HumaneOS
Overview
HumaneOS is a mobile phone operating system meant to encourage goal-setting and planning through features that make the user more mindful and aware of their plans for that goal. We designed the core apps of a mobile OS to reflect this design language.
Role
UX/UI Designer
Jan 2020 - Mar 2020
The Prompt
6
Designers
10
Apps
5
Sprints
For this project, I joined a team of 6 designers to take on the following design prompt:
Create an original mobile design language
Define and consistently apply the design principles you've set
Use your design language to create a new mobile phone OS with about 10 apps
We also adopted Google's method of design by meeting every two weeks for Design Sprints to present our progress. These acted as a milestone for our project so that we make steady progress towards a deliverable while also gaining feedback on our designs. After the final sprint, our designs were then be presented to a panel of professional designers who would rate our apps as they would on an app store.
Design Language & Principles
The problem space we wanted to explore was something that many of us as college students struggled daily with which was mindfulness. We felt that phones should be able to help keep you focused rather than make you distracted. So, we brainstormed and created a word cloud of principles that would help us design towards that idea.
From this word cloud, our team decided on 4 main design principles: goal-oriented, self-reflective, mindful, and encouraging. These would encompass all the themes we wanted to follow while designing this OS for others. Thus, we were able to come up with a design language of "humane" based on these principles.
Concept Ideas & Sketches
We immediately began thinking of concepts for each application of the OS after deciding on our design language. We thought about the many different use cases a user goes through when using current mobile phones. Luckily, my team had both iPhones and Android phones so we were able to get perspectives from both sides. Then, we started conceptualizing features that could be added to each of these apps to achieve more mindfulness. We sketched out the following ideas below:
We also thought to find some inspiration for our designs by creating a mood board that evoked the themes of being organized and goal-oriented. This inspired the UI components we created and allowed us to decide how we wanted the format of the apps to look. You can find the inspirations for our work below:
User Stories
Since the audience we were designing for could have multiple goals, we made two user stories that gave examples of some common life goals users may have. This way, we could visualize the scenarios in which people would use our applications.
Design System
We created and gathered many different design resources to reference throughout the project. These were compiled into components that we would use to keep our designs consistent as we all individually worked on our assigned apps. These components include:
Styleguide
Our styleguide consists of UI components and guidelines our team used to design all our apps. It provides the typography, the icons, and UI elements needed for the designs. One feature we wanted to incorporate into most of our apps was the category bar which is a feature that allowed users to organize their contents into groups, making them easier to navigate and help prioritization. After considering the issue of how color-blind users would interact with this feature, we added icons and patterned buttons as well as alternate color palettes to accommodate for different conditions of color-blindness.
UX Patterns
As mentioned before, we tried to be consistent by creating UX patterns that we would apply to our apps. This would be done by grouping the apps into different types and setting a layout for them that we would follow. Since most of the apps we designed were "List" and "Display" apps, we made two layouts that would best fit those types of apps.
Final Deliverable
After many sprints and rapid prototyping, we were able to produce the final version of the apps for "HumaneOS". As mentioned before, we presented these screenshots to a panel of professional designers who gave us a score out of 5 just as they would on an app store. Our team tied for second with a score of 4.8 out of 5 and received overall positive feedback from the judges. You can view our prototype through the images below or view the full presentation slides at the top of the page.
Bonus: Flows
One feature that we weren't able to showcase in the final product because of the time constraints was "Flows". This was going to be a feature that allowed users to customize the environment of their phone so that it could be suited for situations like at work, studying, or home. Depending on the environment they choose, it would change the way the phone would display apps, the homescreen, and notifications. While we did not display this in the final presentation, we still have the wireframes for it below:
Swipe up to go to the flow selection menu
Flows that you create will display here
Phone will display apps and notifications for when you're at home.
Swipe up to go to the flow selection menu
I wanted to mention this because as of September 20, 2021, Apple released a new feature for iOS 15 that is similar to this one for iPhones called "Focuses". This allows users to choose which apps or people can send notifications, lets you receive notifications from apps that are time-sensitive, and changes your focus status so that people who are not in the focus know you are busy. Knowing that we made something back then that would soon be adapted into iOS's features, it validated our creative thinking and I was glad that one of our ideas actually made it to a real phone OS.
Reflection
Overall, this was one of the most satisfying projects to be a part of not only because of how good the end product looked, but because of what I gained out of it. I learned so much about the thought process that goes into designing for mobile devices and how much you need to prepare. There's a lot that a team of designers need to establish with each other to make sure their designs are consistent with each other. The sprints helped a lot in catching these inconsistencies, so we were able to gather valuable feedback each time.
Because of this experience, I came out of this learning these main points about the design process:
Know who you're designing for and focus on the usability for that audience
Set a design language to ideate off of so concept ideas are related to the issue
Set up resources for your team to use so that everyone's consistent in their design
Iterate repeatedly and timely to get the most out of the feedback given
Listen to criticism and use it effectively
This gave me a lot to think about and I have since then tried to apply this same design process to many of my other works. Not only do I think it was important to know in order to submit project deliverables on time, but I also believe it was the best way for me to display my best work. I'm a person who thrives off of receiving criticism and seeing what I can improve on, so the idea of design sprints actually worked out in my favor. So, I intend to reproduce this level of efficiency in my next project, whatever that may be.
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