PlantAid
PlantAid is an app prototype created with figma. Using positive conditioning as its’ foundation to motivate a person suffering with depression, the user can perform simple daily tasks to help their plants grow.
Task
In university, in a team of two students, we were given the task of examining a widespread disease and creating a helping tool. Together with a fellow student, we chose to create a tool to aid against depression in small ways.
Research
We began by researching the causes, symptoms and possible treatments against depression. This was followed by an analysis on the competition, regarding which apps and websites already exist and what they are capable of. We evaluated our finds, considering both positive as well as negative aspects. Mood trackers and websites informing about depression were very common, whereas mood trackers could be discouraging and information websites could be overwhelming.
Idea
We had different approaches to the topic. An informing website for people around a person suffering from depression, trying to informing them of the disorder and how to be of aid. Another idea was a collection of motivational words, essays, suggestions and research about the topic. We settled on combating the symptom people with depression often face: lack of motivation. Our goal was to create an app positively reinforcing motivation for doing small tasks. We implemented two concepts of psychology into this: positive conditioning and outward projection. By letting the user project their motivation outwards, onto a growing plant, a kind of positive bond can be achieved. Whenever the user accomplishes a task, they can see their plant grow, giving the user purely positive feedback. Speaking long term, it ends up positively conditioning the user when doing such tasks and helping them in their daily life.
Testing
We introduced our concept to several people suffering with depression, as well as a psychology professor and a therapist. They gave us feedback on the concept and the first sketches we made of the idea. Furthermore, we received their insights on the topic and more ideas to build into the application.
Functionality
With this information our next topic was to figure out the functionality of the app. In this step we focused on the components the interface of the app needs and evaluated the importance of several functions the user needs. To help with this process, we created personas, a user journey and a user flow as well as a functional description.
Design
Our design process started by creating a moodboard of several wireframes of phone apps from which we drew inspiration from. Furthermore, we looked into various illustration styles for the plants, settling on a simple vector design, for a minimalistic, professional, user friendly look.
Prototype
We finalized our prototype within Figma and filmed a working clickthrough of the application. As for future concepts of the app: the reward system of the grown plant could be elevated, by collaborating with florists, offering to send samples of the actual plant to the user, giving a physical reward and motivation to pursue a new hobby.