Note: if you only look at pictures (like I do), go to the bottom of the page for the designs. Who reads nowadays, right?!
Housey
The household management app. A concept I’ve made by myself, to challenge myself and see if I can come up with a solid idea that could work in real life. In some way it's a new version of what I've made earlier with a household concept. This older version is at the bottom of the page.
Platforms
A mobile app (which could be adjusted to a tablet app).
Project date
2021
Role
Concepting, UX Designer, UI Designer, household philosopher and animal whisperer. (not for hire)
Challenge
The challenge was to align all household tasks, manage it and make households great again. Seeing how everything goes within households was challenging, as I talked with multiple households in my environment to see what they run into and how they solve issues that arise.
Tools
Pen, paper and Figma for the first time. Yes, I was a Sketch lover, since 2014...
Concept
An app for households.
Details
All-in-one app for household management and communication to align with the members of the household, in an overview to keep track of all tasks and meals.
Customer needs
Most households’ communication goes by messenger chats (apps), calls, real life or post-its for example, but is divided over multiple media and not easy to track or get a grip on. For multiperson households it’s tough to align all tasks with different schedules.
Issues
- What if people don’t update their tasks?
- How could the app be a part of households?
- What if the household will get into a routine and people do it automatically and forget about the app or don’t use it anymore at all?
Future
Walkthrough: walkthrough when first time on homescreen, so user has a simple explanation for all items.
Sync: synchronize agendas and alarm settings, so user don’t have to do the work of being transparent twice.
Gamification: earn points by completing tasks and receive rewards in exchange for points, e.g. a free meal of choice made/paid by others.
Devices: tablet interface and smart home connected, so there could be a tablet mounted in the house to control the house. Like lights, heating systems, sound, tasks and everything in one place!
Name ideas
Homesey, Homerly, Homely, Housey
User scenario
Background
Who are the users?
Family members: parents, children, partners, roommates, friends. People who live together.
Motivation
What goals do they want to achieve?
- Align the household.
- Divide chores, efforts and responsibilities.
- Get household tasks done.
- A happy, clean and peaceful home.
Tasks
What must they do to reach those goals?
- Do chores/tasks in the household.
- Communicate with others to overcome hurdles and complete chores/tasks.
- Please others by doing their chores, out of frustration.
Context of use - How will they encounter the design?
Environment
Where will they (try to) use it?
- At home
- At work
- During travel
- Everywhere is possible (except when driving, please be careful!)
Challenges
When they try to use it, what can get in their way?
- Communication via messengers/calls about the household.
- Not updating tasks in the app.
- Not cooperating by ignoring tasks or not taking their responsibility.
User
Jake, 58 years old, married to his wife and dad of 2. Jake works as a sales manager and lives together in their house with his family and their dog.
Goal
Jake wants the household to be organized and spare his wife this way. He wants to involve his children in the household and get all the tasks done, by splitting tasks and responsibilities.
When performing tasks?
Before, during and after the household tasks: whenever they want to communicate by updating the app.
Where performing tasks?
At home or remote, e.g. at the store, at work, while traveling/commuting.
Why performing tasks?
To align the household, spare the mother of the family and take their responsibility in creating a peaceful and happy household.
Scenario
Jake lives together with his wife, his 2 teenage kids and dog in a big house with a garden and garage. To keep everything in and around the house clean and get things done, all the family members need to communicate a lot. However, with 2 teenage kids and a busy working life for the adults, it’s difficult to do everything.
Jake wants his children to be a part of keeping up with the household, so he and his wife won’t have to do everything. He has tried post-its on the fridge, written notes about tasks, notifications or meals on the kitchen counter, a whiteboard on the fridge and even a chat group with the members of his household. None of these worked well for more than 2 weeks, due to being overlooked, lost and not updated and thus the communication getting lost. The chat group was polluted with messages and important items were overlooked. Jake is tired that he and his wife are mostly responsible for the household, next to their fulltime jobs and social life.
The household (yes, even the kids) wants to organise everything in one digital place, that they can take with them wherever they go. This way they can keep track of everything, update it and let others know when there’s a problem. Digital scrum boards were tried, but were not ideal as the process of a task took to long and it was too complicated.
But then Jake discovered and tried a new household app. He can create his own household environment, add household members, meals and tasks, assign them to members and keep track of everything. Communication about a certain task or meal is done by commenting and tagging people, making them get a notification so hurdles can be fixed. Everybody knows what’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner, because it’s all set up in the app. They can adjust the number of people who join for a meal when suddenly, there are guests. The chef, the one who makes the meal, gets a notification about the people who join for a meal so the chef could adjust the amount of ingredients and scale things up, or down if people cancel for the meal. It’s shown when the dog was fed and everybody knows when there’s an issue with the dog, because they can read the notes and see the veterinarian’s appointments. All members take their responsibility, do their best and the household is organized while they have fun keeping everything on track!
Design Principles
To guide the concept and project, I’ve translated the needs of the users into design principles. These principles stand for the core of the concept and help the product to fulfill the needs.
V1
Communication about the household (is low key).
All in one place (universal).
Transparency: schedules and tasks/what’s going on.
Control: people are in control by responsibilities.
V2
Communication is low key
All together All in one universal place and do it all together.
Be transparent Your schedule, your tasks.
Take control Be in control of your part/responsibilities
Do it together Manage it by assigning/owning it.
Final
Communication is low key Your schedule, your tasks, transparent.
All together All in one universal place and do it all together
Take control Be in control of your responsibilities.
Do it together Manage it by owning it.
What the... Are you still reading this?!
Process
Every project has problems that need to be solved. I’ve thought out all the possible problems and stated the important ones next to the possible solutions that this concept has to offer to (tries it best to) solve it.
Problem
Communication about the household will pollute messenger chats because the chat contains (a lot of) the household chores/info.
Solution
One place for everything related to the household.
Problem
Communication about the household will become a hurdle because it provokes arguments/discussions via messenger chats and in real life, especially when something isn’t finished and others expected it to be.
Solution
It’s low key to communicate about the household in a tool that’s specifically focused on the household because everything is stated and divided/assigned.
Problem
Timing the household with individuals’ schedules is time consuming and chaotic because people’s own lives and schedules (not being aligned).
Solution
Transparent schedules so everybody knows when someone is at home or away and who’s going to do what and when.
Problem
Planning household tasks (and needs) is difficult, time consuming and leads to frustration and irritations, because people ‘need’ to do something while others don’t do their tasks.
Solution
Everybody assigns tasks to themselves and finish this when they want/could.
Problem
Managing the household is a tough ‘job’ for one individual and even worse for multiple person’s households, because there are (more) bigger tasks and different efforts from others (not equal).
Solution
Manage it together and let it be managed as a team (effort) by assigning tasks (to yourself) to individuals.
This is what you've wanted to see, right? Here it is!
Designs
Some of the design works I've made.
Sketches
Well, this is how it starts. With over 40 pages, I could only fit a few pictures here...
Information architecture
Organized structure of the app, which sets the base for all the screens needed.
Wireframes
Most of the high fidelity wireframe screens.
Wireflow
Yes, this is how the user could navigate through the app. And yes, I know users do whatever they want to do.
Process
From wireframe to final design, but in a nutshell.
Colors
Exploring colors to get what I think is good for the project. And these colors changed during the process, of course. Correct, I love gradients.
Icons
Custom icons I've made, as I most of the times like to challenge myself and create custom icons.
Menu
Some trials of the menu/navigation.
Small gimmick in the active menu items:
Home has 1 stripe: 1st item
Tasks has 2 lines: 2nd item
Meals has 3 (cooking) swirls: 3rd item
Pets has 4 nails: 4th item
Schedule has 5 items: 5th item
Oh, and the meals-icon is a pan, because the fork and knife are very common and I wanted to try something different. Also because the other icons (except the pet paw-icon) are rectangles in some way, and the fork-knife combo doesn’t match well between that.
Forms
As well as a bit of process about the forms.
Tasks
The core item: tasks. These were the 2 versions, although there was a bit of iterating in between to get there.
Other components
Well, this spoils some of the design already, but here are some components from the components library.
Grid
The grid that I've used to align everything, so no random floating Dribbble doodles.
Final designs
And finally, the designs in some simple mockups I've made. I've designed 99% of the screens because I always go all in, which are shown below these mockups.
All designs
The older version I made back in 2017
That's all folks! Oh yes, those puppy pictures are from my own puppy. I've got more of them if you're interested...
