Needfinding

Interviews

In our initial interviews, we wanted to understand the unmet needs of young adults with ADHD in a variety of contexts, including relationships, work, and family. We targeted users with a broad range of experiences, prioritizing demographic diversity (age, gender, race). 

To recruit participants, we travelled to and spoke with 15 students in Berkeley, UCSF, and Stanford about their experience with ADHD.

 Our initial set of interview questions focused on four primary areas of interest: discovery and diagnosis of ADHD, management of ADHD, the impact of ADHD on their lives, and the communities around ADHD. 

Synthesis

We synthesised these interviews using empathy maps, personas, and extreme user analysis.

 During transcription, we learned that ADHD affects individuals’ sense of community and belonging, self-esteem, achievement, and productivity. We also saw the following key themes emerge from our interviews:

• The disorganisation of life with ADHD made it more difficult to maintain consistent communication with friends and loved ones. Stigma around mental health could further alienate individuals from their support systems.

• Many participants struggled to follow through on their obligations, leading to diminished self-worth and difficulty staying motivated

• Even when individuals are “high-functioning” and have a sufficient sense of community and self-worth, they often struggle to engage productively with their work due to manifestations of their ADHD, such as impaired executive function or time blindness.

POVs & Experience Prototypes

In the next stage of the design process, we continued to uncover deeper insights and brainstorm future solutions using POV and HMW statements. 

Solutions 

Based on our POVs and HMW statements, we brainstormed a variety of solutions. We tested the core assumptions of each solution with experience prototypes. Ultimately, our team was the most excited about the following three solutions:

1. Spontaneous nudges to connect and check in on friends

2. Facilitated co-working spaces:

3. Discussion forum for individuals with and curious about ADHD

Experience Prototypes

We wanted to ensure that the core assumptions of our proposed solutions were viable before selecting a final solution. These assumptions were:

1. Users will respond positively to a spontaneous reminder to check in with their friends.

2. Users are receptive to periodic accountability check-ins while co-working with other people.

3. Users are eager to talk with others about their ADHD diagnosis and experience. 

To test assumption #2, we designed the following experience prototype: we organized co-working sessions between pairs of participants. Before starting, each person shared their goals for the session, which they wanted their partner to help hold them accountable for. During the session, participants were asked to check in with each other every 15–20 minutes about their progress. We observed their interactions throughout the hour and conducted reflection interviews afterward.

From this prototype, we discovered that participants often left the co-working space due to external distractions, making it challenging to maintain the planned check-in intervals. 

Despite this, the post-session reflections revealed that setting goals and having external accountability were highly motivating and increased productivity. Although our assumption about the feasibility of frequent check-ins was invalidated, we learned that time-based goal setting remained a valuable and effective strategy for participants. 

Tasks

We brainstormed tasks to include in the app, and potential realisations of our solutions.

• Simple task: Flexibly add and view upcoming tasks.

• Medium task: Track and update progress on tasks.

• Complex task: Learn about previous time estimation patterns and task completion habits.

Ultimately, we determined that the mobile realization would be more accessible for people with ADHD because the ease of integration would make it easier for users to form or maintain a usage habit. Moreover, we found that a mobile realization could incorporate more diverse functionalities and would be more accessible than a VR realization.

Low-fi Prototype

We tested our Low-Fi prototype with 6 adults with ADHD and evaluated the results of Low-Fi testing using bottom-line metrics (participants’ speed and accuracy with task completion) and process metrics (their behaviour and emotional reactions).

We learned that various aspects of our design were either not intuitive or overly simplistic. Still, we received extremely positive feedback from testers on the “reflection” screen. One interviewee noted that the section of feedback that referred to tasks for which the time was over or under-estimated demonstrated “a deep understanding of [my] ADHD”.

We made a few key changes to our UI before creating the Medium-Fi prototype:

1. Improve visual hierarchy of the Home page

2. Improve clarity of Add Task flow

3. Incorporate goal-setting and visually prominent action items for tracking a work session

Med-fi Prototype

Our medium-fi prototype was evaluated through heuristic evaluation by 4 expert evaluators. Collectively, they found 96 violations, which we addressed before our final implementation.

For example:

• H1: Visibility of system standards (Severity 4)

  • Issue: It’s unclear why the home page asks question with no input area.

  • Fix: We updated the text to welcome the user without asking a question.

• H7: Flexibility and Efficiency of Use (Severity 2)

  • Issue: There is no way to view the most urgent tasks first. 

  • Fix: We added a filter to allow the user to sort tasks based on priority, due date, and date added.

• H4: Consistency and Standards (Severity 1)

  • Issue: It is unclear what the next and previous buttons refer to and the dates are nebulous.

Final Prototype Implementation

We built our final prototype using React Native, Expo, VSCode, and Supabase. We used several React packages, including navigators, react-native-datepicker, and react-native-timer to implement our interactive and dynamic features. 

We used Supabase for the backend to create a database to store users’ previous and currently active tasks. Supabase was simple to set up and use, and the straightforward interface and extensive documentation allowed us to establish a back-end for our “create a task” and “start a task” flows.

Bonus, as you've made it this far — here's the Concept Video that won us Best Video for the class.

(Sorry about the over-exposure!)