WeChore

Chore Management App exercise for Kids
They'll even ask to help!

• Project Management • Product Designer • Strategist • App Design • UX Research • Information Architecture • User Flow • Design System • Product Branding • Sketching • Wireframing • Prototyping • Stakeholder Presentation •

Role

As the sole designer for this fictional project, I was able to create and develop the project from the seed of a thought down through to three iterations with a final stakeholder presentation.

Final deliverable included a case study included: UX Research, Affinity Map, Empathy Map, Personas, Problem Statements, Journey Map, Ideation, Hand drawn Sketching, User Stories, Site Map, Competitor Heuristics, Guerilla Testing, User Flow, Wireframes, Branding, Design System, Low, Mid, and Hi-Fidelity Prototypes, along with a final Video Presentation and Visual.

Tools

Figma, Figma Mirror, Miro, Adobe Illustrator, Google Suite, Galaxy S21 Ultra, Zoom, Loom

Skip to the Prototype!
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Overview

WeChore is a task management app designed for parents encouraging kids to complete household chores. Through research, I had found that this frustration is an ongoing, world-wide parent/child battle for both sides.

The Challenge

My biggest challenge was to design an app that would motivate two very different target audiences: Parents and their children.

The Solution

By adopting a front-loaded research initiative the project progressed the app toward a research-based solution, and concluded with a human-centered design. The outcome was a success! Both parents and their kids that I had interviewed were excited about the app and wanted to know when it would be completed for download and actual use!

See the Presentation!

Research

Mission & Vision
Parents should be able to monitor their children’s chores easily, efficiently, and without guilt. The primary and secondary research showed that parents want an easy way to have their children complete chores. Guilt was a strong, motivating feeling which resulted in failure on the part of the parent. The parents would complete the chore themselves rather than coerce or bribe the child.

To better understand the audience, I conducted secondary research, structured user interviews, and personal insights to define the problem statement.

Interviewing the target group was incredibly helpful in understanding what the parents felt was important, and what they believed motivated their children.

Two different users

At this point in the project, I had planned to create one app for both target groups. It wasn't until the interviews, Affinity and  Empathy Maps were developed did I realize that these were two completely different groups with completely different motivations.

Focus on the parent

I chose to focus on the parent for several reasons.

  • The parents would want the app, where the kids would not
  • Parents are the household decision makers to initiate a purchase
  • I had more access to parents for interviews

Maps & Personas

Key Insights

1. Chores are good for kids
Both parents and research has shown that kids who take responsibility for household chores grow up to be more successful adults.
2. Parents don’t want to fight over chores
Parents become frustrated and angry when kids refuse to do their chores. This older generation was raised to believe that all household members must contribute without coercion or payment.
3. Kids want Parents to love them
Although kids aren’t quick to turn down money, they really just want parental love, time, and approval. Parental pride is more motivating than money.

Defining The Problem

After interviewing five parents and 2 kids, I quickly realized that the battle around chores is a high-stress subject. And wasn't going away any time soon!

As a product designer, I was determined to find a way to get both parents and kids to work together on this challenge to relieve this strain on the parent-child relationship, even with the focus on the parent user to start.

And that's when I got really excited about digging in to the Competitive Heuristics.

Competitive Heuristics

Competitors Focused on Money, not Love.

The goal of WeChore is to relieve stress in families around the hot-topic of chores. All three apps focus on earning money, when research has proven is NOT the primary motivation for kids.

  • Focusing on what truly motivates kids: parental love and pride.
    Kids would rather earn privileges where parents are proud of them, than money.
  • Which made me think of a Point-Reward System of payment.
  • ‍Chores + Rewards, which "pay" for much-coveted Rewards.

Discovery

Guerilla Testing

Working with users to navigate through simple sketches, layouts, features and ideas blended with a site map in order to work with the approach of the app’s user interface, flow and experiences. This is what I found:

  • The users flowed easily from one screen to the next
  • The concept needed some introduction, but the users understood quickly
  • Some of the confusion could have been developed by sketch interpretation

Journey and Site Maps

As I was building the flow of this app it was clear to me that it needed to be simple and intuitive.
The three tasks that needed to be clear and concise were:

  • Dashboard to encompass all data at glance
  • Members; Points; Chores
  • Gamification to encourage more chores to be completed

Wireframes

The low-fidelity wireframes gave the project a chance to clean up the sketches and transform them into a more tangible prototype by assessing functionalities and layouts. The progress-bars and card-deck style came into fruition.

User testing demonstrated a few key insights:

  • Only parents were to be tested. Although it was tempting to have kids look at the app because they were actually excited about it working, I needed to focus only on one group.
  • The gamification was not part of my MVP and needed to be scratched for the time being. It was a strong feature to add later and possibly with the Kids version of the app.

Focus on the parent

I chose to focus on the parent for several reasons.

  • The parents would want the app, where the kids would not
  • Parents are the household decision makers to initiate a purchase
  • I had more access to parents for interviews

Design System

Moodboard

Brand Platform
WeChore conveys the concepts of completing a chore together, asynchronous and at different times. The parent assigns it; the child completes it; the parent approves it; and then the child is rewarded with praise and entitlements. The app behaves as a subjective third party who maintains the “wallet” of points eliminating additional nagging.

Brand Personality
WeChore has a brand that promotes encouragement and fun, to make a real difference helping parents effectively & seamlessly work with their children to accomplish tasks.

Brand Attributes

Brand Attributes

  • Fun, easy: When a product is fun, it has a higher rate of return
  • Supportive, Encouraging: Users are more likely to use the service regularly.
  • Caring: When people feel cared for, they become more enthusiastic for the brand
  • Connection: Advocates user to become brand ambassador.

Talk to the hand

The logo needed to appeal to both the parents and their children. Although I was focused on the parent, the brand needed to stay upbeat, fun, and youthful for this to work. Additionally, I attempted to give the brand a feeling of glass-morphism, but not completely. Just enough to keep the look and feel fresh and youthful.

Hands are the focal point of expression and additionally reference the icon in the WeChore logo while the words “We” and “Chore” indicate the joint effort. 

  • Hands are the focal point of expression
  • String around finger is the universal symbol for a reminder
  • Bright colors reflect the fun, upbeat brand

Happy Kids = Happy parents

If the children like the app, the parents will love the app.
WeChore is fun and clear so that both parents and kids are encouraged to utilize the services. The brand has genuine inspiration to please one another.

First Iteration

Putting the project into motion was a lot of fun and because I had already established the brand, the flow, and the wireframes, everything came together quickly. At the same time I was taking a course in Figma and was enjoying the software.

Usability Testing

The power of the Usability Testing was magical. I had discovered that the first few testers had incredible insights, while the last two proved torturous because I already knew the issues and couldn’t make the changes.

After creating a usability chart by priorty, I was able to see patterns. Here were the key insights:

  • The Navigation buttons were too small
  • Finding the List of Approvals was challenging
  • Process needed to be quicker. Too many screens

Second Iteration

Overview

The second round of High Fidelity Prototypes clarified the top three issues from the usability testing: 

  • Navigation size 
  • Finding the approval list
  • Shortening usage time through presets.

Usability Testing II

1. Approval language was CONFUSING

  • Some of the Users understood what “To Approve” and “Points” meant - but not all. 
  • The Approval/Points/Reward needs to explain the Point Economy with a clearer visual.

2. Approved Chores DISAPPEAR

  • - When the User Approved the Chore, they didn’t understand where the Approved-Chore went. 
  • - Almost all the users were concerned about checking the Approved Chores in case of an error.

3. They want to see the “proof”
- The Users liked my photos, but weren’t interested in taking their own. 
- The kid group has a separate desire to take photos and to show off their work which can be addressed in the kid’s app.

  • A few of the Users were insistent in seeing the completed chore. 
  • My original design included a photo of “proof” of completion for this exact reason. 
  • The Users liked my photos, but weren’t interested in taking their own. 
  • The kid group has a separate desire to take photos and to show off their work which can be addressed in the kid’s app.

Next Steps

The Solution

1. Rework Dashboard

  • The Users didn’t seem to “enjoy” the screen as they did with the first set of tests. 
  • They felt that the dashboard could be more useful by displaying the current chores for the day.

2. Clarify Language

  • The language of “To Approve” needs to change to something with more clarity.
  • The Points screen needs to live separately to connect to the Rewards Concept.
  • The Economy of Points needs to make more visual sense to the User.

3. Develop the Child App to Match

  • The WeChore sister app which the child would use, is an important part of the project and could be further developed. 
  • To allow the child to spend more time proudly showing off their work with fun photography and videography options along with satisfying gamification elements.
See Case Study!