Chore Buster
Role: Completing the research and the contextual inquiry and redesigning the UX/UI elements
Tools: Figma
The Problem: Confusing UI/lack of security within app
Overview: Chore Buster is an app that helps families organize their household chores and the rewards that may accompany them.
The Inspiration: Chore Buster is an app with over a thousand downloads, yet received low ranking reviews from many users in the Google Play Store. It became my job to redesign the app to create a more user friendly experience.
Chore Buster
Role: Completing the research and the contextual inquiry and redesigning the UX/UI elements
Tools: Figma
The Problem: Confusing UI/lack of security within app
Overview: Chore Buster is an app that helps families organize their household chores and the rewards that may accompany them.
The Inspiration: Chore Buster is an app with over a thousand downloads, yet received low ranking reviews from many users in the Google Play Store. It became my job to redesign the app to create a more user friendly experience.
The Original
These are just a few example screens from the original Chore Buster application.
Surveys
The first step was to create and administer surveys to potential users to gain insights on how they manage chores.
- Surveys were created using Google Docs
- Approximately 25 surveys were taken by parents/guardians who assign chores
- The results showed:
- Many children who completed chores were preteens/teenagers
- Tracking rewards was frequently a struggle
- Parents often had to nag children to complete chores
- These findings inspired me to redesign the app for children who were a bit older and to find a way to take the nagging out of chore management.
Contextual Inquiry
Next, I wanted to see how users interacted with the existing app and what changes I could make to improve their experience.
- I watched as five participants (a mother, father, and three children [17, 17, and 13] used this app to manage their chores for one week.
- The main takeaway was that the app’s UI was extremely confusing and the app had a lack of security between parent/child accounts.
- After this study, I decided to focus on creating an app that was highly intuitive yet provided motivation for the children to complete their chores.
Personas
Based on the data that was gathered, I created three user personas that were referred to throughout the duration of the design process.
Competitor Analysis
Competitor Analysis
As part of my research process I wanted to examine other apps on the market that were similar to the Chore Buster app. I found that many of the apps were often geared towards younger children. Here are a few of the competitors I analyzed:
Competitor Analysis
As part of my research process I wanted to examine other apps on the market that were similar to the Chore Buster app. I found that many of the apps were often geared towards younger children. Here are a few of the competitors I analyzed:
Wireframes
At the beginning of the design process I began to sketch many designs in order to find the simplest way to organize the apps information. These are a few low fidelity sketches of the apps main screens.
User Testing
After creating the sketches, high fidelity designs were crafted and user testing was conducted to test the apps usability.
- The same family who took part in the contextual inquiry also completed the user testing.
- The adults were asked to create chores, approve chores, and view their children’s rewards. Children were asked to view/mark off their chores and edit goals.
- The test showed little issues with the app as a whole.
- Overall, only small changes were made to button’s size/placement.
UI
The high fidelity designs were created using Figma:
- For this app my goal was to create a bright, clean, modern design.
- The original design of the app inspired me, yet seemed a bit too simple. I wanted to maintain a clean design but create a more intuitive UI.
- The app also follows the Material Design guidelines.
- Below are both the child’s and parent’s view of the app. The child’s view shows how they can view their chores and notifications, as well as how they can set goals for completing chores.
- The parent’s view of the app shows the notification and chore manager screens, where they can see what the children have accomplished and plan future tasks.
Conclusion
In all, this project taught me just how important it is for all of the small details of an app to be thought through completely from the beginning to the end.
- One of the biggest challenges with this app was making sure that the app had all the features necessary to assist parents and keep the children engaged without making the process clunky or confusing.
- I was able to overcome this obstacle by really focussing on the feedback from users and using the data to show what specific elements of the app were most important to ensure that the final product was not over-designed.