Smoking is a very serious problem and current solutions on the market don’t meet the users’ needs as they don’t analyse people's behaviours from a UX perspective. Therefore, this solution provides multiple alternatives for people to try and find their way to quit.
In a team, I worked on the gaps that existing solutions have not been able to meet and created an ecosystem designed to help the user track their progress with quitting in real-time.
The core group of users for the project is those aged 26 to 34, who wish to quit smoking and/or must for health reasons. The solution adopts a holistic smoking cessation service that combines a mobile application with physical devices to help track their habits
Preparing for prototyping:
To answer some questions related to the design of the devices as well as what is the best solution for the user, a survey was conducted with 50 smokers who wish or have tried to quit. Below is an analysis of the results.
Low-Fi Prototypes:
Based on the survey results this is an initial prototype for the application. Below are some examples; many versions were done, and later tested to see which interaction flow the user liked the most.
High-Fi Prototypes
Application
The final prototype gives the smokers all the support they need; they have the possibility to create a plan tailored for them and see their progress on their health in real-time. Furthermore, they can access a community feature for extra support.
The diary function helps smokers to record their feelings and how they feel about quitting, and to receive encouragement from themselves and the app to increase their confidence.
The function of connecting a smart device is to be able to record the data from the band and e-cigarette device, consequently store it in the app to understand your progress.
In the beginning, we placed the change plan button in a place that was not easy to find, in order to help quitters change their plans less often. However, in our tests, we found that they preferred the flexibility to change their plans.
Band Device
The band device is able to track smoking habits through a built-in technology to detect a change in heart rate that occurs after one smokes - according to heart rate and blood pressure approximated with the Poincaré method. Changes in Heart rate variability (HRV) parameters changed in 5 minutes from the first puff.
The design is a tiny model, comfortable to wear on either hand. The screen shows the number of buffs per day.
E-cigarette
Built-in technology to gradually decrease nicotine intake in X amount of time-based on the user preference. The indicator shows the user's status, including a customized usage scenario.
Conclusion
With this project, we wanted to create an ecosystem that could support the user in the best way to achieve their goal. Although we proposed three connected devices, users can choose only one or several in their smoking cessation.
For most users, the mobile app is an easy way to start intervention due to access to all the necessary functions. When nicotine reduction stress occurs, users might add e-cigarettes, to controls nicotine; or band to control their smoking habit during the day.