Month: March 2017

In order to develop a better understanding of what a project like this could do for its users. I wanted to interview some people who have experience with caring for individuals who have memory loss or learning difficulties.

Assist Me – Concept Interview

 

Assist Me is a concept for an application that can be used on any smartphone and tablet which aims to aid people with memory loss or who struggle with daily activities. Assist Me will use your smartphones camera to scan everyday items and the play a short instructional animation on how to complete tasks.

This concept will hopefully allow people with difficulties doing everyday tasks to maintain their independence and allow them to take control in their own lives. Family members can also benefit by knowing that they have a guide on how to do tasks and they could also add the option of monitoring individuals to see progress.

What involvement do you have with people that have learning difficulties?

What everyday tasks do you find that individuals often struggle with?

Do you believe that the introduction of technology could help aid individuals that struggle with everyday activities? And how?

Do you think that a rewards system would be helpful to encourage individuals to progress with daily activities?

Should a reminder option be available for tasks that need completing at certain times of the day? (i.e. brushing teeth every morning and night)

Do you think that it is important for a parent / teacher / guardian to be able to monitor progress and set tasks?

How do you think this concept could improve an individual’s quality of life?

Are there any other things that you would like to see included in this concept?

Please add any other comments.

 

First Respondent

 

Second Respondent

The Pitch

Many individuals that suffer from memory loss or learning difficulties can often find remembering how, and when to, complete seemingly simple everyday tasks difficult. This can cause frustrations and lead to increased anxiety and reduced independence as others tend to step in to offer a helping hand.

Assist Me is an app that will help these individuals help themselves. The app will allow users to set, learn and be reminded on how and when to complete their everyday tasks. These tasks can be tailored to the user to suit their individual needs by the user themselves or a parent / guardian that has administrative access. This will enable users to regain their independence and feel pride in completing tasks without needing verbal prompts from a carer or loved one, as this can often be embarrassing.

The app will act as a self-motivated reminder of how to get things done without the need of another person. Hopefully removing and frustrations and sense of unwanted dependency on others. It will include a rewards system that collects data and gives the user in-app rewards which may encourage users to continue successfully using the system. It will also keep record of the days, weeks and months as they happen so that progress can be monitored.

The app will have a bright and colourful, yet simple, interface that is easy to navigate through and uses symbols to further enforce the meaning of the various components. It will allow users to search for particular tasks, scan objects with their phone camera to find out how to use them, set tasks and also see rewards. This is about helping individuals regain control over their own daily life rather than feeling reliant on others.

In terms of audience, I want to ensure that my media product is widely accessible to a larger range of ages and abilities. In order to make this possible I want to include customisable features and an option to set and monitor your own tasks. For the younger or less able people using this concept, I will include an admin option so that a parent / guardian can monitor and set activities that need completing. Hopefully this means that it will appeal to a larger audience, creating a new option for people who struggle with daily tasks and giving back people their independence.

I created two personas to use as an example of the variety of individuals I would like this concept to be used by.

Marketing Strategy

Grow Users and Keep the Lights On

Here are five strategies to capitalize on the marketing and distribution of your new app:

1. Release early and release often. You may have heard this refrain before, but it’s vital for growing your user base and attracting investors’ attention. Release core features, then leverage communities such as Hacker News and Product Hunt to grab early adopters before building out the kitchen sink. Look at it this way: If you don’t have a user base, how can you be sure you’re building something people want?
2. Find your niche. You can differentiate your app in a crowded market in two ways: Introduce features that no one else has, or target a specific niche. These strategies aren’t mutually exclusive. Take QUAD, for instance — yet another entrant in the crowded mobile messaging market. QUAD focused on its unique ability to message more than 50 people and has heavily marketed its app to college groups like fraternities and sororities that have a real need for a bulk messaging system. By doing so, it’s enabled itself to live alongside other messaging juggernauts like WhatsApp and GroupMe, rather than compete with them.
3. Be exclusive. Nowadays, it seems like everyone uses Spotify, but it wasn’t long ago that the company was just starting out in the U.S. and only available by invitation. While Spotify used invitations to make it easier to scale in a new country, it also had the added benefit of creating buzz around this exclusive new app. By capitalizing on word-of-mouth marketing, Spotify helped itself stand out in an arena that companies like Rdio and Rhapsody had been occupying for years.
4. Optimize for the App Store. Much like the need to optimize your website for search engines, it’s important to make sure your app has the right keywords in its title and description so users can find you. It sounds minor, but if your app doesn’t come up when users type relevant keywords into the search bar, then it might as well not exist. That’s why app design and development companies like Fueled have started making App Store optimization an integral part of their development process.
5. Build in social calls to action. Social word of mouth is one of the best ways to grow your user base. Build in social sharing so users can brag about what they’ve just accomplished, whether that’s leveling up in a game or logging miles in a running app.

It’s easy to assume your app can become the next Snapchat as long as you build a solid product, but what makes that app successful isn’t the fact that it exists — it’s the efficiencies it creates. By focusing on marketing strategies alongside product development, you can create an app that not only makes life better for your users, but also makes a profit for your startup.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2014/07/18/five-killer-marketing-and-distribution-strategies-for-your-app/#63dc93f211e9

Before creating my app I wanted to look at existing products that have a style or purpose similar to my concept. This helps me gauge what style I want to design my app and how best to layout and approach the idea that I have.

ChoreMonster

 

How does it work?

For Parents

• Quickly and easily create scheduled chores with point values. When your child says they’re done, you approve and they get the points.
• Add rewards that your kids “purchase” from their point collection. A reward can be anything from money to a camping trip.
• Watch your kids willingly and enthusiastically do their chores, without the need of chore charts.

For Kids

• Sign into the ChoreMonster mobile or web app, designed especially for kids, and see their chores for the day.
• Review all the possible rewards they can get and how much they’ll need to save to get them.
• Along the way kids will earn random monsters for added fun and surprise.
• Suddenly find themselves wanting to do chores!

I like the fun design elements that this app uses, although I would like the design of my application to be a little less child-like and sleeker so that it suits a wider target audience. The concept behind this application is pretty similar to what I am looking to create as it uses a reward system and admin system to set and monitor tasks. I will be sure to take some inspiration from this application when designing my brand and layout.

https://www.choremonster.com/

MediSafe

 

For patients: When is my next pill? We get it. Everyone needs some encouragement to sustain a new behavior. Medisafe gets people started by educating them about their meds and condition, then keeps them going by sharing progress, offering helpful tips, and curating tailored prescription coupons and special offers.

For physicians: How is my patient doing? Physicians can simply invite their patients to connect through Medisafe and adherence info as well as other health data is automatically brought into their dashboard.

For partners: How can I reach my customers? Medisafe goes way beyond the pill. We work with pharma, payors and others who share our passion for creating better patient outcomes through increased adherence.

Once again I chose an application that uses a record and reminder system. This one is aimed towards a more medical purpose and connects patients with doctors. The design of this one is a lot more simplified and basic to keep in with its medical purpose. I want to take some inspiration from the layout they use here, however, I want to inject some colour and fun into the design of it.

https://www.medisafe.com

In terms of budget, I would like to look initially at the cost of developing the app itself. I aim to keep the service solely available as an application at first, with the potential to expand online if there is a demand to do so. This should keep costs down as the price to host a website can become costly. In the future development of the concept I would like to see a sister app being developed that could be connected to individual accounts. This would allow parents / guardians / carers to be an admin, enabling them to set and monitor various tasks from a completely different device.

How much will it cost?

When searching on the web to find information about the rough cost to develop an app I came across a website that claimed to give me an estimation. The final figure it came up with was rather large and more substantial than I first expected so I decided to look into this further.

View Breakdown:

www.otreva.com/calculator/?saveId=AXJ9qcgjBedASuL3xcSmB7iDLR0fX_7jCW7Z5eedx1

Apple App Store 

In order to become a member of the Apple Developer Program you have to pay $99 per membership year.

https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/

Google Play

To become a member of the Google Play publisher programme you have to become and member and pay a $25 registration fee.

https://developer.android.com/design/index.html

 

HOW IS A MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT TEAM SET UP?

A successful team should include:

• A designer who creates all the visual content that will be coded into the project
• An account manager who acts like a liaison for clients and works with product managers and producers to coordinate the completion of different tasks
• A product manager who executes the functions of a director by overseeing the app

https://fueled.com/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-develop-an-app/