ChorePal

ChorePal is an app that helps families manage chores together. Parents can assign tasks to their children, who earn points when they complete them. The app features customizable chores, a rewards system, and progress tracking, making chores fun and engaging. By encouraging teamwork and communication, ChorePal aims to help families work together to teach responsibility and keep the household running smoothly.

Year - June 2024 - August 2024

Tools - Figma

The Goal

Problem Statement

User Group

The goal of ChorePal is to create an effective platform for chore management that promotes responsibility among children. This solution aims to engage families through an interactive experience, collaboration and accountability in completing household tasks. By prioritizing intuitive design and user-friendly features, ChorePal encourages open communication between parents and children, making chore completion a fun and rewarding experience for everyone involved.

Many families struggle with assigning and managing household chores, leading to frustration and a lack of accountability among children. Parents often find it challenging to teach responsibility and organizational skills, while children may feel disengaged or unmotivated to complete tasks. ChorePal aims to address these issues by providing an engaging platform where parents can easily assign chores, track completion, and reward children with points, ultimately fostering a sense of responsibility, teamwork, and accomplishment within the family.

The primary user group for ChorePal includes parents who seek an effective way to assign and manage household chores while teaching their children responsibility and organization. The secondary group consists of children aged 6-16, who need an engaging platform to complete tasks and earn rewards. Additionally, caregivers like grandparents or nannies may use the app to help maintain routines. Understanding these user groups will guide the app's design to meet their varied needs, ensuring an enjoyable and effective chore management experience for families.

User Reseach

For the ChorePal project, I conducted a mix of interviews, personas, and focus groups to understand the needs and challenges of families regarding chore management. Initially, I assumed that parents primarily struggled with accountability and that children would be resistant to chores. However, research revealed that while parents might need better accountability tools, many children were eager for a fun and rewarding system to engage with chores. This shift in understanding highlighted the importance of gamification and collaboration in the app’s design, leading me to create features that builds teamwork and motivation for all family members.

Pain Points

Here are four pain points that families may experience with chore management:

Lack of Accountability: Parents often struggle to ensure that chores are completed on time, leading to frustration and inconsistent household management.
Engagement and Motivation: Children may feel uninterested or resistant to completing chores, viewing them as tedious tasks rather than opportunities for learning responsibility and earning rewards.
Communication Challenges: Miscommunication between parents and children about expectations, deadlines, and task assignments can create confusion and conflict within the household.
Uneven Distribution of Chores: Families may experience disagreements over how chores are assigned, leading to feelings of unfairness or resentment among siblings, which can affect family dynamics.

Personas

User Journey Map

Stage Actions Thoughts/Feelings Pain Points Opportunities

Key Insights of Interview with Mom of Three (Jennifer)

Jennifer is a 36-year-old nurse and mother of three children ages 12, 9 and 5

Current chore management

Challenges

Jennifer uses a whiteboard in the kitchen to assign chores, but it often becomes cluttered and is sometimes ignored by the kids.
She mentioned that her children frequently forget their tasks, leading to frustration and the need for constant reminders.

Balancing work and family life is tough. She often feels overwhelmed managing different chore schedules alongside the kids' school and activities.
Arguments sometimes arise between the kids about who has to do which chores, adding extra stress to her day.

Motivation

Desired Features:

She believes her kids would be more engaged if chores were gamified. Jennifer recalled a sticker chart they used before, which excited the kids and made them more enthusiastic about completing tasks.
Rewards are essential for her children; she said, “They love earning privileges, like extra screen time or a special treat.”

Jennifer expressed a strong interest in a digital solution that makes it easy to assign and track chores.
She would appreciate notifications to remind her children of their tasks, as well as a feature that allows them to check off completed chores themselves.

Feedback

Overall Impression

She emphasized the need for a system that allows for quick feedback or encouragement. “Positive reinforcement is crucial for them,” she noted.

While Jennifer is open to trying new apps, she worries about the time it might take to set up. She wants a solution that is user-friendly and requires minimal maintenance.

Jennifer's insights indicate a strong need for an engaging and easy-to-use chore management solution. Features such as gamification, reminders, and an intuitive interface would likely appeal to her and other busy parents, helping them manage household responsibilities effectively while keeping their children motivated.

Conclusion

Starting the design

Paper Wireframe

Digital Wireframe

Low Fidelity Mockup

Usability study and feedback results

Onboarding Process: One participant thought the initial sign-up process would be slightly tedious. They expressed interest in having social login options (Google, Facebook) to speed up account creation.
Hard to find settings: One participant suggested having a clearer settings option to allow for more details and personalization.
Game rewards: One participant liked the idea of children earning rewards but suggested having other digital options such as online games similar to “Game Pigeon” on top of the rewards parents can add.
Playful Color Palette: One participant suggested a more vibrant and child-friendly color scheme. They felt a brighter, more playful palette would make the app feel more engaging and fun for both children and parents.

1) Onboarding Process

Quick and Easy Access: Busy parents can get started with a single click, making it faster and more convenient than creating a new account.
Better First Impressions: Reducing signup steps helps retain users right from the start, especially those who might otherwise drop off due to a lengthy process.
Accuracy and Security: Google signup pulls verified info, like names and emails, directly from users’ accounts, reducing typos and increasing security—something parents especially appreciate.
Boosts Trust: People feel more comfortable signing up through trusted platforms like Google, helping ChorePal feel secure and reliable.

Adding Google signup to the ChorePal onboarding process has several practical benefits:

2) Improved navigation bar

Improving the navigation bar to be aesthetic, simple, and include a settings option brings several key benefits:

Better User Experience: A clean, attractive navigation bar makes the app more enjoyable and intuitive for users, especially when it’s easy to understand at a glance.
Streamlined Access to Settings: Including settings directly in the nav bar means users can quickly find options to adjust their preferences, view profiles, or manage account info, adding convenience.
Reduces Clutter: A simple design reduces distractions, making it easier for both kids and parents to find the main features they need without feeling overwhelmed.

3) Online game rewards

Adding digital game rewards, alongside custom rewards like an ice cream outing, brings several advantages to ChorePal:

Flexible Motivation Options: Giving parents the choice to set personalized rewards or allow digital games like tic-tac-toe means they can tailor motivation based on their child’s preferences. This flexibility helps keep kids more engaged and excited about completing tasks, which increases overall task completion.
Instant Gratification with Digital Games: Digital game rewards offer an instant reward that kids can enjoy immediately after completing a chore. This quick feedback reinforces good habits and gives children a sense of immediate achievement, which is especially effective for younger users.
Custom Rewards for Family Connection: Allowing parents to create rewards like family outings or treats adds a personal touch and can strengthen family bonds. It enables parents to choose rewards that align with their values and family dynamics, while still encouraging kids to participate in household responsibilities.

4) Change in color pallet

Switching ChorePal’s color palette from purple to orange and pink has enhanced its appeal and usability, especially for younger users.

Increased Energy and Excitement: Orange and pink are warm, lively colors that evoke enthusiasm, action, and positivity. While purple often conveys luxury or calmness, orange and pink create an approachable, playful feel that aligns well with the app's purpose of motivating kids to complete tasks. This new palette makes ChorePal feel energetic and inviting, which is ideal for a rewards-based app.
Familiarity and Engagement: Platforms like TikTok and Instagram use high-saturation colors like pinks, oranges, and purples to engage younger audiences. By adopting a similar color scheme, ChorePal builds familiarity, making the app feel more intuitive and enjoyable, similar to the social media apps kids already use and love.

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Research in color psychology suggests that orange stimulates energy and warmth, while pink evokes fun and playfulness. These colors create a dynamic and inviting atmosphere, crucial for holding children’s interest and motivating them to participate actively in chores.

Overall, replacing purple with orange and pink has made ChorePal more vibrant, appealing, and motivating for its target audience, helping children feel excited about using the app and giving parents a tool they feel good about sharing.

Choice of colors

Using a color palette inspired by popular social platforms like TikTok and Instagram enhances ChorePal’s appeal to younger audiences, creating a sense of familiarity and excitement that encourages regular use. Social media platforms often utilize vibrant, high-saturation colors like pinks and oranges, which are associated with fun, energy, and engagement—qualities that resonate well with kids and teens. By integrating these colors, ChorePal’s design feels trendy and approachable, making chores feel less like tasks and more like something enjoyable. This design approach not only draws kids in but also aligns ChorePal with visual trends they see daily, giving the app a current, "cool" feel that younger users can relate to. Additionally, these colors help the app stand out visually in a crowded app market, making it more recognizable and appealing to both parents and children.

Final High Fidelity Mockup

Inclusivity and accessibility considerations

1. Inclusive Language: I’ve chosen to use the term “adult” instead of “parent” throughout the app. This ensures that all types of caregivers, whether they're guardians, older siblings, or other family members, feel included when managing tasks and rewards.

2. Customizable profile pictures: I’ve made it a priority to include customizable profile pictures that way, every child can feel represented and see themselves reflected within the app.

3. Simplified Language: I use clear, simple language throughout the app to make it accessible for younger users or those who may have reading difficulties. This helps ensure everyone can use the app, regardless of age or literacy level.

4. Multi-Language Support: I plan to offer multi-language support so families who speak languages other than English can fully engage with the app.

5. Notification Customization: I understand that everyone has different preferences, so I’ve included options for customizing notifications. This allows users to decide how often they want reminders, ensuring the app fits into different lifestyles.

Takeaways

Impact

my design has received encouraging feedback from peers and study participants. One participant shared, "The app's layout is simple and easy to use, and I can see it being a great tool for families." This early feedback shows promise for the app's potential to streamline family management and engage users of all ages.

What I learned

Creating the ChorePal app mockup has been a great learning experience, allowing me to deepen my understanding of user-centered design, family dynamics, and reward systems for younger audiences. Here are some of the main takeaways:

Designing for Families: I learned how essential it is to understand the needs of both parents and children in designing a task management app for families. Parents want an easy way to assign and track tasks, while kids respond better to interfaces that are engaging and reward-focused. Balancing these different user needs was a valuable challenge that taught me to consider a range of perspectives in the design process.
Motivation Through Rewards: One of the biggest takeaways from this project was understanding how reward systems can motivate younger users. This experience taught me that designing engaging incentive structures is crucial to keeping users motivated and invested.
Simplicity in Navigation: Given that the app is aimed at both adults and children, keeping the navigation straightforward was key. I learned that simple, clearly labeled buttons and intuitive flow are vital, especially when catering to young users who may have limited reading skills. This experience has reinforced the importance of clarity and ease of use in UI design.
Playfulness Without Compromising Professionalism: Striking the right balance between playful and professional was an interesting challenge. I wanted ChorePal to feel fun and engaging for kids but still maintain a polished, trustworthy look for parents. I learned how to use colors, fonts, and icons to create a friendly yet reliable design that appeals to both audiences.
User Feedback and Iteration: Even at the mockup stage, gathering feedback from potential users provided insights that helped refine the app’s design. I discovered that testing with real users and making small adjustments—like adding visual cues for task progress or enhancing reward visuals—can make a big difference in the overall experience.
Inclusivity in Family-Oriented Apps: This project taught me to be mindful of family dynamics and to consider features that are flexible enough to cater to different family structures. For example, I thought about how features like task assignment and reward tracking could be personalized to accommodate various parenting styles and children’s ages.

Creating ChorePal has shown me how powerful thoughtful design can be in making family routines smoother and more enjoyable. This project has given me new insights into balancing user needs, designing for motivation, and ensuring usability for all ages, skills that I’ll carry forward into future projects.