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Family

Family

Role

Product Designer

Product Designer

Visual Designer

Visual Designer

Team

Rohina Gandhi

Ani Nguyen Le

Kaitlin Chow

Timeline

3 Days

NYC

Skills

Visual Design

Interaction Design

Prototyping

Tools

Figma

Protopie

CHALLENGE

CHALLENGE

Creating a way to help young adults
and their parents bond
Creating a way to help young adults
and their parents bond

With one tap, send a personalized grid of life updates on iMessage to easily let your parents into your life. Designed to help young adults strengthen their relationship with their parents over long distance.

With one tap, send a personalized grid of life updates on iMessage to easily let your parents into your life. Designed to help young adults strengthen their relationship with their parents over long distance.

Jump to Solution

THE SAD REALITY

THE SAD REALITY

As we get older, the time we have to spend with our family gets lower and lower
As we get older, the time we have to spend with our family gets lower and lower

Most of us don’t realize that once we leave high school and entire college, the time we have to spend with parents decreases dramatically. It’s all too easy to take that for granted.

Most of us don’t realize that once we leave high school and entire college, the time we have to spend with parents decreases dramatically. It’s all too easy to take that for granted.

BUSY AND NEW LIVES

BUSY AND NEW LIVES

Young adults often unintentionally neglect the people they love most
Young adults often unintentionally
neglect the people they love most

Despite all the technology we have, there are a million things competing for our time. Young adults love their parents, but sometimes don’t have the bandwidth to call or FaceTime very often.

USER INTERVIEWS

Parents mainly want to know if they are okay, but young adult’s busy lives make it hard to stay in touch

We conducted 10+ user interviews with parents and young adults to learn what both sides needed to feel connected with one another.

DESIGN PRINCIPLES

DESIGN PRINCIPLES

Defining core principles to consider the needs of both generations and guide design decisions
Defining core principles to consider the needs of both generations and guide design decisions

A UNIQUE SPACE

A UNIQUE SPACE

How can we strengthen the
“in-between” moments until you see each other in-person
How can we strengthen the
“in-between” moments until you see each other in-person

Everyone will say spending time in person means more than spending time online. But the truth is that texting remains as a really powerful “middle space” between in-person interactions that strengthen a relationship

Everyone will say spending time in person means more than spending time online. But the truth is that texting remains as a really powerful “middle space” between in-person interactions that strengthen a relationship

PRESENTING OUR DESIGNS

Apple Care Packages

Keep your loved ones updated in just one tap. With one tap, send a small grid of tiles filled with the most recent updates about your life.

DESIGN DECISIONS

Dynamic widgets based on your activity

When you open the iMessage app, the six widgets in your care package will reflect your most recent activities & inputs. It will draw relevant information from the Apple ecosystem like your Photos app (to show you're eating well), Apple Watch + Health (to show you're working out, sleeping well, + staying healthy), Calendar (flights, availability), and many more.

DESIGN DECISIONS

Effortlessly
easy to scan

Keeping in mind that young adults wanted a quick way to send these updates to parents and parents may not always be the most tech-savvy, we designed the curation of the tiles to be very easy to navigate, and the final care package super visually glanceable for parents.

DESIGN DECISIONS

Tap on widgets to toggle
and customize

You could do this for location (to provide your parents with your live location or just you city), let them know about how busy you've been recently (light, manageable, vs. heavy workload), and to show them how you've been feeling lately through the 'mood' tile.

EXPLORATIONS

EXPLORATIONS

Async app to let someone know
you’re thinking of them
Async app to let someone know
you’re thinking of them

Inspired by the physical lamp product, the child has have the ability to change the light on their end to pink, which is the preset "I miss you" color. This makes the parent’s lamp also change to pink and they would know they miss her (without words)! We decided this felt oversimplified and didn’t encourage deeper connections.

Inspired by the physical lamp product, the child has have the ability to change the light on their end to pink, which is the preset "I miss you" color. This makes the parent’s lamp also change to pink and they would know they miss her (without words)! We decided this felt oversimplified and didn’t encourage deeper connections.

EXPLORATIONS

EXPLORATIONS

Mix up the group chat with some fun conversation starters
Mix up the group chat with some fun conversation starters

Sometimes the family chat falls flat, so we explored what fun conversations starters could do to mix things up! We explored sending on-the-spot photos vs. being able to pick from gallery, sending videos or impromptu voice notes, and more. However, after talking to users, it felt like the high effort it required meant it was not a long-term solution.

Sometimes the family chat falls flat, so we explored what fun conversations starters could do to mix things up! We explored sending on-the-spot photos vs. being able to pick from gallery, sending videos or impromptu voice notes, and more. However, after talking to users, it felt like the high effort it required meant it was not a long-term solution.

EXPLORATIONS

EXPLORATIONS

Sending photos with a voice note attached for more context
Sending photos with a voice note attached for more context

This idea allowed for a richer experience for the parents. The young adult could reply to simple prompts like "what did you eat today?" with a photo and a voice note, and it would give a sneak peek into their life with greater context.

This idea allowed for a richer experience for the parents. The young adult could reply to simple prompts like "what did you eat today?" with a photo and a voice note, and it would give a sneak peek into their life with greater context.

EXPLORATIONS

EXPLORATIONS

Digital ‘hot seat’ because
parents love the drama
Digital ‘hot seat’ because
parents love the drama

Parents love to know what’s the latest on relationships, breakups, and life updates. We created a fun prototype where you can select a person to be in the hot seat and they have to answer all the tough questions. This didn’t move forward because the focus was on building healthy and intentional relationships, and this introduced too many problematic potentials.

Parents love to know what’s the latest on relationships, breakups, and life updates. We created a fun prototype where you can select a person to be in the hot seat and they have to answer all the tough questions. This didn’t move forward because the focus was on building healthy and intentional relationships, and this introduced too many problematic potentials.

OUR JOURNEY

OUR JOURNEY

Our journey from uninformed
to informed simplicity
Our journey from uninformed
to informed simplicity

Parents love to know what’s the latest on relationships, breakups, and life updates. We created a fun prototype where you can select a person to be in the hot seat and they have to answer all the tough questions. This didn’t move forward because the focus was on building healthy and intentional relationships, and this introduced too many problematic potentials.

Parents love to know what’s the latest on relationships, breakups, and life updates. We created a fun prototype where you can select a person to be in the hot seat and they have to answer all the tough questions. This didn’t move forward because the focus was on building healthy and intentional relationships, and this introduced too many problematic potentials.

PRESENTING OUR DESIGNS

Behind the scenes of an NYC Design Competition presenting to top designers

The overall feedback from the audience was very positive and they loved the quality and craft of our work as well as the prototypes. In the future, we could work on building a story around our solution and tweaking our solution to something that would feel more intentional and thoughtful to the parents.

THE END

THE END

Thank you for reading!
Thank you for reading!

Reach out to me at erk004@ucsd.edu if you'd like to chat more about this project — whether you'd like to go more in depth, hear about our unexpected 2AM pivot, or just chat about anything design.

Reach out to me at erk004@ucsd.edu if you'd like to chat more about this project — whether you'd like to go more in depth, hear about our unexpected 2AM pivot, or just chat about anything design.