Melody Quintana

A little place for reflections on creativity, inspiration and life.

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The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck

In my life, I have given a fuck about many people and many things. I have also not given a fuck about many people and many things. And those fucks I have not given have made all the difference...

Well hello there, creative journal — let’s get back in the swing of writing this year. Some inspiration to kick things off: http://markmanson.net/not-giving-a-fuck

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Evolution of an interface

I’m finally putting the finishing touches on the Thrive app UX and UI for my thesis, and wanted to take a moment to reflect on the evolution thus far. I’ve attempted to organized this post somewhat chronologically, somewhat topically to share what I’ve learned by testing out different interface components along the way.

Initial inklings

It’s fun to look back on some of my rough, meandering ideas for what the app could look like earlier this year. These are sketches I made back in February, as I was first arriving at core functionality and features:

Things have come a long way since then, but the sketches reflect 2 core ideas that ultimately made it into the final design:

A lightweight, visual way to identify and progress through goals that doesn’t feel overwhelming

A platform to surface tips and success stories from peer role models

I’ve worked to evolve the design so it better communicates and facilitates these core functions. The micropayment feature was eventually abandoned, and a new one has taken shape: a feedback system that prompts conversations among parolees and the trusted support networks.

Goal UX frameworks

After drawing out my initial sketches, I asked: How do you make goal-setting accessible for someone who may not know what they’re aiming for? And what kinds of incentives will propel people to complete a goal? I needed to determine an appropriate goal framework.

I started with 6 high-level topics that I learned were most relevant to my users through the card sort exercises we worked on together. I considered different different interface structures that would allow someone to identify where to begin — from a loose and exploratory cluster of different ideas to a structured, guided questionnaire like this:

This was too text-heavy and still felt overwhelming. I quickly realized that goals can get unwieldy if they’re not reigned in by a time constraint, so I took a pass at introducing a 100-day cap to each goal. I called my next prototype Focus and tested it out with a few users at CEO. 

The tldr; version of what I learned here was that cash incentives are very appealing, but they also come with the risk of inauthentic interactions. I would need to consider whether micropayments would truly make sense as an underlying incentive to get users through their goals. For more context and learnings, read my blog post about Focus learnings.

From here, I put the incentive idea aside and went back to the proverbial whiteboard to map out a 3-pronged framework for goals. This time, I dove deeper into breaking a goal down into concrete steps:

You can read more about this approach in an earlier blog post, but the basic gist is that breaking down big goals into daily micro-actions makes them feel more achievable and instigates more frequent “small wins.”

I wanted to put this framework to the test and see how people would use it over time, beyond the bounds of a 30-minute usability session with me. Because of various constraints with what I was legally allowed to test with parolees, I decided to do the test in a very low-fi way: a diary study.

I designed decks of cards that contained day-by-day action prompts for a brief modified 7-day period. Test participants were allowed to choose one goal that interested them out of the following set:

Gratitude: Build a daily gratitude routine.

Job: Figure out which vocation to pursue for a full-time job.

Money: Save up $20.

Fitness: Practice and work up to doing 35 pushups.

School: Figure out which school or training program I want to apply for.

The results were revealing. Participants were able to easily digest this breakdown, and a good number of them completed it. The experiment also affirmed my skepticism about cash incentives, which I gave to about half of the group of participants. Of the people who completed their goals, some were offered cash bonuses and some weren’t. All finishers seemed intrinsically motivated, describing the experience as fun and helpful. 

Two big conclusions came out of this experience test:

Smaller goals seemed to feel right for this audience, so rather than using a 100-day goal framework, I’d cap it to 14 days max per goal.

The “Do, Photograph, Write” framework was simple and straightforward enough to work well for the interface.

UI navigation and major flows

When I started creating wireframes, I broke the app out into sections that were simply based on the core features I wanted to have: Actions, Goals, Messages, Community. It was pretty clumsily organized in a hamburger menu. At the time, I was really focused on learning material design patterns since I knew I’d be designing for Android phones. Here’s where I started:

Then I started to work at flattening the hierarchy, so as not to bury important stuff under the hamburger. There’s a top nav (which I learned should be at the top of the screen on Android rather than the bottom which is an iOS convention) with 4 main categories: Goals, Community, Messages, Notifications. I took the color palette to grayscale, too, so as to focus more on structure.

The components I wanted to iterate on from here included: making daily actions more prominent (they seemed too buried in the goals section), making next actions more clear for each goal category, and consolidating messages and notifications. In my next version, I also experimented with breaking out a separate progress section to see if it felt like a good motivator. I also tried mirroring the “See, Write, Photo” steps from the paper cards

At this phase, I increased the fidelity a bit so that I could start showing the app to people and collecting feedback. The following flows show 1) how someone would add an action that’s part of a goal they’re following, and 2) how someone would check their goals progress dashboard and drill down to see where they are on a specific goal track.

This was a rough pass, and there were a lot of improvements to be made, particularly in the following realms:

Branding and identity 

Visual attractiveness

Language and tone

Bridging goals & progress back together (they now felt disjointed) 

Clarifying what progress indicators mean

Working toward a final design

In my next post, I’ll walk through the final design, and the polish and refinement work that went into it! Stay tuned.

[thingsorganizedneatly]

[melodyquintana]

thingsorganizedneatly 

And now for a delightful break from thesis posts

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Notes from the thesis weeds: feedback systems

Wherein I share some thinks on a specific feedback framework for my thesis project! I’ll attempt to trace how my thoughts have evolved from early on in the project to now.

A need for community feedback

One of my original thesis research insights back in January was around the importance of community for my users. A slide from an early report:

Because authentic communities build trust, I knew that some way, somehow community needed to be a part of the solution:

At that point, I’d also learned about a thorny constraint: people on parole are legally forbidden from interacting with anyone else who has a criminal background. And the consequences are grave. With next to zero tolerance for parole violations, any parolee caught fraternizing with another outside of a legally sanctioned environment (such as CEO’s life skills class) risks going right back to prison.

That put a damper on my initial hope to connect participants with one another for ongoing support, so I decided to focus on what was within the realm of control: the individual user’s sense of purpose and agency. This was a deep, salient need that emerged very clearly in my research. From then on, I focused my efforts on an app that’s all about helping parolees set and track their own goals.

So as not to lose the community component, I also thought about alternative, safer ways to incorporate community into the app without violating the law. Inspired by studies on at-risk college students at UT Austin, I thought about including curated positive videos from successful peers as parolees progress through their goals.

As another type of feedback, I also scoped out a bunch of possible incentives for getting a user to progress through their goals. Because I received a grant for the project, I wanted to test micropayments for small achievements. There’s been all kinds of research showing how promising cash incentives can be for low-income families.

Creating feedback loops

A week or so ago, smarty designer Ashley saw some of my early wireframes and commented: “Right now feedback in your system is monetary or digital - even a video isn't the same thing as a real person interacting with you. I wonder if there are other types of feedback you could provide?”

She’s totally right. There should be a better layer of human feedback on top of all of this, to make for a proper loop, and I hadn’t yet figured out how it all would work. So here’s a bit more thinking on human-to-human interactions within the app.

There are 2 general types of human-to-human feedback:

1. Community-oriented video commentary. As mentioned previously, this insight was inspired by the University of Texas study I read about, but (!) it turns out I was missing a key component:

“...positive messages are more effectively absorbed when they are experienced through what Walton called ‘self-persuasion’: if students watch a video or read an essay with a particular message and then write their own essay or make their own video to persuade future students, they internalize the message more deeply.”

So when a user completes a milestone or a goal, the app shouldn’t just show a relevant video from a peer who has accomplished the next milestone. It should also — perhaps more importantly — prompt them to create a video to share their own tip about the experience they’ve just completed with other CEO community members. This closes the loop, prods some self-reflection, and encourages the internalization of positive thinking.

Before the content they create is actually incorporated back into the app and shared with others, it would need to be screened and curated behind-the-scenes to ensure its appropriateness. But the simple act of ‘self-persuasion’ alone could be a powerful form of reflexive feedback.

2. One-to-one communication with supporters. People who are struggling to transition need support just as much as they need to feel self-determination. In thinking this through, I realized that my app definitely needs to facilitate communication with other people in the parolee’s life: his or her job coach / case worker at the CEO org and his or her family and friends (excluding any ex-felons, of course). Here’s a quick actor map I sketched, along with some corresponding ways to structure and think about the app that are already a bit dated:

Digging deeper into one-on-one experiences

It’s clear the app would be much more powerful if it helped the parolee share his journey with a support system while pursuing his goals. What does this system offer for each actor involved? How does each relationship work in parallel to offer the parolee a more valuable experience during their transition? Let’s examine the problems and opportunities for each actor involved.

Coaches

Job coaches at CEO are typically swamped with case loads of 200+ people at a time, meaning that in an ideal world, they see each parolee for 10- or 15-minute appointments each week. But these appointments don’t always happen. Parolees often get tied up with everything that’s on their plates, and it can be difficult to reach no-shows to find out what’s going on. Furthermore, it’s hard to understand the full context of what’s happening in a participant’s life during such quick and sporadic appointments. There could be countless outside factors impacting a participant’s ability to succeed, yet the job coach is currently unable to get any visibility into them beyond what the participant shares during their brief time together.

Problems:

No direct contact channel to get in touch with parolees for important questions and reminders.

No holistic understanding of parolees’ unique life circumstances outside of the CEO context, including their day-to-day thoughts, feelings, dreams and struggles.

No opportunities to stay in touch with parolees between visits.

Hard to manage interactions at scale for large case loads of parolees.

Solutions:

Ability to send parolees private messages and automatic reminders about their appointments.

Access to profiles for individual parolees that contain all of their daily posts in one central place — a helpful starting point for in-person conversations.

A constantly-updating feed of parolees’ daily posts and the ability to comment easily inline.

Ability to automate some communications. Reminder messages can be scheduled in advance, as well as check-in messages for participants who haven’t posted updates in a while.

Family and friends

Many CEO staff members have agreed that incorporating friends and family into the program curriculum would be amazing. Chelsea, my advisor, also mentioned that these relationships are essential for prison populations that she has worked with. 

In my interviews, the participants I talked to had a wide variety of family and relationship life contexts. For example, one person had a serious girlfriend, another was a new dad, another still didn’t have any surviving immediate family members and had trouble reconnecting with extended family.

Problems:

Outside family & friends are not currently looped into parolee’s CEO experience — people who can potentially provide an additional rich layer of support for the parolee.

No incentives for the parolee to actively reach out and seek the involvement of outside connections in his CEO journey.

No incentives (outside of natural love & care) for friends and family to follow and support parolee’s experience closely.

Must work within legal constraints to ensure that outside communications do not involve people with criminal backgrounds.

Solutions:

Prompt parolees with simple ways to get friends and/or family involved in their progress. Perhaps a parolee can choose 1-3 primary people to be “supporters.” Each time he posts an update, the app prompts those supporters to send the parolee positive and meaningful messages about the update. The prompts can offer lightweight ideas like: “Take a selfie to show how you feel after seeing Brian complete this milestone” or “Name one thing Brian is awesome at” or “Send Brian a song you think he would like today.”

Supporters can win shared incentives (ex: a gift card to take parolee out for ice cream) if they participate by giving feedback AND the parolee succeeds. This makes them a true stakeholder in the parolee’s success.

Whomever the parolee designates as his supporters in the app must go through an onboarding flow that confirms their eligibility to be a supporter. The flow will also educate the supporter about how to be an effective supporter.

Experience overview

A look at each actor’s experience at different phases and touch points & what happens backstage.

[melodyquintana]

Academic research inspiration

I recently discovered a pot of thesis gold that I’ve been meaning to unpack for a while. There’s been some fascinating research led by University of Texas professor David Yeager on at-risk college students. He has designed a slew of experimental interventions to try and improve the chances of their academic success. I’ll start with a summary of what I learned and then relate it back to my thesis.

The problem

In an article called Who Gets to Graduate? The New York Times reports on many of Yeager’s pilot tests. Students in his test groups face emotional and psychological challenges not unlike the users of my thesis project. Many of them are first generation college-goers or otherwise underprivileged, so during their transition to higher education they’re are vulnerable to feelings of self-doubt and a lack of belonging. These feelings can be heightened if the students are placed in remedial courses, which carry an implicit message that the student isn’t good enough for college.

“The negative thoughts took different forms in each individual, of course, but they mostly gathered around two ideas. One set of thoughts was about belonging. Students in transition often experienced profound doubts about whether they really belonged — or could ever belong — in their new institution. The other was connected to ability. Many students believed in what Carol Dweck had named an entity theory of intelligence — that intelligence was a fixed quality that was impossible to improve through practice or study. And so when they experienced cues that might suggest that they weren’t smart or academically able — a bad grade on a test, for instance — they would often interpret those as a sign that they could never succeed. Doubts about belonging and doubts about ability often fed on each other, and together they created a sense of helplessness. That helplessness dissuaded students from taking any steps to change things. Why study if I can’t get smarter? Why go out and meet new friends if no one will want to talk to me anyway? Before long, the nagging doubts became self-fulfilling prophecies.”

The solutions

UT Austin tried several different interventions to address the problem, all founded on a common premise:

“If you want to help low-income students succeed, it’s not enough to deal with their academic and financial obstacles. You also need to address their doubts and misconceptions and fears. To solve the problem of college completion, you first need to get inside the mind of a college student.”

One successful tactic was developing a special academic program called the Texas Interdisciplinary Plan (TIP) for these students. TIP was framed in a positive way. Selected at-risk students “weren’t subpar students who needed help; they were part of a community of high-achieving scholars.” TIP provided both rigorous challenges and a robust support system of mentorship and personal attention. The ultimate success of the program pointed to the fact that messaging has a huge impact on one’s behavior and self-image.

This insight led to a deeper curiosity about how to design persuasive messaging. So the team began collaborating with a professor of social psychology named Greg Walton, who brought expertise and insights like:

“...messages worked better if they appealed to social norms; when college students are informed that most students don’t take part in binge drinking, they’re less likely to binge-drink themselves. Messages were also more effective if they were delivered in a way that allowed the recipients a sense of autonomy. If you march all the high-school juniors into the auditorium and force them to watch a play about tolerance and inclusion, they’re less likely to take the message to heart than if they feel as if they are independently seeking it out. And positive messages are more effectively absorbed when they are experienced through what Walton called “self-persuasion”: if students watch a video or read an essay with a particular message and then write their own essay or make their own video to persuade future students, they internalize the message more deeply.”

In previous studies, Walton had seen profound results when African-American students were given an exercise that involved watching a video or reading an essay from an upperclassmen with a positive message about belonging and ability, and then prompted to create a mentoring video or essay for future students:

“The whole intervention took no more than an hour. It had no apparent effect on the white students who took part in the experiment. But it had a transformative effect on the college careers of the African-American students in the study: Compared with a control group, the experiment tripled the percentage of black students who earned G.P.A.s in the top quarter of their class, and it cut in half the black-white achievement gap in G.P.A. It even had an impact on the students’ health — the black students who received the belonging message had significantly fewer doctor visits three years after the intervention.”

Truly an inspiring example of a small intervention with a huge impact.

Relating it back to my thesis

My user group, unemployed parolees, face similar feelings as they transition back society after prison. In many ways, they’re alienated them from the start. They have little agency over their lives, with no right to vote, curfews, compulsory help programs, strict limits to who they can and cannot fraternize with, and lots of other demoralizing rules. And there are very few programs designed to help them during this critical and highly vulnerable transition period.

The link between the students in this study and my users really hit me as I read this passage:

“It is only students facing the particular fears and anxieties and experiences of exclusion that come with being a minority — whether by race or by class — who are susceptible to this problem. Those students often misinterpret temporary setbacks as a permanent indication that they can’t succeed or don’t belong at U.T. For those students, the intervention can work as a kind of inoculation. And when, six months or two years later, the germs of self-doubt try to infect them, the lingering effect of the intervention allows them to shrug off those doubts exactly the way the advantaged students do.”

During a meeting with the CEO team that recruits people who are about to leave prison for parole, I remember hearing about how these people tend to be very positive when they’re planning for parole, but once they’re out in the real world their dispositions change quite drastically.

I’m left to wonder: How can my product help bring out confidence during such a difficult time for parolees? Can it help reframe the message in some way, to inspire hope and boldness in the face of fear and uncertainty? And can it draw upon a technique that this study has proven effective: watching and creating positive advice videos?

[melodyquintana]

Keeping felons from earning a living doesn't make us safer, only poorer | Paul Heroux

70 million adults have arrest or conviction records in the United States - or about one in three adults. Restricting their employment is holding back our economy

[melodyquintana]

Today I paused to create mind maps of the 2 major things I'd like my system to facilitate.

[melodyquintana]

A thesis braindump

Thesis, why art thou so complicated? After being in a continuous groove for a while, I've hit a few roadblocks that need some finessing. So here I am, turning to writing to help me organize my thoughts. Apologies for the unwieldy and unstructured post — just trying to get some thoughts down!

Last week, I focused on developing a framework for how users of my app go about setting goals for themselves. Most goals apps are for people who are self-driven, type A and already goal-oriented, but the one I’m creating is for the guy who doesn’t have it all figured out. The one who’s experiencing a difficult transition and lacks a sense of purpose and needs just the right combination of guidance and self-determination. 

My specific test users are low-income parolees who are transitioning toward social reentry. Designing for the extremes can be tricky, particularly when you’re not immersed in their lifestyles, but I’ve always been up for a challenge — especially when they come with constraints.

So the task at hand was: How do you make goal-setting accessible for someone who doesn’t know what they’re aiming for? How do you instill hope in someone who struggles with a ton of setbacks? How do you set this person up for success? And how in the world do you make the whole experience appealing, encouraging, lightweight, and, well, fun? 

Here’s a slice of what I came up with, first mapping it out in a table:

And here’s a visual:

In this approach, there are opportunities for small wins each day. The user completes and documents a tiny, doable, and repeated action — a habit. Over time, they can “connect the dots” of their habit trails toward bigger milestones, and eventually, the end-goal.

After thinking through the framework, I tested it to create a goal plan for a simple 10-day period of time. I mapped out the following goals with my users in mind:

Figure out which vocation to pursue for a full-time job.

Apply for one job I care about.

Save up for a 7-day metrocard.

Figure out which academic program I want to apply for.

Have a 15-minute conversation with a family member or friend every day.

Do 30 pushups without stopping.

Run 1 mile without stopping.

Do a daily gratitude routine.

This is where things get hairy. I’d planned on using the above list to run an abbreviated 10-day experiment with a group of users, using text messages as a proxy for the core interaction. Getting them to send me a text of a photo update each day would be an easy way to observe behavior over time, I thought.

However, parole rules and regulations are so stringent that it might not be possible for me to do this — especially in the given amount of time I have. There’s a small sliver of hope: My nonprofit is currently in the midst of installing text messaging capabilities into their Salesforce system, and if I could tie my experiment to their specific platform, I might be able to get it approved. But I’m blocked on when the system tech will be ready to use (hopefully soon), as well as the fact that this would include only text messages – no pictures. D’oh. Still, I’m hoping for a miracle, as any data would be better than none.

Beyond all of this, I’ve started learning the ins and outs of designing for Android. It’s a brand new visual and interaction system to learn, but I’m pretty stoked about building the app for the platform the vast majority of my users are on. In perusing the Android developer guidelines and design documentation so far, I’m starting to see and understand just how different it is from iOS. I’ve got to say, I’m pretty surprised and impressed with this Material Design stuff! I’m not sure why I hadn’t done this sooner.

Anyway, here are some really rough wireframes I started that show a possible app structure. I’m not the biggest fan of hamburger menus, but my first attempts at flattening the nav started feeling really cluttered with tab bars. I may come back later and give it another try with fresh eyes. 

I’m trying to figure out the best way to proceed. I hate having unanswered questions! Perhaps I’ll continue wireframing the app and just do more user feedback sessions. It’s just not as ideal as a diary study because I won’t be able to see how they actually use the app. Le sigh.

[melodyquintana]

Single sentence crits

Last week's thesis critique became a game. Each person was tasked with giving a one-sentence summary of their project, a one-sentence status update of where their prototype is, and a one-sentence summary of the biggest thing they’ve learned from user testing thus far. Then we took turns reading our updates out loud, and everyone in the class came up with 3 lines of feedback in turn: one big question about the project, one idea for a minimum viable product (MVP), and one idea for a next action to take. We wrote our thoughts on little sheets of paper, the analog way.

My One-Liners

Summary: Focus is an app that helps people set a goal, track their progress through photography, receive incentives for their achievements, and get inspired by members of their community — all over the course of a 100-day period.

Status report: I’ve built out some initial interactions in Framer.

User research learning: My biggest takeaway was that cash incentives are very appealing, but they come at the risk of inauthentic participation that’s only for the sake of the money.

Questions Received

The majority of the questions I received were things I’d already made clear in previous blog posts, including the reason behind 100 days, the overarching goal of the app, and what makes the app unique among its competitors.

A couple of new questions came in that I hadn’t considered before:

Who will see the photos and what engagement will happen as a feedback loop? For now, the photos will be mostly private. If incentives are involved, photos will need to be screened by an admin from the community to verify their authenticity. This admin could potentially be the user’s job coach, which could become an opportunity for relationship-building. Besides receiving incentives for completing milestones, feedback will come in the form of UI (sounds and animations for completing daily goals), potential praise from the user’s CEO coaching staff, and inspirational content such as video stories with tips from successful members of the community.

How will this app create lasting/long-term change? The app assists with building a sense of agency and self-esteem during a critical, at-risk period of time in a person’s life. For most users, this is a transitional period, which means the app is by definition not designed for long-term use. But it’s an intervention that aims to impact users’ lives through small nudges and micro-actions. And it does take advantage of momentum, prompting the user to build on their success after 100 days by setting a new goal should they choose. 

What type of information is being tracked through photos? Photos come with EXIF data which includes a bunch of info about the phone camera and the user’s location. I don’t see a need to collect any of this information, though, as it is not core to the app’s purpose or functionality. 

Some other questions were about things I had considered, but had not yet explicitly explained in this blog:

Why is photography important? This particular set of users feels comfortable and enjoys expressing themselves through photography, as I learned through several interviews with people who mentioned that taking photos and using Instagram were among the top things they like to do on their phones. Furthermore, I considered the current literacy rates in America, which are especially weak among those living in poverty including my users. They need a friendly way to track their goals that isn’t text-heavy and doesn’t feel overwhelming or like extra work. Finally, since the content will be private, employing a very personal medium like photos feels appropriate. 

What motivates people (if not money) to use the app? Other incentives I’d like to test include useful rewards like Metrocards, recognition of some sort, and satisfying UI animations. 

Why can’t it be built on Instagram’s API? This would be clutch, but the users I’m working with are on parole and forbidden to fraternize with anyone else who has a criminal record. Because the consequences of breaking this law are too scary, I unfortunately need to avoid any risk of non-compliance and leave social feeds and commenting out.

MVP Ideas

I enjoyed reading people’s ideas for what I could possibly prototype to prove the concept. Aside from the obvious interactive app prototype, my favorite suggestion was to truncate the 100-day timeframe to 10 days and run a test with real people. Thanks you guys, this actually inspired my next user test! There was another lovely idea around creating a criteria of achievement map which could be a thing to visualize at the end as well.

Next Action Ideas

Again, lots of good ideas here, many that I already had in mind. My big next step is a diary study where I test a lightweight version of this experience over a brief 10-day period. I’ll share more details on that in a subsequent post.

Other ideas I liked include testing the prototype without a cash incentive (this can fold into my diary study), testing a variety of goals to see what works as top canned vs. custom goals (also can be a part of my diary study), and using other goal-setting apps and identifying where they fail.

[melodyquintana]

Testing, listening, co-designing

Yes, it's March. Yes, it's Spring Break. And yet, there's practically no trace of spring or break anywhere in this girl's schedule. 

Today I braved the blizzardy morning to test a very rough, half-baked first version of what I'm calling Focus. Focus is an effort to give unemployed people on parole a sense of purpose and agency over their lives. It's an app that helps users identify short-term goals, break them down into smaller achievable actions, and track progress over time. To make things more fun, the app draws on photography, micropayment incentives, and a contained 100-day period. 

The prototype

I quickly put together a few screens that explain the app to a new user and walk them through their very first experience of creating a goal:

I really must thank my advisor, Chelsea Maudlin, for her input and help with honing my ideas down for this first iteration. When we met back on Tuesday, I was struggling to figure out how to keep goal-setting from becoming overwhelming. I felt it was important to help people identify goals at the start, but I was overthinking and overreaching by trying to help people think of big, almost existential life goals. 

Chelsea reminded me about a lot of important things, but most notably that the point of the app is to help people with short-term goals. For parolees in particular, there's a brief period of time when they're vulnerable to slip through the cracks, lose motivation, reoffend.

And so, partly inspired by the 100 Happy Days project, I decided to see how it felt if the app were to focus only one goal for 100 days. I chose 100 days because ~3 months seems like a good amount of time to fulfill a short-term goal. There is a 6-month hump that retention specialists at CEO fight against, but I felt that might be too long of a duration. I think the app should prompt someone to start another 100-day goal after finishing their first one, and hope that the momentum will not only improve focus but also make this type of goal-setting somewhat addictive. 

I crafted the suggested goals at the end with the intention of: 1.) making them clear, achievable, and action-oriented, 2.) making them easy to photograph over a 100-day period. 

Gathering reactions and input

After showing the screens above to 5 participants at CEO today, my biggest takeaway was that cash incentives are very appealing, but they also come with the risk of inauthentic interactions. All of the testers seemed to say they liked the app and would use it, especially when they learned about the reward component. A couple of the testers mentioned that there should be a way to verify photos for authenticity because they felt many participants would simply submit photos of anything to get the money. In one participant's opinion, an app that provided clear channels to obtain and schedule interviews would be incentive enough. Weekly Metrocards would also serve as a powerful incentive. In any case, I need to put more thought into how these cash rewards will work, and especially into verifying one's merit before they receive a reward.

Specific to my set of suggested money-related goals, I learned that 2 out of the 3 I'd listed are things that some people (not all) are already doing in their lives. On the other hand, my suggested goal about putting $1 in an envelope every day resonated with everyone as a "good idea" that they hadn't tried before. One tester riffed on this idea and suggested a goal about saving a certain portion of each paycheck. I'll admit I had considered a goal like this, but wasn't sure if it would be as easy to photograph each day. I'm left to wonder: Should "ease of capturing via photography" matter for the goals? And with people's varied habits and starting points, how can I make goals relevant to everyone and not too easy or too challenging for a subset of people? 

While all of the testers seemed to think that the goals and categories I included in the prototype were relevant and comprehensive, I did receive a small number of suggestions for additional goals and categories. One tester felt that Spirituality should be included. Another tester suggested that the app should help people looking for jobs easily get information about companies they're interviewing with, as a way of preparing and studying before an interview. Not exactly goal related, but interesting. Another tester wished for a better way to track his schedule, particularly his Medicaid appointments. Again, not goal-related but interesting.

Some other small notes:

People would appreciate reminders like text notifications to remind them to submit their photos each day.

A few things to tweak in the product education screens: 

In the first "Set Your Goal" screen, some people thought the icon images were tappable. They expected the icons to lead them to relevant content about the categories they represented. Will have to rethink they format there.

The second "Take a Photo Everyday" screen could use some real examples of what kinds of photos to take. Some folks had different ideas of what this meant, and were generally wanting more guidance in this area. 

Some testers emphasized the importance of usability for the parolee population. They suggested that the app be folded into the CEO curriculum and "taught" to people during orientation. Aside from these comments, they testers themselves didn't seem to have issues with understanding how the app works.

One person requested the ability to set your own timer rather than have to do 100 days.

Android is the dominant smartphone OS for this set of users.

[melodyquintana]

Prototype plan

Posting this a tad late, but here's a blueprint for how I'll tackle prototyping and testing my thesis.

Concept

A fun, lightweight mobile app that helps users identify personal goals, break them down into smaller achievable actions, and track progress over time. 

Features (pending testing/iteration)

Photography — as a means of goal tracking  

Community — support from a peer network, whether that's through peer-to-peer sharing, facilitated discussions, or videos from mentors/role models

Micropayments — incentives for achieving goals

Quick Sketches

Proposed Timeline

Week of Feb 10 — Run Workshops

Week of Feb 17 — Participant Card Sort

Week of Feb 23 — Initial Mockups

Week of March 2 — Testing Round 1

Week of March 9 — Development

Week of March 16 — Testing Round 2

Week of March 23 — Development

Week of March 30 — Testing Round 3

April 1–April 15 — Build Out & Finalize

I'm hoping to incorporate quick development cycles and at least 3 rounds of testing. 

In the first round, I'll aim to test concept viability and use case. Perhaps that test could look something like my first low-fi prototype idea? 

The second round will test features. I'd like to carefully prepare RCTs (randomized control trials) for the three I've listed above (photography, community, and micropayments).

The final round will be a usability test to help me flesh out the ultimate design and user experience.

[melodyquintana]

Card sorts!

The 5 cards above express the most important priorities in the eyes of one unemployed person on parole.

Last week, I conducted card sort sessions with CEO program participants with to better understand what kinds of goals are most meaningful to them. Since the conversations lasted longer than I'd planned, I only had time for 3 sessions, but was left with great things to consider as I develop my first prototype. 

The top takeaways for me included:

Goals that are rooted in a desire for stability and consistency are most important. "I'm not trying to be a millionaire," noted one participant as he talked about how he was simply looking for financial stability. Another was excited about how the contracting agency he's currently with "guarantees you 90 days of work." This was consistent with trends discovered my previous research as well as a US Financial Diaries study, which showed that when asked whether “financial stability” or “moving up the income ladder”is more important, 77% of low- and moderate-income Americans would prefer "financial stability." 

Parolees naturally sequenced short-term and long-term goals. They often saw linear, time-oriented relationships between the cards, seeing how completing one goal could lead to the next. 

Education was a top long-term goal. The desire for more schooling was expressed by participants who were actively enrolled as students and participants who were not.

Other things I found interesting:

Artifacts of accomplishment can be inspiring. One participant said: "I remember the first paycheck I got at CEO. I still have it in an album."

One participant noted that a certificate of good conduct would be an additional goal for someone with a long parole sentence.

While one participant really liked seeing these cards ("As I'm looking at these they're good questions!"), he also mentioned it was overwhelming to see so many cards at a time. A good reminder that focusing on no more than 3 goals at a time would be more effective.

One participant expressed a desire for a forum for dialog between parolees and the rest of society (activists, community lobbyists, etc.) to make an impact on negative stereotypes against parolees and show the kind of character they've built.

Becoming a mentor in itself can instill a sense of purpose. One participant talked about how social work was his calling because he could empathize with troubled youth and help them. When I asked another participant with a very stressful set of circumstances if he'd like to be a mentor, he responded with a very genuine-sounding "yes," as though no one had ever thought of him for a role like that before. 

[melodyquintana]

Reflections on the evolution of my thesis thus far

Lately I've been seeing many of the seemingly disparate pieces of my thesis thinking and design process come together. I'm starting to discover meanings and truths that I couldn't make out before. Funny how time can do that.

From Scarcity to Agency: Reframing the Problem

When I began my thesis exploration in the fall, I defined the problem my thesis would tackle as one of cognitive load and decision fatigue among low-income communities. Behavioral studies have shown that poverty impedes cognitive function, which prevents people from doing things that can help them get out of being poor, like attending night classes or remembering to pay bills on time.

Biological science backs this up: being poor dramatically increases cortisol levels, the hormone associated with stress. This hinders the functioning of other important brain areas such as the prefrontal cortex, which is essential for suppressing impulsive responses. As a result, poverty makes people more likely to make hasty, ill-considered decisions.  

So I wondered: How can technology reduce the cognitive clutter and daily stress of someone struggling to make ends meet? I then sharpened my focus to the scarcity mindset, particularly as it pertained to managing a grocery budget.

Over time, my project has become a little less functionally-driven and a little more emotionally-driven. After conducting field research it became clear that invisible struggles are often the hardest to overcome — coping with uncertainty, building confidence. Many of the people I talked to lack a clear vision and purpose for themselves.

I've moved my lens a few notches up Maslow's hierarchy, so to speak, to focus on higher-level psychological needs of the poor. Because I think it's a more interesting design problem. And because I think we too-often tend to focus on the lower-level sustenance needs of people in poverty. I wonder what kinds of ripple effects helping someone feel more agency could have on other aspects of their life?

Designing for the Extremes

I ran into an issue a few months into my thesis. I wanted my project to have a real impact on real people, but my access to those people as an independent designer was limited. I decided to partner with a nonprofit so that I could have more consistent access to users for research and testing. This particular nonprofit, the Center for Employment Opportunity, works with one very niche subset of the low-income population: unemployed people who've recently been released from prison and are on parole. 

I initially worried that this would be too narrow of a focus, and I still remember bringing this up the first time I met my advisor Chelsea for coffee. She likened design to cooking and said that it doesn't really matter what the ingredients are — it's about applying a method to create something out of whatever you have on hand. Focused case studies often yield rich learnings. She couldn't have been more spot on. 

Narrowing my focus to this particular user has indeed allowed for deeper insights. And as I immerse myself deeper into this problem space, I'm starting to realize how much truth there is to that claim about designing for the extremes — what you get out of it can often trickle up to broader applications. Mostly everyone struggles with agency, so if I can nail a design for this user, who knows what that could lead to on a larger scale.

Whether You Realize it or Not, Your Work is a Reflection of You

A few weeks ago, my friend Julia was talking about how there's a good chance your thesis project will end up relating back to you. I didn't really see that until now. What do I have in common with unemployed people fresh out of prison? I'm making something for them. I'm designing for someone who's not myself.

But I realize I do relate to them. So much. 

I see a piece of myself in their struggles with confidence and uncertainty. I see a piece of myself in their overwhelm with the hurdles in front of them. I see a piece of myself in their desire to prove themselves to the world.

It's likely that I'm drawn to help them find a purpose because that's something I need in my life, too. And that's the most exciting revelation I've had to date. 

[melodyquintana]

Understanding the market for my thesis idea

Here's where I try to define a market for my thesis idea and contextualize it among products and services with similar offerings. Right now, that idea is this: Some kind of mobile app that provides people who lack a sense of purpose (in this case, people who are on parole) with a lightweight and fun way to develop agency via goal-setting and celebrate small wins along the way.

Competitive Audit Lab

In class last week, we had more sessions for collaborative brainstorming and research. This time I used my session to get help with a competitive audit for my concept. I asked Sam and Matt to take 10 minutes to help me research existing products and services for goal setting/tracking as well as peer support networks. Using a collaborative Google spreadsheet, they very graciously helped me pull a bunch of services — I can't thank you enough, guys!

After the audit, I took some time to analyze the list of products and assess how effectively they met each of the following user needs:

Small wins. Break down goals into achievable steps & celebrate progress along the way

Purpose and agency. “Connect the dots” to see where the small wins are leading. Help the individual develop a personal sense of purpose that will motivate them to engage with unexciting work.

Easy to use. Something that doesn’t add work to their already-busy lives and has a very low barrier to entry.

Trusted community. Allow for self-expression, support and feedback within a peer network of people in similar situations.

Fun. Make goal-setting not feel like an Excel spreadsheet.

Free. Because making ends meet is already a huge burden.

After evaluating their effectiveness, I drew the following conclusions:

Most products that thoughtfully address a higher sense of purpose feel too functional, while most products that are fun to use don't thoughtfully address developing a higher sense of purpose. 

Products that incorporated more sophisticated behavior change models or personal coaching are not free.

The community piece seems to be lacking across the board. The services that do incorporate community don't feel very easy to relate to. The communities are comprised of complete random strangers or strangers who are pursuing similar goals (stronger, but doesn't have the same power as a community of people you know IRL).

Creating New Market Space

This exercise made me think about a really great article from HBR called Creating New Market Space. In it, the authors outline 6 different alternative techniques to help you shift your product strategy so you think less about head-to-head competition and more about gaps where there might be opportunities for new markets to emerge. 

I took a little time to apply their suggested framework to my concept and in doing so broadened my thinking about how this product will fit into people's lives. Here are the insights I garnered. I highly recommend reading the article in full.

1. Looking across substitute industries 

The word "industries" doesn't completely apply to my idea, but drawing on the general technique, I asked myself: What are all the existing ways someone might develop a sense of purpose? Here's a list:

writing/tracking goals on paper

writing/tracking goals using software (app, excel spreadsheet, etc)

getting private personal coaching / motivational interviewing

getting free personal coaching / mentorship through a public service or nonprofit

online tests like Imperative and Strengthsfinder

supportive and loving relationships

journaling on paper

journaling using software (app, word doc, etc.)

meditation

participation in a peer support network

Taking a step back, I made a couple of observations about this list. Some of these items require initiative, and as such, they appeal to people who are self-starter (goal setting/tracking, journaling, mediation). This type of initiative isn't something that everyone on parole has. Others cost money (online tests, personal coaching) — another thing that's uncommon among my group of test users. Some of these items require social or familial bonds with people who can support one's growth (relationships, peer networks, free mentoring). Not everyone is lucky enough to have strong bonds like this in their lives, but for those who do, how can we amplify and channel those bonds toward that person's development?

2. Looking across strategic groups within industries

Again, I'm not taking the word "industry" literally here, and instead opting to think of it as "problem space." Here's a breakdown of some types of users involved in my problem space, and current solutions that are appropriate for each type.

The self-aware, self-driven person — conventional goal tracking apps, journaling and meditation

The person who needs help understanding what their goals & purpose are in the first place — relationships, coaching and mentoring, online tests 

The person who needs nudges to stay on track — coaching and mentoring, app reminders

I wonder if there could be a service for all three: Help someone discover what their higher-level goals/purpose are, help that person break down and track those goals, and nudge that person along.

3. Looking across chains of buyers

Who are the actors are involved in this space? Who could make use of this product?

Purchasers might be users themselves or the organizations they belong to.

Users are currently parolees. This product might also apply to others who might be struggling to find a purpose: retirees, the unemployed, people who are in mourning, people in debt, recent divorcees. 

Influencers like counselors, coaches, nonprofits, family and friends.

4. Looking across complimentary product & service offerings

What are people doing before and after they use this product? Could this product offer complimentary services to help people with those things?

looking for jobs

paying bills

commuting

caring for their children

working part-time

meeting with their parole officers

going to their drug and/or anger management programs

applying for / dealing with their government benefits

5. Looking across functional or emotional appeal to buyers

Something like personal coaching is usually emotionally-oriented & based on personal relationships — could this app provide a high-performance software alternative?

On the other hand, goal-setting apps are usually functionally-oriented — how could this product add a burst of emotion?

6. Looking across time

What are the future trends the we can capitalize on? This one's a toughie, but the one big trend I'm banking on is the rise in access to smartphones. Almost all of the folks I interviewed in my research had a smartphone, even though they didn't have much money to their names. And, as I cited in a previous post, there is a wonderful set of data from Significance Labs that points to the growth of smartphone usage among low-income New Yorkers. 

[melodyquintana]

Why a sense of purpose is good for your health

From The Atlantic:

"There are a handful of junctures in life when a person’s sense of purpose is prone to twinkle and fade. In unemployment or professional stagnation; in financial or romantic straits, or after the death of a loved one; and, predictably, in retirement. To that point, the program Experience Corps seems to have stumbled into an elegant solution. For the past decade, the nonprofit has paired people ages 55 and older with students in kindergarten through third grade who need academic help. Across 19 U.S. cities, volunteers have taken up literacy coaching and proven that in their spare time they can significantly increase students’ test scores and morale. Which is great, of course. But the unexpected side effect of the programs was that the adults experienced significant health improvements, both mental and physical. The tutors’ rates of depression fell; and their physical mobility, stamina, and flexibility increased. They also showed improvements in executive functioning and memory."

[melodyquintana]

Designing workshops to spark ideas

Last week was all about getting outside ideas and perspectives for my thesis project. Aside from having a very productive discussion with my advisor, I conducted 2 small workshops with outsiders and am kind of blown away by how effective they were. Getting pretty meta here, but the biggest takeaway for me was about time investments when working with people: Time put into designing collaborative time is time well-spent. Because I had planned each agenda and created worksheets for folks to follow along, each group was able to use the workshop time efficiently and squeeze tons of ideas out of it.

Workshop #1 — In-Class Use Cases Lab

This was a 40-minute session with classmates Aastha and Dami where I allowed small portions of time for feedback on different elements of my project and a larger chunk of time for collaborative ideation. Since Aastha and Dami are fellow designers, I wanted to use the time exclusively for critique and ideation. I timed each segment and provided paper with a bunch of simple boxes on it for ideation and doodling.

Their feedback was so helpful! Highlights included the following design considerations:

Aim for a balance between encouraging users and not making them feel bad if they don’t achieve their goals

A forum approach may help foster conversations

Allowing people to share videos in addition to photos could enrich the experience, but should probably be time-capped to 20 or 30 seconds to keep things light and easy

Consider users’ data plans and how “expensive” this app would be in terms of data usage

There could be an opportunity to connect users with a network of do-gooders / sponsors

Aim to maintain a network of positive commentary. Can this be done without censorship?

Positive coaching tools such as encouraging prompts / notifications and reminders about past achievements

Think about one goal at a time and keep it light

Being happy is also a goal

Dami and Aastha also had wonderful suggestions about selling this design. In particular, I appreciated the reminder that there are some really great stories that came out of my research, and when talking about my thesis I ought to present those first as a hook.

Workshop #2 — Ideation Session with CEO Staff

I was given a one-hour slot with staff members of CEO, the nonprofit org I’m partnering with on my thesis development. After having an open discussion about my project progress, I planned to use the second half of the meeting time for a collaborative brainstorm session. This was pretty scary since most of the attendees had never done anything like this before and looked at me like I had 12 heads when I began explaining what we were going to do. But...hark! The powerful force of design! Once people got into the groove of of sketching out and (more importantly) talking about their ideas out loud, it was like the floodgates were suddenly opened. The meeting went 15-20 minutes overtime because people were so excited to talk about their ideas.

It was really great to hear staff perspectives. Some takeaways included:

Everyone got excited about the notion of facilitating more “small wins” for program participants and shared various ideas for how to incorporate this thinking beyond the bounds of this design project and into their workflows. There are opportunities to incorporate more positive affirmations and improve the goal-setting experience with staff so participants get more attention around their personal progress.

There are some small milestones that already exist in the program. How can we better recognize these achievements? Here are some potential elements to work with:

Milestones over the course of the program: completing orientation, completing coaching, getting a job, first paycheck

Job-start ready assessment: a checklist that participants must complete before interviewing

Pre-orientation: Potential opportunity for a goal-setting exercise

They pointed me to some brilliant resources including this economics of poverty study done at UT Austin and this lovely op-ed on agency.

They told me about a calendar experiment they’d run with participants in the past. Helping participants put their appointments on calendars helped them budget their time and see they had more free time than they thought.

Lots of product & program ideas came up:

Badges and "gamification"

Interactive choose-your-own adventure style goal setting with short-term goals, each goal leading to the next one

Checklist and regular communication with CEO to keep participants engaged during 30-day period of time before orientation

Engage family and significant others

“Tryouts” — let people try different work opportunities before they make a commitment

“Skillshare” — have a hands-on learning rooms where people can help each other build new skills such as H-VAC or how to wire a room

Employee assistance program app

Role playing and work-simulation environments

Empowering participants to start their own businesses

Alumni wall of fame & speaker series

Incorporate personal alumni stories when goals are met. Participants like listening to alumni but mentoring is too difficult.

Digital recognition board that shows people’s accomplishments and badges.

Some adjacent issues and opportunities came up:

Close the participant feedback loop by collecting more information from participants

More opportunities to encourage participants to be honest when they’re having issues at work as staff can’t find out if there’s an issue participants are open about it.

Managing workplace conflict is a big problem as participants don’t always employ effective anger management techniques at their worksites and sometimes don’t realize there are additional resources beyond just their supervisor. Some participants don’t know what HR is.

Interpersonal skill development as participants adjust to a completely new lifestyle.

Create ways for more transparency between participants and their supervisors as well as networks where participants can ask other people for career advice.

Next up

I plan on filling the gaping hole here by workshopping with the program participants themselves! I'll start this week by conducting a card sort with a few participants. This week I’ll also start putting everything that’s been stewing in my brain into action by making my first prototype.

CEO is a big fan of this project, which is exciting. They mentioned it could be beneficial to think of a non-tech solution in addition to my working ideas in the digital realm, as they could probably implement something of that nature very quickly and easily.

[melodyquintana]

The human struggle for agency

A reminder that agency — the thing I've focused my thesis around — is a very deep human need. From David Brooks:

"...often you see people who lack full agency. Sometimes you see lack of agency among the disadvantaged. Their lives can be so blown about by economic disruption, arbitrary bosses and general disorder that they lose faith in the idea that input leads to predictable output. You can offer job training programs, but they may not take full advantage because they don’t have confidence they can control their own destinies.

Among the privileged, especially the privileged young, you see people who have been raised to be approval-seeking machines. They act active, busy and sleepless, but inside they often feel passive and not in control. Their lives are directed by other people’s expectations, external criteria and definitions of success that don’t actually fit them.

So many people are struggling for agency. They are searching for the solid criteria that will help them make their own judgments. They are hoping to light an inner fire that will fuel relentless action in the same direction."