voice and offers alternative suggestions that the user can say or choose from other options.
Users are able to explore the app’s library of resources, based off research in healthy communication and relationships. Users can also bookmark favorite prompts and utilize them in real-time conversations.
I wanted to create a brand that was smart, wise and kind, emulating a trustworthy friend, in addition to attributing to a simple and no fuss UI.
As this was my first case study that allowed me to fully put the design process into practice from start to finish, there were many lessons learned along the way. Here are my main takeaways:
Trust the process,
embrace iterating,
enjoy the journey over the destination.
The design process can be a long one, however, each step is as important as the next. At times, it was easy to enjoy the details of each step and at other times, it was hard to see the finish line. Just like in life, as humans, we sometimes like to hurry and reach the “end goal,” but I’m continuing to realize how important it is to be present in each moment and step of the way.
Due to time constraints at the time, I had created a style guide vs. a design system, but after the fact, I realized how important it would be to have made the latter. So, I went back and decided to build the building blocks of a design system.
Not only was this process fun to do, it made me realize how much easier and useful this would be for future projects in terms of being consistent across designs, transparent with developers, and scalable and reusable for streamlining cycles efficiently.