IXD303 App Contextual Research

When designing a product, one of the most important things to do is to complete some contextual research on products that are similar to the one you are creating.

This means I downloaded some eating disorder recovery apps to see what was already out there and how they laid out the app as well as what they included.

Brighter Bite

Brighter Bite is an eating disorder recovery app which was created in 2020. Overall I liked the layout of this app as it had a muted colour palette with nice detailing.

I liked the logo as well as the onboarding process as it was very simple and discreet.

As soon as you log in, these are the first 3 screens that you are hit with. to see how the app works I chose the ‘I have an urge’ option. this then took me to the ‘how do you feel’ page which, although covers all options with a calming colour palette, I felt was very overwhelming. In my opinion it feels as though you are being thrown into the deep end and you may not always want to go through this processes. As soon as you pick a feeling you then get taken into the third page where you have to select what is affecting your feelings.Although it is very helpful to think about the root of your feelings, I feel the layout is very crushed and monotonous and I personally found it hard concentrating on what every option was because they look the same.

Despite the initial overwhelming process, Brighter Bite then offers you calming techniques which I thought was really nice and unique.

This technique talked me through my breathing, in hopes to calm down the situation and teaching the user how to relax. I think this is very refreshing and would imagine users would find this part of the app very useful and enjoyable as you want to come on to the app to relax instead of stressing yourself more. A major part of recovery is learning how to maintain the ‘devil thoughts’ which raises heart rate and anxiety levels which is never good.

In Conclusion

Overall, I think Brighter Bite is a good app to download for your recovery process and was the best I could find on the App Store. If I could change anything it would be to make the initial screens less overwhelming as if the user came onto the app already feeling stressed or anxious and saw those screens you would just click off it again.

PR:Eating Disorder Management

The next app I looked at was called PR:Eating Disorder Management.

Personally I did not like this app. As soon as you open the app it does not have an onboarding section, instead it just brings you straight to the home screen which can be very confusing to users. The layout and choice of images also doesnt make sense to me as I struggle to find the relation between eating disorder recovery and trees. I found this app difficult to use and felt the colour palette was very harsh and would not suit users of all ages and abilities as the contrast between the black, blue and white is very harsh on the eyes and may not be very visible to everyone. There was also not a lot to do on the app and mainly consisted of these three screens which I feel could be elaborated to make a more enjoyable experience.

In Conclusion

I personally would not use this app to aid recovery as I found it hard to use and the colour scheme was a bit too harsh for me. I felt it had limited options and sold itself short as I think they could have had potential if they had continued to refine their idea.

Reflection

This contextual research task was beneficial to me as it allowed me to see what apps are already out there and how they have chosen to design their product.Through this task I was also able to find out what styles I like and don’t like which helps me influence my own choices as I go on to design and refine my own product in an attempt to create a recovery app that users will find easy to use, whilst also finding it enjoyable.

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