Brona New

Context

Brona is a wellness app designed to take care of working individuals during quarantine. The project was created for CreateSC, a 24 hour designathon open to all US undergraduate students.
Our team was selected as 1 of 8 top finalists out of 350+ participants, and we won the Crowd's Favorite Award by amassing the most audience votes following our pitch.

How can we protect the health and wellness of people undergoing quarantine, while making the quarantine experience more meaningful and enjoyable?

Since the pandemic, health and wellness has taken a major hit. Of all the stress that occurs due to the coronavirus, recovering in isolation is one of the most lonely and scary experiences. From the physical tolls of Covid-19 to the lack of social interaction, the isolation period calls into question multiple different types of wellness.

Identifying the Problem through Research

User Survey

To better understand the pain points of the users, we conducted a survey of 21 respondents who went through quarantine.

What did we discover?

Through the responses from people who got COVID-19 and had to go through quarantine, we were able to understand the pain points.
‍

Physical
Symptoms fluctuate and affect health
Lack of Physical exercise and energy

Intellectual
Stress from falling behind at work or school
Difficulty staying focused / low motivation

Emotional
Feelings of guilt and regret
Anxiety-inducing
Overwhelming

Social
Fear of missing out (FOMO)
No energy to socialize
Feeling alone

Understanding the Users

Persona

Our target audience was anyone who were going through quarantine. We created a user persona to guide our design process.

User Journey Map

With the persona created, we asked ourselves, how would users interact with the app?

Exploring the Solution Space

How might we?

Organizing ideas to make a feasible product

By creating an informational architecture, we organized ideas and grouped them into categories.

Visualizing Ideas

Low-fidelity Drafts

We designed several wireframes prior to creating our final prototype to explore different features and layouts.

Does the feature tackle the pain points?

We continuously iterated --> tested --> iterated --> tested our wireframes to make sure our product solves the pain points we discovered: physical, intellectual, emotional, and social.

1. Daily Planner to Personalized Goals

While the Daily Planner feature allowed users to set tasks for themselves, it was no different from other calendar apps. We needed a feature that better addresses the intellectual pain points the users face.
Addition of Goals feature: As a way to stay productive and feel motivated, users would set goals for themselves and add recommended goals that are generated based on their daily questionnaire.

2. Reducing choice overload!

The original recommendations layout was overwhelming for the users because all the content was in one screen.
We changed the layout so that the users can scroll specifically through the section they are interested in.
It reduces the stress the users go through.

Brona's Solution

1. Set up your account easily

A welcoming onboarding that guides you through what we do!
Select your interests so Brona can recommend you personalized entertainment and goals!
Log the date of your quarantine.

2. Keep track of your symptoms!

Log your symptoms everyday.
Check the home screen for health statistics!

3. Personalized Goals

Quarantine can make you feel demotivated and lazy. Use Brona to tick off and keep track of your goals.
Based on your questionnaire, Brona recommends goals for you. Read about the goal and add it to your list!

4. Explore and have fun!

Being in quarantine doesn't mean you can't enjoy the time. We recommend articles for you so that you can enjoy your time as much as possible.

5. Complete daily challenges

We have fun challenges for you everyday.
Check out other people's responses, like it, socialize!
Connect with other people who are also in quarantine.

Takeaways

This was the first ever design competition I have ever participated in! By participating in this 24 hour designathon, I learned how to prioritize features and not to be afraid to take unnecessary features out during our design process. I really enjoyed working with my wonderful and talented teammates, Ashley and Alyssa. I was honored to be part of such a driven and supportive team! Our group was up until 3AM and met again at 10AM to finalize our product. We were proud of our product, and it was rewarding to see our efforts acknowledged when we were selected as Finalists and Crowd Favorite

Future Iterations

From our product pitch to the designathon judges, we received a few insightful questions regarding the marketing viability of our app. These are some things I would do next time:

A more inclusive target audience - not just COVID patients
Our app design targeted for people recovering from Covid-19, having references to Covid – such as only listing out Covid symptoms in the daily questionnaire, or having Covid related articles in the exploration section. However, given more time, we can definitely aim for the app to be more inclusive, as isolation is not something that only Covid-19 patients go through. There are other patients in quarantine that have similar pain points, so I think Brona can eventually be expanded to them as well.

A way to maintain users after users recover
We created Brona with the assumption that it will only be used during the quarantine period (~14 days). However, this is not very desirable from a business perspective. With many long-term Covid haulers, Brona has the opportunity to maintain users with post-recovery wellness care as well. The app could address post-recovery stresses with an after-care system, as well as creating connections between people who went through quarantine at the same time.