Major Project
Designing a solution to help gamers find balance in their social… [Read more]
Planbit - Intelligent social planner & online habit tracker
A social planner & habit tracker in an app aiming to help social gamers identify their own leisure time and friends predicted availability, using machine learning and nudge theory to empower users to bring balance to their lives and make the activity of gaming positive and guilt-free.
What it does?
Planbit is able to learn when you’re free through the linking of online accounts to detect when you’re online. Overtime, Planbit will create predicted personal schedules highlighting correlated time in which you and other friends are available.
Master your own time and social life through social goal setting and visual overviews of your online habits through Planbit. Using the Who, When, Where plan creator ensures a frictionless, no-nonsense approach to planning time with friends.
How does it work?
Planbit works with popular gaming and social platforms to help you master your time spent online. Using account activity data, Planbit learns your daily habits and is able to prompt you when friends happen to be available when you are.
The challenge
Computer games have become a popular form of entertainment among adolescents and adults. Studies have shown that the world is gaming a lot more than it did in previous years. The Office of National Statistics revealed that the highest share of time devoted to device use was when people were pursuing hobbies, computing, or playing games. This ranked above 'resting' which included the use of social media (chatting with friends).
Whilst the gaming industry thrives, a portion of its audience has seen negative changes in lifestyle due to a reliance on games. In particular, research revealed that although gaming can be positive, when there is lifestyle imbalance, gaming can, in fact, do more harm than good, often resulting in deterioration in physical and mental wellbeing.
I investigated the reliance on gaming as a social outlet amongst young adults with the aim of helping those effected find balance between the online and real world.
The Research
Due to COVID-19 , remote methods of research was conducted (not as aesthetic).
Research methods included:
Literature review,
Content analysis of forum boards,
Semi-structured Interviews,
Mapping of values and aspects of life,
Timelining,
Auto-ethnography,
Experience mapping.
Key Insights
Key insights were extracted from the synthesis of findings using various data analysis techniques such as empathy mapping, Affinity mapping & cognitive mapping.
Key insights include
Difficulties in planning time with friends - Amongst young people, social gaming is a result of
ineffective social groups. Crippled by the stresses of finding their way in life as well as embracing full-time work, attempts to organise time together were destined to fail as they failed to identify their own
free time as well as each other.
Interpreting time - Gaming met the social needs of young adult gamers and often supported their
social lives but to a lesser extent. It requires minimal effort in a world where they are seemingly time-poor. However, timelining revealed that they did, in fact, have the time. Gaming consumed their lives and
the hobby of gaming turned into an uncontrollable habit.
Dependence on friends - Social gamers are in fact very social. They depend on their friends when
contemplating socialising outside of the gaming ecosystem because they want to share experiences
with people they are familiar with, but, friends seeming lack of availability leads to failed attempts to
get together.
Kent Godfrey
A creative & curious user experience designer based in the UK. Grounded in user research, I aim to create meaningful experiences that resonate with people.
As a problem solver, I use research and design to combat complex issues at varying levels of scale. Working on projects with IBM, Post Office, Hubbub & Adobe, I have gained valuable experience applying my research and design skills to transform information into pragmatic and often progressive theoretical solutions.
Coming from a web development working background, I find great satisfaction in experimenting with emerging technologies to work for, not against the peoples best interests. In particular, I have a keen interest in how data can be used to enable people to make better decisions, whether it be personal or societal.
I am primarily looking for work in User Research, Experience Design and Usability & Accessibility job roles.
Major Project
Designing a solution to help gamers find balance in their social lives.
Awards
Hubbub - Design by nature 2020 - Shortlisted.
Hong Kong University, Business School - UXathon 2019 - Best Prototype