HALT Concept App
UX/UI Designer, Visual Designer, Researcher
problem
The American Journal of Epidemiology published a study of 5,000 people, finding that higher social media use correlates with self-reported declines in mental and physical health, and life satisfaction. The work and warnings of Tristan Harris, Jonathan Haidt, Jaron Lanier, and others, along with the popularity of "The Social Dilemma" documentary, have brought attention to the issues surrounding the attention economy. Users know that their phone behaviors are detrimental but find it difficult to change them.
Research by Adam Gazzaley, Founding Director of the Neuroscience Imaging Center, shows that the problem extends beyond addictive apps to specific behaviors like self-interrupting and sub-optimal foraging. These detrimental activities can be countered by single-tasking and sustained attention on a single activity.
Research by Adam Gazzaley, Founding Director of the Neuroscience Imaging Center, shows that the problem extends beyond addictive apps to specific behaviors like self-interrupting and sub-optimal foraging. These detrimental activities can be countered by single-tasking and sustained attention on a single activity.
“If you're an app, how do you keep people hooked? Turn yourself into a slot machine.”
idea
Halt is a concept app designed to monitor addictive smartphone behavior, such as endlessly doomscrolling on Twitter, and interrupt users with prompts to engage in more beneficial digital and real-life activities. The app's tone is aggressive, aimed at individuals who recognize their problematic phone use but lack the willpower to change. It offers various customizations, including setting monitored apps, interruption frequency, recommended activity types, and tracking usage statistics/streaks.
Competitive Analysis
The landscape is crowded with apps and software addressing smartphone addiction, featuring:
- Blocking distracting apps, websites, or locking the entire phone
- Usage tracking and statistics
- Setting time limits and notifications when limits are exceeded
One app, Forest, offers gamification by planting a 30-minute digital tree, which dies if the user opens their phone before it matures.
Opportunity: Current solutions lack alternate tasks or solutions to problematic behavior. Halt could be monetized by partnering with third parties to integrate their content, such as meditation or exercise apps, educational publications, or short video lectures.
Opportunity: Current solutions lack alternate tasks or solutions to problematic behavior. Halt could be monetized by partnering with third parties to integrate their content, such as meditation or exercise apps, educational publications, or short video lectures.
User Interviews
Four user interviews were conducted with individuals who self-identified as having an addiction to their phones or exhibited behaviors they wished to reduce, meeting the sole criteria for using the app.
Key Findings:
Key Findings:
- Increased Usage: Phone usage increased during COVID and remote work.
- Top Culprits: Endlessly scrolling Instagram and Facebook.
- Other Undesirable Activities: Mainstream news rabbit holes, monitoring stocks, YouTube, and mobile games.
- Business Distraction: Two users used social media for business but still felt distracted by unrelated content.
- Context of Use: Users engaged in these activities while watching children, at home with spouses, or during work meetings.
- App Interest: All users found the app concept appealing and expressed interest in using it.
- Privacy Concern: One user had concerns about privacy.
“Virtually impossible to do any other activity without your phone in your hand.”
“Absolutely addicted. I saw The Social Dilemma and it really got to me.”
Activities Users Would Prefer Over Social Media:
- Fixing up the house/chores
- Tasklist/progress on projects
- Meaningful engagement with family and friends
- Focusing on their actual job
- Reading a physical book
- Go for a walk outside
- More selective/beneficial YouTube watching or online article reading vs pop culture
- Looking at art
- Engaging in real-life activities
Based on this feedback, I implemented a custom task to-do list along with app-suggested alternate activities.
SME Interview
An interview with a personal trainer/coach provided insights into the app's tone and techniques. Key feedback included:
SME Interview
An interview with a personal trainer/coach provided insights into the app's tone and techniques. Key feedback included:
- Coach Style: Ability to choose between positive/encouraging or drill sergeant/aggressive styles.
- Informal Tone: The proposed informal, “sassy” tone was acceptable as long as the level of shaming could be adjusted.
- Weekly Check-In: Implement a weekly check-in for users to monitor progress on the dashboard.
Design and prototype Testing
The three main parts of the app that needed to be designed and tested included installation and onboarding, the dashboard and settings, and the actual interruption with alternate task recommendations. Thanks to Figma's rapid high-fidelity mockup capabilities, traditional sketches, and wireframes were skipped for a digital sandbox approach. Various aesthetic ideas, color schemes, and layouts were experimented with and presented in group crit environments.
The final design combined a glitch/static background with clean and bright module overlays to represent detrimental and positive user behaviors
An interactive prototype was created and tested with five users, who were observed and interviewed over two sessions while being tasked with:
- Registering the app
- Exploring the Dashboard and settings
- Experiencing an interruption while using Twitter
- Choosing alternate activities
For the first phase of testing, the app starts with a glitch animation of the logo, followed by the registration screen (or login), requiring a confirmation code, and finally a three-screen onboarding introduction. Users had no trouble with this standard process, and only minor aesthetic iterations were made to the registration process.
The onboarding screens underwent a lengthy iterative design process before arriving at the final version. The original concept involved a more complex setup process where users could customize settings before reaching the dashboard (see abandoned task flow below). After additional research on onboarding best practices and feedback from a group crit session, the process was simplified to allow the app to start with default settings, letting users reach the dashboard more quickly. This decision was validated during testing, as most users were eager to quickly get through the onboarding screens to explore the app functionality on their own time.
Final detail registration and onboarding screens:
“We've all been enrolled in a psychological experiment for which no one gave consent”
The second phase of prototype testing tasked users with exploring the dashboard and understanding its functionality. They were asked to:
- Add a new to-do list item to the custom task list
- Change the coaching style based on their personal preferences
- View the stats page
- Pause and resume Halt monitoring services
Despite task success, users were confused about each section's purpose. Once explained, they understood, but iterations were necessary.
The Dashboard underwent a complete overhaul:
- Replaced irreverent wordplay with standard labels for clarity.
- Standardized icons across all sections.
- Modified the Pause and Resume function to open a more robust feature set.
Additional animation tweaks were made to better represent real-world behavior within the limits of Figma prototyping tools.
Final detailed To-Do List, Pause, and Settings screens, along with a concept Stats screen:
“The difference between getting 10 likes and 20 likes, it’s all just meaningless.”
The third phase of prototype testing had users experience the app in action. After browsing Twitter, Halt would interrupt their session by forcibly glitching out the screen—a development challenge that could be addressed by taking a static screenshot and applying the effect. Users were asked to
- Attempt to close out the notification
- Try all three activities
- Check off a to-do list item
- Change activity settings from the main notification page and detail page
This phase posed no challenges for users, and iterations were minor. The "More Like This" and "Less Like This" options on the To-Do List settings were removed, as one user correctly pointed out that they would always want their custom to-do lists available until completed.
A final round of testing confirmed the app’s usability. The user successfully understood all functions without assistance and completed all tasks without error.
Final detailed Interruption, Close modal, and Activity Screens:
Final detailed Interruption, Close modal, and Activity Screens:
“Human beings evolved to gossip, preen, manipulate, and ostracize. We are easily lured into this new gladiatorial circus.”
final prototype
This is the final interactive prototype, hover mouse to begin (recommended for desktop only), or launch in a new window.
