Challenge: 17 million Americans over 60 live alone and ⅓ of them spend all of their time by themselves. Social isolated senior citizens are 60% more likely to have a decline in their quality of life which leads to reduced health and risk of mortality. Today, the spend too much time on screens and not enough time engaging with cognitive exercises.
Solution: Book Club helps senior citizens stay cognitively engaged through reading and socializing.
Role:
- UX/ UI Designer
- UX Researcher
Project Duration:
- November – December 2022
Responsibilities:
- User Research
- Wireframing
- Prototyping
- Testing
- Designing
Software used:
- Figma
- Photoshop
Research
My primary research stemmed from structured user 1:1 interview studies with five participants from the age of 62 to 86 who I would then use in the testing portion of my research. They all explained that they do face more insolation than they did in their previous years of life. One of the main hobbies they all had in common was reading. The others involved watching television, playing games on their phone, and gardening. Five out of the five participants agreed they would like more human interaction and to keep their brains active. Through this research, I also asked a series of questions that involved learning about the following where I discovered common themes of the proclivity to engage positively with apps is there is larger text, the need for simplicity in the user experience, and the interest in speaking vocally to communicate.
My secondary research stemmed from research papers and blogs online that revealed parallels: senior citizens lack social connection and should engage in activities to help exercise their brains. I discovered that Americans over 60 spend more than 50% of their leisure time in front of technology: computers, tablets, telephones, and televisions. Research also says that socializing and reading have dropped due to this, leading to a declined life expectancy according to Pew Research.
Reading benefits:
- Increased memory
- Fluid decision making skills
- Delay alzheimer and dementia
- Reduction in anxiety and promotion of better sleep
After, I researched direct and indirect competition to determine pain points and similar architecture in a competition.
Personas:
Challenge 1: Construct an interface with seamless accessibility for users to socialize and connect through chat room and video features.
Challenge 2: Create a navigational tool to allow users to search through books and filter by certain categories.
Challenge 3: Use large text and simplistic navigation interfaces.
Ideate
There were five different phases that occurred during the wireframe process. The first ideation consisted of creating a sitemap of what I thought should be included in the sketching process. I then involved myself in a crazy eight exploration process through paper wireframing on a preliminary draft of what the interface would look like when I transferred it to a low-fidelity prototype. My low-fidelity phase went through a series if two rounds. During the first round which took about 20-30 minutes, I was able to identify pivotal patterns:
- 3 out of 5 participants suggested that there should be a search bar section. This will help with navigation of discovering new book clubs to join/ books to read, and with searching for inventory of their own books read. –> Create a component in the design
- 5 out of 5 participants had trouble searching for a book on the explore page. This means that there might need to be more clarity on the user interface. –> Add clearer titles
- 2 out of 5 participants did not understand where to look for the upcoming event section. This means that there needs to be more labels to help direct the user’s journey. –> Add clearer instructions and banner text
- 3 out of 5 participants did not notice the MY CLUB button when it came to looking for their clubs, also this page should initially list the genre clubs then the books or the books and the genre clubs underneath. –> Correct the text and interface to make clear, and maybe add a component on the home screen.
- In general, there needs to be better navigational text and distinction among the clubs/ books.
I took this constructive feedback and re-designed the low-fidelity wireframes from the questions I asked based on different navigational paths: how would you join a book club; how would you learn more about a book club; how would you attend your book club meeting; how would you view your clubs overall? Based on their responses recorded in my affinity map, I took note to add a filter system for searching books, add larger text in some fields, change the search bar components, and organize the discovery for in-progress and completed books. I then created a high-fidelity responsive designs and tested it among the users which gave overall positive feedback, and repeated this process for the web interface.
Affinity Map:
Sitemap
Lo-Fi Wireframe
High-Fi Wireframes
Design System Style Guide
Solution + Takeaways
I learned that senior citizens’ objectives while using technology are tailored toward more niched needs such as larger text and buttons. It was difficult to make the interface user-friendly while using such big features, especially on such small devices/ screens as the phone. Users overall want an interface that is seamless, easy to navigate, and provides interactions to motivate them to read books through social influence.
To view my prototype, please click here or contact alexacucc@gmail.com
Next steps: To figure out a way to implement newsletters and push notifications to continue to motivate the users to return to the site and interact with members of their book social club group. Another way to promote community would be to add an option to add friends to see what books they are reading an to chat with them individually.
ALEXA 