Overview
STFH is a contact tracing and stay-at-home incentivizing app to combat global pandemics. The app will help to collect the data and run the test to the most affected or rapidly affecting areas as soon as possible. Friends at rLoop a global crowdsourced engineering team, reached out to me to design the app. The app uses Bluetooth technology to trace the disease.
Role
UX/UI Designer
Timeline
The project took place over 3 to 4 weeks in April & May 2020
Responsibilities
User research, UX design, User flow, Information architecture, UI design.
Team
1 Designer, 1 Developer and 4 Stakeholders
(Case Study in progress. Will be updated frequently)
Problem Statement
As of May 2020, there is no vaccine or medication to treat COVID-19. The best way to flatten the curve is through social distancing. We need to incentivize people to stay at home as much as possible. We need a simple method to inform people who have come into contact with someone who has the virus. We need to optimize the deployment of tests to the most rapidly developing areas and the most at-risk in order to maximize their impact.
Roles & Responsibilities
As a UX/UI designer, I did user research, Competitive Analysis, User experience and Interface design for the app. I collaborated with the stakeholders, developers and received a few feedbacks and I implemented those feedbacks back into the design. Presented to stakeholders and handover it to the developers.
The Process
My design process for this project is shown below
- Research
- User flow
- Wireframe
- UI design
Research
This idea is relatively new however, there are a few existing apps that incentivize users’ for their activities. Apps like sweatcoin rewards users for the steps they walk. We want to reverse this process and want to incentivize the user to stay home.
Initially, we were planning for two ways to get the data. One is the Auto geolocation using Bluetooth and the second one is the manual log method. Below is an explanation of how those two methods would work
1. Auto geolocation method:-
- The user enables the Bluetooth, notification and allows the app to track their location.
- The app will track the user’s movement throughout the day
- The app will notify if the user came across any other user who had contracted the virus
2. Manual log method:
- The user manually enters the duration time and the place they have visited throughout the day
- Then the app will notify if the user comes across any other user who had contracted the virus
- The app notifies the user daily at a certain time to enter the log. Preferably end of the day or at night
Upon interviewing, most of the users were willing to allow the app to track their location. Hence we decided to start with the first option “auto geolocation method”.
User Persona
Created the user personas to understand the user needs and expectations.
Wireframes
We had three options for the home screen
Opt1: To show the user where they are., but that screen doesn’t help the user in any way. It’s also too obvious that we are tracking them. It might make the user uninstall the app.
Opt 2: The highlighted part just shows the number of users using the app. It doesn’t help the user
Opt3: This leads us to this screen where we provide info on whether the user has crossed or came in contact with any other person with COVID.
Point Screens: We want to keep the flow and the Interface as simple as possible.
Screen 1: If the user has enough points, they would click the “Redeem” button.
Screen 2: Which takes them to the “Confirm” screen with all the details about the gift card. Once the user clicks confirm
Screen 3: Then it takes to the redeemed screen where the user copies the code and clicks continue, which takes to the Sponsors website to finish the purchase
Status Screen: The status screen shows the details of active COVID cases in their country or around the world. Similar to John Hopkins COVID-19 tracker.
Profile Screen: The profile screen allows the user to edit their user names & passwords, Invite friends, Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.
Notification screen: User gets notified if they come to cross anyone who has recently affected by COVID, points earned, items a user can buy with the points
Home Screen: If the user has crossed someone with COVID, and once the app notifies them, they can request a testing kit from the hospitals.
User flow
Created a user flow to understand the overall application flow, buttons to include and what useful functions to use. The goal is to keep our interface simple and user-friendly for our users to track the virus and redeem the points for staying home or less movement.
Click here to view STFH App prototype Video demo
Experience the prototype by clicking the link below.
Outcome & Lessons learned
The goal is to help the Government to run the test to the most affected or rapidly affecting areas as soon as possible while incentivizing people to stay home. The app cannot be launched without support from the government. The app is on hold at the moment, however, I had a great experience working with the team of engineers and developers besides time zone differences. We used slack and zoom to communicate and deliver the project
The lesson that I learned from this project are
- Show the wireframe and have an opinion from the developer before creating Hi res designs
- Involve every stakeholder in design decisions. Since everyone was working remotely from different time zones we used slack to communicate our design ideas. It was hard for a few stakeholders to catch up on all the conversations on it so I tagged them individually whenever a major design decision is made. It helped everyone to stay on the same page
Sathya 