Recognise what matters in life! A design exploration of a family recognition app
Conducted on behalf of the executive team at Workhuman, our research and design discovery project aimed to broaden the organization's scope beyond the workplace. Focusing on the family setting, we sought to address the challenge of insufficient recognition among family members on ordinary days, beyond traditional holidays and special occasions.
Objective.
The hypothesis we set out to validate was that family members do not feel adequately rewarded or appreciated in their daily lives. Our mission was to propose a mobile app tailored for family settings, fostering a culture of appreciation and recognition among family members.
Research.
Our research delved into several key questions to understand the dynamics of family recognition:
How frequently do family members, including parents, siblings, and children, recognize each other?
What devices are commonly used by families for recognition and rewards?
What motivates families to recognize each other?
Does family recognition vary based on location, and are there cultural influences?
Are there specific features that families find valuable for recognition and rewards?
Does the nature of rewards or redemption change based on the age of family members?
Assumptions:
We challenged assumptions such as families only recognizing each other on holidays and siblings never recognizing each other. We acknowledged that recognition dynamics vary depending on family and cultural factors.
Outcomes:
Our findings indicated that celebrations and apps used do not significantly differ with age. However, phone usage restrictions decrease with age. Importantly, chores over the age of 18 were found to be uncommon, with memory being the primary method for tracking them. Rewards for completing chores were infrequent and typically in the form of money.
Ideation.
Value proportion
We wanted to get aligned on the problem that we were going to solve and who we are solving this for. We took the 2 personas that were previously created and used them to fill in the Value Prop Canvas. When doing that we realised that we need to narrow down the target audience that we are looking at so we decided to stick with families that are Tech savvy. We also realised that we were missing another persona and that was the child persona.
Value Prop: Our App Helps Families Who want to Interact more with each other By Increasing communication And Celebrating family moments (Unlike WhatsApp, Revolut, Snapchat)
Product vision.
Our vision was to extend the power of recognition beyond the workplace, targeting families who use smartphones. The business goals included reaching 10 million users, expanding beyond the work environment, and enhancing brand awareness. The product aimed to strengthen family bonds, bring relatives closer, instill family values in children, and provide choice and rewards.
Design phase.
The design phase involved a collaborative effort using the Pair design approach. We worked on the visuals and flow for the prototype under a tight deadline. The end result was a novel approach to recognition outside the workplace, well-received by the executive team. Unfortunately, the project was deprioritized due to conflicting priorities.
Reflections.
Despite the project not matirialising the experience was invaluable. We were able to follow and execute our design process and demonstrate leadership the value of the process as later the design process was expanded to be used by the wider design team for projects that were released to the product. The collaboration with leadership and user feedback enriched our understanding of diverse family core values and expressions of gratitude. The pair design sessions were particularly enjoyable, yielding fast and effective results while providing an opportunity to enhance design software skills.