WAYR
Motivating Users to Maintain Correct Posture
Project Overview
- Project Title: INPosture
Role: User Researcher, Visual Designer
Timeline: 3 months (Academic Project)
Team: A team of 4 HCI students
The Challenge
Poor body posture is a prevalent issue that often leads to long-term physical and mental health complications. It's an insidious problem rooted in a lack of awareness and motivation, particularly among working professionals and students who spend long hours in front of computers. Users neglect their posture because they fail to understand the long-term implications and don't know what concrete actions to take for improvement. Our team set out to answer the core question:
How might we motivate the users to maintain and make them aware of the correct posture to prevent them from long-term health implications?
My Contribution & Impact
As a key contributor to the team, I was deeply involved in the research and visual design phases of the project, driving the solution from initial discovery to final prototype.
Key Contributions
- Research Foundation: Established the foundational understanding of the problem by performing a literature survey of 10 research papers and articles on posture.
- Primary Research: Designed interview questionnaires, conducted 2 in-depth user interviews, and performed 2 field observations in Indianapolis to understand real-world posture habits.
- Concept Ideation: Instrumental in brainstorming and developing the core concept, including the original idea for the floating UI element.
- Visual Design: Took the lead on visual design, creating the high-fidelity screens and a comprehensive design system.
- Evaluation: Planned and conducted usability testing and assisted with the heuristic evaluation with an expert.
My work ensured the final solution was both scientifically grounded in research and visually intuitive for the end-user.
Discovering the Problem through Research
Key Research Methods
- Literature Survey: To understand the severity, root cause, and long-term health issues associated with poor posture.
- Stakeholder Interviews (8 total): To gain qualitative insights from potential users, including a person with back issues and a work-from-home aerial artist.
- Field Observations (2 conducted by me): To observe how people maintain posture in different environments when they are not aware of being watched.
- Competitive Analysis: To understand existing solutions (wearable devices, apps, furniture) and identify market gaps.
Key Findings
Our research identified three primary root causes of poor posture among our target users (working professionals and students):
- Lack of Awareness: Users lose track of their posture during long sitting hours and often don't know their current posture is incorrect.
- Information Overload: When users are aware of the problem, they are overwhelmed by the vast and often conflicting information on the internet about how to correct their posture.
- Lack of Motivation & Neglect: Users fail to prioritize posture improvement or take regular breaks, often leading to a sedentary lifestyle.
Designing the Solution: INPOSTURE
Key Design Decisions:
The most critical design decision was the concept of a floating, custom UI element. This was a direct response to our finding that users felt tracked or annoyed by intrusive, full-window applications. This subtle, draggable UI element ensures users are:
Not Blocked: It doesn't interfere with their daily work.
Informed Subtly: It alerts them to incorrect posture and gives a grace period before becoming more intrusive (e.g., 10 minutes to self-correct before the element grows).
Solution Highlights:
- AI-Powered Posture Detection: Uses the camera to detect and track the user's current posture.
- Non-Intrusive UI Element: A small, floating element that subtly changes state to alert users and gives a 10-minute window to correct their posture before expanding.
- Privacy Toggle: A user-controlled switch to turn tracking off, ensuring they feel in control of their environment.
- Personalized Analytics: Weekly reports on correct vs. incorrect posture time to track progress and motivate improvement.
- Break & Stretch Reminders: Timely pop-ups with personalized recommendations for breaks and small stretches.
Validation & Refinement
Key Feedback & Iterations:
We implemented these changes, resulting in a cleaner, more robust onboarding experience and a smoother daily user interaction.
What Worked
What Didn't Work
Iteration
UI Element: Users loved the floating, non-intrusive, draggable UI element for reminders.
Onboarding: Initial onboarding lacked proper instructions, making it difficult for users to understand the AI/AR functionality.
Added a more robust, step-by-step tutorial during the onboarding process.
Privacy Toggle: Users appreciated being in control of when the app was tracking their posture.
Visibility Issue: The reminder pop-up window appeared on top of the screen, obscuring visibility of the user's face while capturing posture data.
Redesigned the pop-up placement and ensured it did not interfere with the camera feed or key on-screen elements.
The Final Prototype
Impact & Reflection
Learnings:
- Effective Communication is Paramount: I learned the importance of clear and transparent communication to align working styles and ensure every team member is on the same page.
- The Value of Iteration: This project reinforced that achieving a truly satisfactory design requires numerous iterations. It's normal to go through countless cycles of design and testing to reach a desired, refined outcome.
- Simplicity as a Solution: The core idea of the non-intrusive floating UI element proved that often, the best solution is one that fits seamlessly into the user's existing workflow without creating friction or distraction.
This was a fulfilling collaborative effort that led to a solution that could truly improve the long-term health and awareness of working professionals and students.
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