Nest Away

Overview

ROLE
Product Designer
UI/UX Designer

TOOLS
Adobe Creative Suite (Ai, XD, Id)
Autodesk Fusion 360
KeyShot

TIME FRAME
4 Weeks
Spring 2020

Project Background

Improving the health of college freshmen

This was the first “emerging technology” project we had to do, where we designed a wellness product for 2025 that is aimed towards improving the well-being of college freshmen. College students have the reputation of letting their health regress as they get overwhelmed by the academic and social changes. This project’s goal would be to identify a problem through user research, and develop a solution that resolves it.

The struggle of having to leave the nest

Leaving home is hard for many students, who’ve had their parents involved in every step of their life and struggle to become independent. I chose to focus on addressing the co-dependent bond between helicopter parents and their college-bound children.

Students with helicopter parents are shown to be less open to new ideas and actions, more vulnerable, anxious, and self-conscious.

Overinvolved parenting takes a strenuous toll on the psychological well-being of college students who can’t negotiate a balance between consulting with parents and independent decision-making.

Research

Sending out a targeted survey

I started out by contacting around 15 acquaintances, who I knew relied on their parents excessively, and conversed with them to understand their implicit and explicit needs. I focused my questions in terms of how much of their daily tasks their parents dictate-- i.e. yes or no for “my parent encourages me to solve conflicts with my friends on my own” or “my parent monitors my diet”. I also questioned them regarding aspects of their life they felt unreliable to complete without their parents, like cooking or laundry. This helped gauge their self-efficacy and allowed me to compare them to students who were less reliant on their guardian. Using the insights developed, I created a Persona and highlighted the Design Needs my product had to solve.

Design Needs

From the child’s end

From the Parent’s End

NEEDS

Ensuring the child is safe at all times
For the child to do well in classes
Healthy, regular contact between them and the child

GOALS

To withhold from continuously contacting the child at any time throughout the day
To adopt a “hands-free” system on the child’s life, and allow them to resolve their issues independently
To able to live their own life without worrying about their child

NEEDS

To not be kept in check by parent at all times
A complete control of their life in college—from academics to social relationships
Healthy, regular contact between the parent and child

GOALS

To break the habit of contacting the parent if anything happens
To learn how to deal with problems and fail or succeed on their own
Be able to utilize healthy life skills without a parent

Objectives

To limit contact between parent and child
To allow both parent and child to become independent of each other
To evolve their relationship to one of two adults, rather than a minor relying on an adult

SWOT Analysis

Sniffing out the competition

There aren’t many parent/child connectivity products on the market, and many of them overlap with Long distance couple products (which is inappropriate for obvious reasons). I chose to analyze products that allow the connected user to know you’re thinking of them, but does not provide a means to send a message since that would only reinforce the dependency.

The solution

What if there was a mediator?

After conducting more user research, I stumbled upon the thought, “What if there was a gatekeeper?”. Provided both the parent and child were willing to work on evolving their relationship, I could design a way to restrict contact between them in addition to having the product passively reassure both parties. I decided to explore the Wi-fi touch lamps I analyzed in my SWOT analysis to do so. A paired app would function as a gatekeeper, preventing the parent/child from frequently contacting one another throughout the day. However, when the phone was within a certain radius of the lamp, the blocking feature would be deactivated and the child can contact the parent again. This would ensure contact is limited to private spaces, i.e. their room, and reinforces a sense of boundary.

The mediator in the app would function utilizing a chatbot AI. Currently, AI chatbots are used in customer service where they analyze customer data and are able to tailor products to their customers. I designed this assuming that by 2025, AI will develop to be more empathetic, and will be able to more accurately gather key words and converse naturally as customer care goes completely AI.

How it works

The parent and child would both utilize wi-fi touch lamp that would light up with their twin pair was tapped, and would record and relay the message recorded. Outside of their bedroom, an app would restrict messages and calls between them to encourage healthy boundaries.

The technology

Chatbot AI’s analyze customer data to tailor products to their users. They are able to predict trends in relation to day, time, and activity. The more the user engages with the system, the more accurate it is able to understand the user’s intent. The mediator here would need to be trained with information relevant to college life, so it would be able to nudge the student in the correct path.

Concept 1

I wanted this to be an extended version of the touch-connect lamps. The parent and child would each have a counterpart, and the child would tap on their lamp to let the parent know they got back okay, and say a short achievement at the end of the day.

ISSUES

Doesn’t resolve the issue of creating boundaries as they could contact each other throughout the day

Could lead to the parent staying up, waiting for the child to get back so that their lamp lights up

Concept 1: Re-designed

This is when I had the light-bulb moment of adding a mediator! The child would still tap the lamp and recite a small win or funny incident that happened that day, while the parent’s lamp would light up the next morning with the message played back. When the child leaves the room, and the paired app senses that it is away from the lamp, the blocking feature is activated and a mediator to stops them from contacting each other. They would each have to go through a chatbot AI that would determine if contact is absolutely necessary or not. The form still looked out of place, so I decided to work on refining that before moving on.

Form Refinement

Leaving Home = Leaving the nest

The forms I decided to go with were of a bird, and an egg + nest. Since the child is “leaving the nest” to go to college, it felt more apt. I wanted the bird to be more abstract and minimalist, yet look clean, to make sure it looks unisex.

The main body of the bird would be made out of frosted plastic, to allow the light to disperse evenly, and would have a speaker mesh resting on the bottom. The egg + nest would mirror the bird in terms of asymmetry and contours of speaker. Both lamps would sit on a wireless charging wood base.

Creating the app

Wireframing the experience

Before starting on the app, I created a rough initial wireframe of the app interface. After some user testing, I determined that there was a desire to have a goals page that has tasks the student would like to keep track of, almost like a planner. I also decided to add a ‘saved messages’ page, to add the option of saving any voice notes received.

Final Model

"Nest away" acts as a mediator between parent and child, to allow the individuals to gain their own independence. It aids in evolving the parent-child relationship into one of two adults. A chatbot AI, “Sora”, acts like the gatekeeper that encourages the child to work towards resolving their issues themselves instead of relying on their parent.