The most common symptoms in young adults with ADHD are lack of focus, disorganization, forgetfulness and lack of motivation. These also appear to be primarily symptoms of the inattentive type of ADHD. Therefore, I would like to design a tool that can support these individuals with their ADHD in everyday life.
Challenge
How can I as an interaction designer offer young adults with ADHD a tool that can help them better manage their ADHD in everyday life?
Research
Research shows that gamification can motivate users with ADHD to start or continue working on a task because it can provide a dopamine rush. So motivating could be through motivational notifications or messages when it is time to work on a particular task, but also by adding statistics so the user can improve his/her own performance.
But It can also allow individuals with ADHD to be more productive. For example, psychology recommends breaking down large tasks into smaller units. That way, the user feels like they are more successful while doing less work, just because they start approaching complex problems step by step by turning them into smaller manageable tasks.
Mindfulness affects elements that people with ADHD may experience as symptoms. As a result, it can therefore have a positive effect on individuals with ADHD. Among other things, it could help improve the person’s attention, focus and working memory and reduce stress.It would not only help focus or remember things more easily, there is evidence that it could play a role in the ability to think flexibly and clearly.
Flowchart
Synthesis
For my master project, I designed a smartphone app as a tool to help young adults cope better with their ADHD in everyday life. The intent of the app is for young adults with ADHD to have a tool to get and stay motivated and to better plan tasks and activities. The application would be an app to help plan and focus which promotes productivity for the user. But it would also be a tool where the user can practice mindfulness. The application includes several features including tasks, medication tracker, gamification, mindfulness and a social aspect.
In tasks, the user can enter tasks, as suggestions for tasks and/or routines received in the app. In the task, the user can then set various components such as task duration, priority, subtasks, a color label, etc. As the user works on the task, by setting the duration of the task there is also a timer that is present during the task. While this timer is running, other apps on the device will be turned off, including such as incoming notifications from other apps, to minimize distractions.
With gamification, the user will get a summary of all statistics of completed tasks and how productive or focused they were. The more productive that the user is and the more focused they are, the more badges they can earn. The user can also earn additional badges by using the app daily.
Gamification is integrated not only by earning badges, but also by notifications with tips to better cope with ADHD and motivational messages to keep the user engaged.
The social aspect is also incorporated into the gamification section through ranking and being able to collaborate with friends. The user can also participate in various breathing exercises in the app or create a new exercise of their own.
User personas
Wireframes
Usability test
I showed the prototype to 5 users (who have been diagnosed with ADHD) during an unmoderated user test that I conducted using Maze. Through the test, I wanted to find out if the onboarding was not too long, if it was easy to add a task and if it was clear that one user could collaborate with another user.
Usability test insights:
The overall feedback was positive
The length of the onboarding was ideal
It was clear how that the user could add a new task
Users complained about it being unclear how to collaborate with another user