WalkyTalky
A web platform that allows friends to plan walks together, fostering social connection in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Background
Submission for Rice University’s Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers 2021 Hackathon
Duration: 26 hours
Role: UX Designer
Team: Jackie Wu (Developer) and Theo Schweizer (Developer)
Award: 1st Place Overall Winner
Problem
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to people isolating themselves indoors at greater levels, causing mental health to worsen from lack of socialization and physical activity.
Solution
We designed and developed WalkyTalky so that COVID-conscious users can easily schedule walks with others to promote socialization, physical exercise, and mental health while remaining safe.
User Research
Because our team only had one day to design, develop, and submit our finalized project, we had to come up with an idea quickly. We knew we wanted to focus on improving mental health as a result of the pandemic.
User Interviews
I conducted three user interviews with two college students who live on-campus and one family member who works remotely about how their lives have changed since the arrival of the pandemic.
"The biggest change to my life since the pandemic has definitely been the social aspect. I'm a really extroverted person, so I miss seeing my friends every day."
“I’m at my computer all day working in my home office, so I like being able to get outside after work.”
“It’s hard to find a time to meet up with someone. It’s a lot of bouncing back and forth to find a good time.”
“It feels like I've been doing the same thing every day for months--I know it's necessary, but my life has felt pretty dull.”
“I personally don’t feel comfortable being in public indoor spaces longer than I have to.”
Key quotes:
Findings
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Interviewees want to see their friends and family more often.
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Interviewees want to maximize safety when interacting with others.
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COVID-19 restrictions have made the days feel more monotonous.
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It's hard for interviewees to schedule a time to meet up.
Conclusions
From my user interviews, I deduced that our project should:
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be centered around an accessible, socially distant activity.
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allow users to schedule a time with others to participate in the social activity, log that activity, and access logs of previous activities.
My team kept these priorities in mind as we continued designing and developing.
Ideation
Deciding on an Activity
We first had to decide on the COVID-safe activity to center our app around. We unanimously decided that walking was the best option because it:
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can take place outdoors
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boosts both physical and mental health
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allows for conversation at the same time
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is a low-intensity, accessible activity
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can be done in almost any environment
Key Features
Next, we wanted to decide what features to add to our product. Already, we had ideas from two different categories of existing apps: scheduling and physical fitness.
We observed that there are existing platforms such as when2meet that allow users to find the best time to meet with each other. Likewise, there are a multitude of platforms that encourage users to log their workouts, like Runkeeper.
However, we realized there is no platform that combines the features of these different categories. These were the three key features that we wanted to give to users:
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input the times users are available to go on a walk
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view the times both a user and their friend are available to walk
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log a walk taken with a friend
Information Architecture
With these features in mind, I next formulated the information architecture of the app.
Wireframes
Click to expand!
Our Submission
Here is our video demo and link to our hackathon submission!
Without the Constraints: What Would I Add?
Friends and Safety
Our original idea was to incorporate a friend request feature where users can input the usernames of their friends and send them a friend request. Only once both users consent to being friends can they view each others’ availabilities and request the other to go on a walk. In an ideal situation where we had enough time, we would prioritize the implementation of this feature.
In-app Communication
Another original idea was to include the process of asking a friend to go on a walk within the platform instead of leaving the user to initiate the request via email. Again, due to the time constraint, we could not develop an algorithm in time to allow for this in-app communication between users.
Reflection
This was my first project where I got exposure to some of the design thinking skills, so I learned a lot from this extremely rewarding experience. Here are some of the lessons I took away from WalkyTalky:
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Figure out how to work around constraints. With just around 26 hours to plan, design, and develop an entire application, I had to decide which features to prioritize based on the time it would take to implement, the ability of our developers, and importance to the user experience.
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Communication is key. Because I was working alongside developers, I had to be aware of what they believed they could successfully implement in a little over a day. When I had a preliminary idea, I would immediately ask them for their opinions—was it feasible for them to implement? Lastly, my team members were part of our user group, so they provided invaluable feedback during the ideation process. I loved being able to immediately ask my team members for feedback on my ideas because they could comment not only on the idea’s technological feasibility but also the contribution to overall user experience.