Fammili is an innovative product that changes how parents plan their weekends with their family. It was designed to help users take a new approach to casual activities. From its look to its experience, Fammili was carefully designed to be human, relatable, and inspiring.

Tools

Figma, Zeplin, Origami Studio, Google Analytics

RESEARCH METHODS

User Interview, Survey, Persona, Archetypes, MVP Testing, User Flow, Storyboarding.

ROLE

Designed the entire end-to-end customer experience including flyers, emails, explainer videos and website, in addition to the product experience.

company

Panasonic R&D

DURATION

August 2018 - March 2019

Background

Problem Statement

It’s simply impossible to do something extravagant and special every weekend with your family. It requires a ton of coordination, preparation and energy to execute. We had to create a service that provided fun and interesting activities that could be done almost any weekend, while reducing the effort it took to plan and do it.

Visionary Requirements

Innovate

We wanted to provide a completely new take to weekend activity planning.

Get it done

Our app had to be designed so that it was difficult for users to back out of their plans, in order to get them out of their repetitive cycles.

Approach

As soon as I joined the team, we conducted two-part study sessions which included interviews and testing. The user interviews revealed pain points and defined the target user group, while the testing portion validated design decisions on the first MVP which had been built prior to my entrance.

Surveys

We gathered general information from users by sending out surveys. We gained general insights such as demographics, planning types, and weekend routines.

User Interviews

Focus Areas

What kinds of activities do families want?
How do they plan weekend activities?
What are issues with current planning methods?
What are the casual every-weekend activities they partake in?
How and when do they make fast and confident decisions?

Findings

Single source

Parents were tired of having to shift between different apps and websites to find activities. They wanted a single source to get all their information from.

Personalization

Each family has their unique taste in activities. The app needs to cater activities to their parameters.

Mood swings

Moods change all throughout the week, so parents need to be able to plan activities dependent on how they are feeling at the time.

cancellations

Activities planned and scheduled ahead of time have a less likely chance of being cancelled.

Card Sorting

In order to figure out what types of activities parents wanted, I had interviewees list out andsort activity categories into groupings and label them.

Relax

Zero effort activities that revolve around being lazy and carefree.

casual

Low effort activities that require some planning and material gathering, but are fairly easy to execute.

Adventurous

High energy activities or longer distance locations.

MVP 1 Testing

Tasks & Problem Area

1
Like/Pass activities to build up your interests and things to do.

2
Choose from two activities or the weekend is auto-filled.

3
Do and review the activity.

Forced decisions

When selecting an activity for the weekend, users were given only two options to choose from, causing them to feel severely limited. When users did not choose an activity, their weekend was automatically filled in. This made users feel less responsible to do the activity because it was not their decision.

MVP 1 Like/Pass Screen

Synthesizing Results

In order to better understand our users and their pains, we analyzed each session by utilizing different design methods like empathy and user journey maps. We then generated archetypes and personas.

MVP 2 Design

Assisting User Motivation and Emotions

Nudge USERS

Parents want to plan ahead of time, but sometimes lose motivation. Since weekend plans have a higher completion rate when planned early, we nudge users to plan ahead through subtle UI cues for the weekend:
- Days left
- Weather
- Events
- Motivational Quotes

push USERS

Moods change throughout the week, even more so when you don’t have anything planned on the day of. In such situations, parents dismiss finding something to do. In order to prevent indecision and choice paralysis, users are prompted to select a single mood which filters and shows matching activities.

Reassure USERS

Sometimes plans don’t go through and parents feel guilty, regretful, or disappointed. We reassure them with a pass experience by letting them know it’s okay to not do anything, and there’s always next weekend.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to secure funding after the second MVP so the project ended here. The remaining time was spent gaining experience of what it's like to market a startup app, meeting and talking to parents around the Bay Area.

Learnings

Design is Collaborative Even if you're the only designer

When I first joined, being the only designer on the team, I felt as if I had to design the entire application experience myself. I quickly learned that it was the exact opposite, and my job was to connect everyone together to achieve the solutions. I learned how to lead effective brainstorming sessions, communicate design decisions, and work through handoffs with engineers.

Targeted Design

When I first started conducting interviews, I wanted to design to please everyone. I learned that I should instead design for the early adopter. Designing for everyone means pleasing no one, so it was important for us narrow down and find our target user. Once we found our target user, the product direction became much clearer.

fammili

Product Design