A web platform that allows friends to plan walks together, fostering social connection in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Project submission for Rice University’s Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers 2021 Spring Hackathon
Award: First Place Overall Winner
Role: UX designer
Team: Jackie Wu (Developer) and Theo Schweizer (Developer)
Duration: 1 day; March 13-14, 2021
Problem
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to people isolating themselves indoors at greater levels, causing mental health to worsen from lack of socialization and physical activity.
Solution
We designed and developed WalkyTalky so that COVID-conscious users can easily schedule walks with others to promote socialization, physical exercise, and mental health while remaining safe.
User research
I conducted three user interviews with one college student who lives on campus and one family member who works remotely.
Ideation
We first had to decide on the COVID-safe activity to center our app around. We unanimously decided that walking was the best option because it is a low-intensity and accessible activity.
Next, we wanted to decide what features to add to our product. Already, we had ideas from two different categories of existing apps: scheduling and physical fitness.
We observed that there are existing platforms such as when2meet that allow users to find the best time to meet with each other. Likewise, there are a multitude of platforms that encourage users to log their workouts, like Apple Health or Runkeeper.
However, we realized there is no platform that combines the features of these different types of platforms. These were the three key features that we wanted to include in our app:
allow users to input their availability
allow users to view the overlapping times when them and their friend are available
allow users to log a walk taken with a friend
With these features in mind, I formulated the information architecture of the app.
Wireframes
Time constraints: What would I add?
Friends and Safety
Our original idea was to incorporate a friend request feature where users can input the usernames of their friends and send them a friend request. Only once both users consent to being friends can they view each others’ availabilities and request the other to go on a walk. In an ideal situation where we had enough time, we would prioritize the implementation of this feature.
In-app Communication
Another original idea was to include the process of asking a friend to go on a walk within the platform instead of leaving the user to initiate the request via email. Again, due to the time constraint, we could not develop an algorithm in time to allow for this in-app communication between users.