Activity App for Senior Residents in Prince George’s County
Project Overview
Department of Parks and Recreation of Prince George’s County in Maryland is dedicated to improving the senior residents’ life by offering them diverse programs and activities that help them stay healthy both physically and mentally. The Senior Services provides a Senior ID Access Card, which allows senior residents to use the facilities, attend events, and take classes at multiple senior centers for in the county free. However, only about 14% of eligible senior residents have signed up for the Senior ID access card. Besides, the activity participation has been decreased since the pandemic because almost all the activities were moved online.
Client: Prince George’s County, Department of Parks and Recreation, Senior Services (Class Project)
Timeline: 8 weeks (2020)
Team: 5 UX designers & researchers
My Responsibilities: UX/UI design and user interviews
Tools: Miro, Figma, Adobe Illustrator, and Zoom
Business Goals
Increase Senior ID Access Card signups
Increase activity (classes & events) participation
Process Overview
Discover: User Interviews
Goals
To understand seniors residents’ pain points, needs, and motivations regarding signing up for Senior ID access card, as well as choosing and participating in activities during the pandemic and beyond.
How?
We conducted semi-structured interviews with 4 current Senior ID access card users (aged 67-81) via phone and Zoom. The interview questions were focused on the users’ experiences with
The Senior ID access card signup process
The activity signup processes (both online and in-person activities)
The center’s outreach and communication policies
After each interview, we reviewed and interpreted the user data/notes together and took some notes.
Define: Analyzing and Consolidating Data
Step 1: Built an Affinity Diagram
We wrote notes from the user’s perspectives, consolidated data, and looked for common patterns.
* Parts of our Affinity Diagram
Step 2: Created an Identity Model
We looked for data that contained user’s identity elements, such as their hobbies, technical experience, occupation, habits, etc. Then, we discovered users’ needs by learning who they are, what they care about, and what they enjoy doing.
Step 3: Created a Relationship Model
We looked for data that are relevant to users’ relationships with others. Then, we created this 3-level relationship model to study how users’ relationships with people they interact with in their daily lives influence their decisions on whether or not to sign up for the senior ID access card and what event / activity they want to participate.
Level 1: High Influence
Level 2: Medium Influence
Level 3: Low Influence
User Research Key Findings
Signup process involves too many steps and is not automated enough.
Participants really enjoy events where they can socialize with their friends (especially in person), such as taking walks and line dancing.
Information about event schedule is hard to locate, outdated, and inaccurate in many email communications.
Participants want to have access to a wide variety of classes that are offered at times that work with their schedules.
They want live instruction from teachers that care about their subject matter.
Ideate: Brainstorming Ideas/Solutions
Brainstorm ideas - All the team members reviewed the notes (the affinity diagram) and left some design ideas individually, and then created a list of key problems & design ideas together.
Visualize the best ideas - created storyboards and detailed sketches to visualize/communicate the most popular design ideas.
Parts of our “Wall Walk”
Organized “Wall Walk” notes
Medium-Fidelity Prototype
After sketching out our best product ideas, we decided to create medium-fidelity prototypes for Senior Activity App, a mobile app that enables PG County’s senior residents to search, sign up for, and share an activity easily and quickly.
Login Screen
Problems
Some users who don’t have a computer or laptop at home are not motivated to visit the website to sign up on their smartphone because the screen is too small.
The online activity signup process has too many steps.
Users often forget their password and/or username.
Solutions
Allow users to log in by just scanning the code on the physical access card.
Develop a mobile app with a simple interface that facilitates good user experience, so seniors can find it easy to use.
Activities Screen
Problem
It’s hard to look up activities and relevant information on the senior service’s website because it has a lot of features and contains too much information.
Solution
Make it easy for the users to search activities, including new activities and activities that they have signed up for and/or liked by using well-described category names and easy navigation.
Activity Details Screen
Opportunity
Users are more likely to sign up for an activity if their friends or someone they know already signed up for the event.
Design Idea
Motivate users to sign up for an activity by showing them how many people and who have already signed up.
Feedback Popup
Problem
Some users felt that their feedback is not heard, while others didn’t know how to provide feedback.
Solution
Ask for users’ feedback right after an event / activity and provide them with different ways to submit feedback.
Rewards Screen
Opportunity
Users feel more motivated to participate in a program or activity if they were offered incentives.
Design Ideas
Develop a rewards program that enables users to get points by participating in activities, completing personal monthly goals, becoming a volunteer at the senior center, etc.
Enable users to track their points and view available rewards in the app.
Limitations
Small sample size
The 4 users we interviewed were all current senior ID access card users, while one of the project goals was to increase new user signups.
Design solutions haven’t been validated
Although we presented our design idea to the client and received a lot of positive feedback, we didn’t get a chance to test our design with the actual users due to the time constraint and our course schedule.