The idea for this project stemmed from a problem I'm eager to solve. Since being diagnosed with trichotillomania, I've struggled to successfully stop pulling my hair. I've tried several techniques suggested in books and online but only ever experience streaks of success before I'd start pulling again. Oftentimes I'd wonder, "Why can't I stop?" and "Will I ever stop?". There is no simple cure for trichotillomania, and finding effective methods to help me refrain from pulling continues to be a long, arduous journey.
Body-focused repetitive behavior (BFRB) such as hair pulling, nail biting, and skin picking affects 2% - 5% of the general population and is among one of the most poorly understood and untreated types of disorders. Few professionals have current information regarding treatment, and even with treatment, relapse is often common.¹
1. Golomb, Franklin, and Grant, Expert Consensus Treatment Guidelines, 4, 19.
Before jumping to conclusions about the problem I was trying to solve and what the solution could be, I needed to learn more about BFRB and the condition itself. With this in mind, I set off in my research mission online, a place I knew would contain an abundance of information.
I'm in no way a BFRB expert, so my goal was to first learn as much as I could about the condition. I found a lot of helpful information online from BFRB non-profits, medical studies, and academic talks.
At this point, it felt like I learned a lot about BFRB, but I didn't feel connected to people who actually have a BFRB. Talking to people with BFRB would've been ideal as this could potentially unlock insights into their needs and frustrations based on their experiences, but since they weren't easily accessible, I turned to places like Reddit, blogs, online articles, and YouTube videos to find personal stories instead.
Because the information online consists of what people have chosen to share, I still had a desire to connect with them on a deeper level. This led me to create user archetypes and an experience map to better understand the needs and struggles of people trying to overcome their BFRB.
Behaviors: Open to trying new things and excited to embark on this newly discovered journey
Goals: Wants to learn how to stop engaging in their BFRB
High-level needs: To be educated about their BFRB and receive guidance on how to stop
Behaviors: Tired of trying new things and feeling disappointed with their progress
Goals: Wants to stop engaging in their BFRB once and for all
High-level needs: To be educated about the recovery journey and motivated to not give up
Next, I created an experience map based on the two archetypes defined in order to visualize what someone goes through when living with BFRB. Laying out these details helped communicate how a product can potentially address their needs and pain points.
Statistics on how people realize what their high-risk situations or what their most effective techniques are is not widely available information, so my next mission was finding out whether any products currently exist to help meet those needs.
I discovered that there are a handful of BFRB related apps which help people track their urges and behavior patterns, so I downloaded two of the most popular ones, started using them, and read the limited reviews on the App Store in hopes to gain some insight into the user base.
Given the evidence for why people struggle to overcome BFRB and what helps them reduce engagement in the behavior, I now had a better idea for what problem I was going to try and solve. It was important to define the problem clearly and ensure it was a genuine problem for users as this would feed into any decision I make with my idea moving forward.
I didn't want to design a product or build features nobody was going to use or need, so in order to avoid this issue, I carefully reviewed my preliminary research to extract the strongest user needs and verified that they addressed the problem statement.
With the list of user needs outlined, I prioritized them based on consistency in my research findings and increasing level of user engagement with that need. Translating user needs to product features proved to be a smooth process as each feature needed to clearly link to a user need.
In order to design the product, I needed to define how it should work and how to build it. This process involved creating a task flow, sketching and iterating on wireframes, and implementing the user interface.
Referencing the product features, I identified what actions a user was going to take while using the app. This helped me get a picture of the screens I needed to build and how they connected to one another. It also helped identify the Account Setup process which I hadn't given much thought until this point.
The sketches were a combination of patterns I observed from other BFRB or habit tracking apps and new ideas I came up with. It got me thinking about user interactions and components and helped point out that I was trying to fit too much information into a single screen.
Quick add function: For users to quickly record urges for a pre-existing scenario.
Considerations: The question was: how do we ensure users will actually use this feature? That boiled down to two main things: 1) how can a user quickly find the scenario they're looking for, and 2) how do we ensure this feature contains the right information to accurately record an urge
Iterations: Provided option to give scenarios a name for readability, removed technique selection and made it part of the scenario, and added requirement for user to acknowledge whether they disengaged in the behavior or not.
Behavior patterns function: For users to understand their high-risk scenarios and which techniques are most effective given those scenarios.
Considerations: How to display card information so that it's easy to read and also scalable?
Iterations: Made the scenarios more distinct by adding sections and titles and moved additional information regarding that scenario to the back of the card.
With this being a mental health app, I wanted to invoke a feeling of calm yet bring about motivation when users are engaged with the app. This direction fed into the decision to use green as the primary color and employ various illustrations and words of encouragement throughout the app.
It's one thing to be able to measure whether users can complete a task and another to evaluate whether the app truly helps users reduce engagement with their BFRB. Given the constraints of the app being conceptual, that sort of evaluation couldn't be easily determined. As a result, my testing focused on whether users understood how to interpret the data presented to them and whether they found it helpful.
