This project explored building an innovative app ecosystem for a relevant user problem space. It also focused on allowing users to send and receive different types of data. My app, Adventurely, suggests quick, real-life adventures to users in order to replace the habit of scrolling as a “brain break.”

App Ecosystem: Adventurely

How Might We Combat Poor Media Habits?

Gathering insights from my own life, I found that my mood was the lowest during the day when I needed a brain break and chose to scroll on my phone. Upon talking to other classmates, they had this struggle as well, especially when searching for quick dopamine. This led to some research about excessive media usage.

Partners Universal Multidisciplinary Research Journal (PUMRJ):

“As per multiple studies in 2022, users registering over 4 hours of daily non-work media consumption demonstrate heightened markers of psychological stress and sleep disruption. This manifests in four primary symptoms: chronic anxiety, emotional exhaustion akin to burnout, insomnia often with next-morning “hangover” effects, and trauma symptoms resembling post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).”

App Proposal and Innovation

Proposal

Concept: Adventurely is an app that suggests fun adventures to the user and allows them to keep a scrapbook.
Problem Statement: When I need a break from work or feel like I need dopamine in general, I turn to scrolling on my phone. This always leaves me feeling drained and even more tired.
Goal: Get off of your phone and do something fun!

Innovation

Although there are plenty of apps that encourage less phone usage, Adventurely does it in a new way by helping users take healthy mental breaks and find dopamine in a source other than their phones.
Adventurely does this by suggesting adventures for the user based on different preferences. It also allows the user to reflect on their adventures and earn stickers as incentive.

Benchmarking

Junk Journaling Trend

Though it has been around for a while, “Junk Journaling” has become recently popularized by TikTok. It is essentially a scrapbook with pieces of “junk” collected from a certain day. Junk Journaling is a creative outlet that also serves as a diary/keepsake.

Joy in the Mundane, Creative Outlet

Finch Self Care App

Finch is a wellness and productivity app that provides incentive to the user through a virtual pet bird that you dress and take care of. As the user completes their goals to take care of themselves for the day, they unlock rewards and build a friendship with their pet.

“Dopamine Design,” Gamification/Incentive

User Stories and Task Flows

Complex Task Flow

Goal: Sign up, find an adventure through filters, go on the adventure, reflect

Simple Task Flow

Goal: Sign up, find an adventure through short quiz, go on the adventure

UX Journey and Ecosystem

The app uses two information architecture patterns: tabbed view and filtered view. The tabbed view allows users to navigate between sections using a bottom navigation bar available on every screen, with the Adventures section further divided into Active and Completed tabs. The Browse section uses a filtered view to help users refine results.

Information Architecture

Goal: Spend minimal yet sufficient time on the app

Paper Prototype Testing

Low/Mid Fidelity Prototypes

Mood Board

“Down-to-Earth Dopamine”

Style Guide

I created some outdoor illustrations in Procreate to use in places like splash screens and breather screens. This texture was also inputted into the header through the logo mark and app icon.