Zest

OVERVIEW

Project Duration: 14 weeks

Zest is a smart city app, aimed at newly retired individuals to help them adapt to the change in their life, encourage social connections and to enhance the UK high street experience. The app focuses on creating groups for like minded individuals, hosting events in local eating establishments and bringing users back into the high street.

BACKGROUND

The UK high street has been in decline for a number of year, with big chains going into administration and stores being left empty. This can partial be accredited to more customers purchasing their items online, and therefore not going into town. With less people going into town, some stores that rely on passing trade are being affected.

Retirement is a big step for many people to take. It is a time in life that you have much more free time than before, but for many people, they lose day to day contact with people. Former colleagues are still at work while the newly retired can go out and do whatever they want. Loneliness can become an issue, especially to those who don’t have family close by, or friends of a similar age.

We wanted to create a solution that combined these two problems, where we could encourage people who used to go to the high street to go back there, but for a different purpose than just shopping.

APPROACH

The double diamond framework was used for this project.

The project was split into two phases

Phase 1 - Team

Discover - gathering findings about the user, their high-street habits and their use of technology.
Define - understanding when and why users go into the high street and pain points that they face in their experience.
Develop - ideating a solution that would encourage users to engage with the high street.

Phase 2 - Individual

Develop - choosing the best solution and features to take forward into development.
Deliver - a smart mobile app that solves users pain points and give them a positive experience.

GOALS AND CHALLENGES

The main goal for their project was to create an app that would encourage users to go back into the high street. A secondary goal, based on our target users, was to help our users (newly retired) with the transition into retirement as it is a big life change. This was challenging as our users all have different circumstances, different friendship circles, hobbies and family situations. This meant thinking about a solution that would cater for many different types of newly retired.

DISCOVER

Assumptions

At the start of the project, we made assumptions using the 5W1H method to choose our target user group, why we thought our target users didn’t use the town centre, what their pain points could be and how we could solve it.

Hunt Statement

Once we had decided upon our target user group, and made assumptions about what their pain points were, and the goals that they would like to achieve, we created a Hunt Statement, to show our project direction,

We are going to research the experience of visiting a UK town centre high street from the perspective of newly retired adults (60-70) who are looking to fill their newly acquired time during the day.

Secondary Research

We researched into different types of smart data, current digital trends, the current state of the UK high street, the target users and how they interact with technology and their local high street.

We found that:

People go to the high street for more than just shopping, they might go for events, to meet people or to go to restaurants. These provide rich social interactions and might include sensory and atmospheric aspects that stimulate feelings and emotions.

77% of 55-75 year olds own or have access to a smartphone. Some lack confidence using new technology and apps as it progresses so rapidly and they lack guidance and support.

Baby Boomers who are recently retired have more time on their hands and look for ways to keep their minds active or learn a new skill. This presents an opportunity to provide services to this age group during their leisure time.

Target Users

Research shows that retiring can be a very emotional and difficult for many individuals. They are no longer surrounded by colleagues on a daily basis and many friends could still be working. We discovered that this target user group were more engaged with technology than previous generations, however some still relied on others to show them what to do.

Loneliness has become a big problem in older people and has been associated with both mental and physical health problems such as depression, sleep problems and stress.

Multiple studies have found that people who maintain several social connections and attend social activities benefit from improved memory and thinking skills

With this research, we saw an opportunity to be able to combat social issues that newly retired users face once they leave work.

Primary Research

We split the research up between team members in order to make best use of our time. We used several methods to collect the research and analysed the information that we uncovered. The methods that we used were:

DEFINE

Synthesis

We took the research conducted and analysed it in order to uncover opportunities and to decide upon a direction for the project. We used several different methods to help with visualise the data.

Persona

From analysed data, we created a persona to encapsulate the research that we uncovered and help us with the development of our solution.

UX Vision

We created a UX vision statement, to focus the project direction.

There is an opportunity to provide a new service or product for newly retired people who are time rich and keen to experience new things to fill their time in a meaningful way. BUT, they don't have the large social circles they used to have and want the flexibility of picking and choosing when to participate.

DEVELOP

We ideated and came up with different concept ideas. We chose a few features that we thought should be included in our solution, and evaluated them, going back to our target users to see which features would be most important. We went back and forward on a few before we came up with Zest.

Concept

Zest is a platform for helping to discover new networks and like-minded people, and provides a digital space to organise activities or join existing communities. It utilises underused spaces during quieter periods within local businesses, repurposing the high street to offer experiences beyond retail. It aims to encourage social meet-ups by offering users incentives and discounts from retailers to entice users back onto the high street. The app will use smart city data (geotagging) to suggest meet-ups happening in the local area. The experience Zest provides is about being social, discovering, spontaneity, keeping active, community spirit.

Storyboard

We created a storyboard, using our persona Sue, in order to fit the solution into the current experience, and if there were any gaps in the concept.

Design Principles

We create a list of design principles that we would need to take into consideration during the development phase of the project. These included:

We Connect – accessible and inclusive for all, uniting people with each other and local businesses.

We Simplify – we respect the value of your leisure time and strive to make connecting with others easier, with a focus on adding value, not too many features.

We Discover – we believe in developing a community where people are coming together to try new things and discover hidden gems in their local area.

We Personalise – create a personalised experience for every individual, whatever their needs, goals or interests are.

DELIVER

User Flow

In order to make sure I knew how the app was going to work, I created a user flow of the main journey through the app to allow me to know which screens needed to be developed.

Lo-Fi Prototype

A lo-fi prototype was created to give an overview of the different functions that the app would do. This prototype was tested by a user, and the prototype was changed based on comments from the user.

Lo-Fi Testing

With the lo-fi prototype, I conducted a user testing session. The participant was asked to use the app and give feedback on the flow of the screens, the features and to also use it sat down, but also in context where they would be walking. There was a discussion about the layout of the features, and preferences about symbols and icons.

Hi-Fi Prototype

After the user tested out the lo-fi, I altered the design based on feedback. This was turned into a hi-fi prototype, with simple UI to showcase the concept.

The hi-fi prototype was created in Sketch and Axure RP to allow it to be transformational and to allow variables to be used to imitate the app working as if it had been developed.

Here is the first iteration of hi-fi visuals.