06 / UI/UX Case Study
Participatory Design · University
Role
UI/UX Designer
Timeline
4 months · 2023
Method
Participatory Design
Tools
Figma · Miro · Photoshop
Future workshop
Qualitative survey responses
Design process steps
(Overview)
How do you make household chores feel less like a burden and more like a win? Our team set out to provide solutions for the everyday challenge of organizing and overseeing household tasks.
We used a Participatory Design methodology — actively engaging end-users at every stage through an online survey, a Future Workshop, co-design sessions, and feedback on design sketches.
(Design Process)
01
Explore
Meet users and immerse in daily routines to uncover needs, habits, and pain points.
Observation
Survey
Interviews
02
Discover
Collaborate with users to analyze practices, define shared goals, and plan possibilities.
Future Workshop
Sketch Feedback
03
Analyse
Review and synthesize the insights, revealing the themes that shape the direction.
Thematic Analysis
04
Prototype
Iteratively create and refine, testing solutions from concept to reality.
Advanced Prototype
(01 · Exploration)
We started with a survey — an efficient way to gather a broad spectrum of opinions. Our questionnaire had 17 qualitative, open-ended questions and received 16 responses.
“I hate doing it, and it feels never-ending.”
“I might reward myself with a movie or an extra episode of a show.”
“Maybe something that would change my way of thinking about doing them.”
(02 · Discovery)
The Future Workshop is a Participatory Design method for envisioning a future — across critique, fantasy, and implementation phases. We ran ours remotely on Discord using Miro, with five facilitators and five participants over 2.5 hours.
We then moved into sketching sessions, each pairing a facilitator with a participant. These surfaced key directions early: digital rewards to boost motivation, a shared family view, and optional automated planning to make chores feel less overwhelming.
A sketch made by me and one user — it ended up being the one users liked most.
(03 · Analysis)
We examined the survey and workshop data with thematic analysis — grouping similar ideas to spot patterns, like sorting a box of LEGO by color to see the bigger picture.
01
Lack of time
Chores are time-consuming and hard to fit around work, family, and other commitments.
02
Equipment matters
Tasks get harder without the right tools — dishwashers, washing machines, robot vacuums.
03
Structure & planning
62.5% rated their planning methods as middle or lower — a clear opportunity for help.
04
Distractions
75% said social media, TV, or phone use derailed their ability to finish chores.
05
Low motivation
“There are more fun things to do” — chores give less dopamine than the alternatives.
(Key Insights)
Rewards
Users needed rewards to stay motivated — without them, chores kept getting neglected.
Structure
Better planning keeps tasks from spilling into daily life and causing stress.
Competition
Seeing how others perform was a real source of motivation to keep going.
Motivation
Without clear goals or small incentives, it was easy to delay or avoid tasks.
(04 · Prototyping)
Wireframes focused on motivation and planning — subtasks to make big chores manageable, weekly and monthly schedule views, and tangible rewards with points and progress bars.
For the high-fidelity prototype we defined a graphic profile to reflect positive emotion: light blue for calm, balanced with black and dark gray, rounded friendly buttons, and Nunito Sans for clean readability. The interactive prototype let users add and complete tasks, move between lists, rewards, and a scoreboard, and create custom rewards.
(What I Learned)
This project sharpened my ability to dig past surface comments, spot patterns in behavior, and turn insights into design choices that motivate action. I grew more confident facilitating workshops and guiding discussions so every voice is heard, while keeping the team focused on outcomes — translating complex, human challenges into clear, engaging solutions.
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