kindnest
A cozy and fun way for GT students to reflect and connect.
Partner project - Fall 2024 (12 weeks)
REFLECTIONS
So... did we achieve success?
Did users rate the solution ≥ 7/10 in terms of ease and intuitiveness?
Yes! Average score after 2nd User Testing: 8.5 out of 10
Did users rate personal and social resonance ≥ 7/10?
Right on it. Average score after 2nd User Testing: 7 out of 10
If I had more time...
Game onboarding tutorial
Initial personality quiz / questions
Better adhere to WCAG standards
kindnest was my first long-term design project!
My key takeaways:
Little things matter. Even small changes in layout, spacing, or copy can completely shift how users perceive and interact with a design. Attention to detail creates a smoother, more delightful experience.
Redoing and changing is good → use components next time! Iterating is part of the process, and every revision gets the design closer to the best version. Using components in future projects will make updates more efficient and keep everything consistent.
Good designer are good listeners. The best solutions come from truly hearing and understanding users’ needs, feedback, and pain points. Listening builds empathy, which directly shapes better, more user-focused designs.
Want to see more from me? :O
THE SOLUTION
A soft and playful mobile game aimed to help students act, reflect, and connect with kind deeds.
Timed Eggs!
24 hours to complete each egg
6 new eggs every day
Miss it = egg dies!
Collect Birds!
Unlock a bird for every mission
Each bird links to a type of kindness
Feed birds with your actions
Nest of Memories
Journal a note after every kind act
Notes are saved forever as memory
Build your own Nest of Memories!
Friends!
Share your mission with others
Friends can join your egg
Community page!
DEFINE
Three success metrics and themes for our design solution.
Clarity of Use
Did users rate ≥ 7/10 in terms of ease and intuitiveness?
Personal Connection
Did the user feel more pleasant after using our solution?
Social Connection
Did users feel a sense of real connection with other users while using our solution?
Keeping all of this in mind, we decided that our solution would be a mobile app solution - it is the most portable and easy solution for students that does not require as much friction in accessibility, as compared to other devices.
We design our solution with these three themes in mind, based on our interviews and user research:
Reflection
“Writing things down helps me appreciate myself more.”
A, 2nd year at GT
Gamification
“If there’s like a streak or points, I’d actually stay motivated.”
K, 1st year at GT
Community
“It would be nice to feel like I’m not doing this alone.”
L, 4th year at GT
IDEATE
Exploring key features to solve the problem of loneliness at Georgia Tech with reflection and gamification.
Our first step in the design stage! Guided by our research and interviews, we designed features that GT students said would help them feel more connected, motivated, and supported. These insights shaped our first step in feature ideation, aligning with our three themes of reflection, gamification, and community.
Feature 1: Collect birds by doing positive challenges
Feature 2: Memory garden of completed challenge reflections
Feature 3: Community page to share actions
TESTING + ITERATIONS
Less is more. Limit the collectibles.
Initially, action reflections are saved as flowers in a garden.
Feedback: Collecting both birds and flowers is confusing.
Solution
Eliminate flowers, keep birds only. Limit the scope!
Success Definition #1: Clarity of Use
Adding an element of surprise and scarcity.
Initially, show all challenges through Menu of Kindness.
Feedback: It looks daunting/boring/like a to-do list. Not motivating!
Solution
Mystery eggs, for an element of surprise to increase retention!
Adding limits:
Must wait for 2 hours for new eggs to regrow
Cannot crack a new egg when mission is in progress
Success Definition #2: Personal Connection
Emphasizing user-to-user interaction in the real world.
Originally a social media-like “broadcast feed”.
Feedback: It promotes more competition than real-life connection, which does not help with “feeling good”.
Solution
Group missions with friends through Join button
A simpler text-based UI
Success Definition #3: Social Connection
COLOR, TYPOGRAPHY, STYLE GUIDE
UI Goal: Playful, Friendly, Soothing.
While deciding on the style guide, we kept three adjectives in mind: we want our app to be playful, friendly, and soothing. So we handpicked a calming blue and yellow pastel color and playful sans-serif fonts.
I hand-drew all the illustrated elements in Photoshop, bringing my love for art into the UI. These playful, personal touches make the design feel warmer and more inviting for a younger audience as well. :)
HOW MIGHT WE...
maximize real human connection and minimize stress among Georgia Tech students?
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS + USER PERSONA
What’s Missing: connection, kindness, and reason to return.
To further put ourselves into our users’ shoes, we researched other mobile apps with similar goals and style, as well as created two user personas with different personalities based on our target user group.
Gaps of the competitors
No real world (physical) interaction with friends
Mainly self-help based
Repetitive tasks everyday
RESEARCH
Population Data: Is the problem really a problem?
Short answer: yes. In order to confirm the data found from the Reddit posts earlier, we did some secondary research by reading published articles targeting GT students. Here’s what we found:
😭
89.9%
GT students reported “Very Stressed” (national average: 52.9%)
2011 National College Health Assessment (NCHA)
😿
7/10
GT students reported emotional difficulties over the past 4 weeks
Georgia Tech’s Spring 2018 Mental Health & Well-being Population Data
Google Forms Survey
52 respondents, for GT undergrads, quantitative data gathering
User Interviews
4 in-depth 30-minute interviews with GT undergrads aged 18-22
After synthesizing primary and secondary research data, we gathered 3 key insights:
Remembering happy past moments is de-stressing.
Fun = motivation to try/start new personal actions.
Nowadays, social media foster competition, not connection.
PROBLEM
Georgia Tech students lack both social connection and emotional well being.
Is this normal?
100+ Reddit posts about stress and loneliness in r/gatech... for almost a decade. Most of these rant posts mention social aspects of loneliness, feeling like they do not belong, and a lack of true human connection within the Georgia Tech community.
We therefore set out to address: How might we maximize real human connection AND minimize stress among GT students?
OVERVIEW
kindnest, a cozy solution.
We designed this cozy mobile game in response to rising burnout and loneliness among Georgia Tech students. Our goal: maximize authentic human connection + minimize stress. By gamifying small moments of compassion - towards yourself and others - kindnest encourages emotional wellbeing in a fun, low-pressure way.
IN A RUSH?
Click to Final Product!
ROLE
UX/UI Designer
Graphic Illustrator
TEAM
2 Designers, Bootcamp Project
TOOLS
Figma
Figjam
Google Form
Adobe Photoshop
SKILLS
UX Research
UI Design
Wireframing
User Testing
Prototyping