Buddi
Buddi is a product-service system that encourages students to exercise and collaborate during lockdown through visual feedback and friendly competition.
What is buddi?
Buddi is a digital-service system that encourages students to exercise and collaborate during lockdown. Using the app, users can set up a team and choose a goal they want to work towards. The app will track and record your runs that will contribute to the team’s combined goal.
This progress can also be viewed on the physical product which is a small device that can be attached to the back of a phone or laptop that notifies the user when a team member has completed a run, as well as subtly showing the teams progress in the form of an LED progress bar.
THE PROCESS
the problem
Throughout COVID, I noticed a recurring theme of students not being motivated to exercise, whether that be down to the lack of a schedule, or because nothing is open. An opportunity arose to increase the social interaction of students whilst exercising in order to increase motivation. There were four points I wanted to focus on motivate/encourage, connect and inform.
Previous
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Interviews
Interviews saw that the main form of motivation throughout not only COVID, but also in general, is competition. People love competing, whether that be friendly, or collaborative competition, it was clear that users like working towards something with, or against, others. However, not only competition, but also working towards a collaborative goal encourage people to get out, and also socialise.
"There is nothing fun about exercising alone, however with no end date to this COVID crisis, it looked as if I’ll have to find a way to make it so.”
Nika den Ouden
Designer
The direction
Based on the initial research and interviews, a direction started to emerge that would be explored further in this project. It was to encourage students to exercise outdoors during COVID and safely improving the interactions between them again. Below is a poster explaining the scenario and design goal.
ideation
Once the direction was defined, ideation took place. This took the form of sketching and evaluation methods such as speed dates and user tests were carried out from the 6 best, favoured ideas.
It was clear that a service was preferable to a physical product, however having some form of physical indication for times or distance was also liked by users.
prototyping
A number of wireframes were created based on the concept that was chosen as a favourite by users. This was iterated, tested and prototyped again. A selection of wireframes can be seen below.
missing some physical touch...
Based on the feedback of users throughout testing and prototyping, people were clear that they would want a physical aspect to act as an indication of their, or their team’s progress.
As a result, I explored a number of forms, and 3D printed a select few to test with users to get a sense of form and scale in use. These ranged from ring lights, to phone extensions to something to hold whilst exercising.
A small product that can be portable and used alongside a phone or laptop was chosen and lights would be used to indicate progress.
functionality
Using Arduino, I was able to work on the functionality of the product. How it would work, how the user would interact with it and what would happen when they did. Using an LED strip and a 3D printed scale model, I could programme the 4 main features:
- Team progress
- Competition progress
- Competition (time)
- Notifcation
The final concept
The final concept is a digital-service system that encourages students to exercise and collaborate during lockdown. Using the digital product, users can set up a team and choose a goal they want to work towards. The app is used to track and record runs that will contribute to the team’s combined goal. Competition against other teams with similar goals can also be done.
This progress can also be viewed on the physical product which is a small device that can be attached to the back of a phone or laptop that notifies the user when a team member has completed a run, as well as subtly showing the teams progress in the form of an LED progress bar.
Feel free to have a play with the interactive prototype here: https://marvelapp.com/prototype/fia6i97