Hard choices made easy

Final Project: DSGN 540 UX Design | Spring 2022


Instructor: Tom McQuaid, ThinkCompany

Challenge

As a behavioral science student interested in solving problems with technology, I chose to design a digital decision aid for my final UX project. My goal was to propose a mobile application that could help people with the pain of making difficult choices in life, big or small. My target population was college students and recent grads.

TOOLS & Methods

  • Qualtrics

  • Microsoft Excel

  • Figma

  • User research:

    • Online survey

    • In-depth interviews

    • User testing

User INSIGHTS

  1. Top overall decision-making needs: Career choices and everyday decisions

  2. For career choices, people wanted help quantifying the difference between similar choices

  3. For everyday decisions, people wanted something quick and easy that wouldn't make them think too hard

  4. Difficulty prioritizing tasks and to-do lists was a recurring theme

Under the hood: design

  • Created design components with multiple variants for ease of design iteration

  • Designed for both mobile and desktop

  • Tested colors and design for contrast to ensure accessibility

  • Created interactive prototype with two fully mapped features: A ranked deliberation tool and to-do list sorter

  • Desktop design features additional tools and wider view of interface

Components & Desktop

MOBILE DESIGN


Feature spotlight: to-do, done

The most positive feedback from users came from the Quick-Choose "Shuffle" tool, which randomly sorts items on a to-do list and delivers them to the user one task at a time. When that task is done, they move on to the next. Users believed this would help them overcome decision paralysis and focus on one task at a time.