Force of Habit

Design
# Branding, Fun, Logo, Merchandise, Mobile, Research, UX/UI

Summary

Force of Habit is a prototype app aiming to teach strategies for habit formation and assist users in their implementation.

Backed by research on habit strategies and design for behavior change, the app harnesses feedback loops and empowers users to create lasting positive changes.

Created For

Integrated Design & Media master’s program, Ideation & Prototyping course

Roles

Researcher
UX/UI Designer
Brand Designer

Challenge

In the fall of 2020, when I was assigned a weeks-long UX project centering around a research topic to propose an intervention, my mind went straight to habit formation. The pandemic had wiped nearly all of my good habits, and the guilt and restlessness that came with that were constantly on my mind.

There were very real barriers, physical and psychological, that seemed to keep me from becoming the person I wanted to be. I reflected on these and wondered — can I create something to help overcome these? How can I empower myself and others to create lasting, positive change?

If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don’t want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change.

— James Clear

Research

Secondary Research

To begin this project, I set out to learn about the cognitive science behind creating and maintaining habits, and the many design practices that can facilitate that process. My main sources were James Clear’s Atomic Habits (2018), Scott Riley’s Mindful Design (2018), Nir Eyal’s Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products (2013), and Niedderer et al’s Design for Behaviour Change (2018).

The habit-forming process can be divided into segments which feed into one another. Atomic Habits defines these as Cue > Craving > Response > Reward, whereas Hooked outlines Trigger > Action > Reward > Investment. Another relevant model was the Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change, which breaks it down as Precontemplation > Contemplation > Preparation > Action > Maintenance > Termination. A common theme was the idea that promoting healthy habits is a matter of increasing their ease, accessibility, and enjoyability through your actions and environment.

Cue: Make it Obvious
Cues for good habits should be present and noticeable in your environment (i.e. take the yoga mat out of the closet, put it somewhere visible).
Craving: Make it Attractive
Highlight the benefits of good habits, like harnessing social desires (i.e. join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior).
Response: Make it Easy
Reduce friction associated with good habits (i.e. break down goals into manageable bits; make it “go outside in sneakers,” not “run a marathon”).
Reward: Make it Satisfying
Harness the feeling of success to increase your odds of repeating the behavior (i.e. measure and celebrate progress, even if small).

There are multiple ways to harness satisfaction, some of which may be most effective for specific users, or in the context of specific habits.

1. REWARDS OF THE TRIBE (SOCIAL)
  Driven by our connectedness with other people. Our brains are adapted to seek rewards that make us feel accepted, attractive, important, and included.
2. REWARDS OF THE HUNT (MATERIAL)
  Driven by a desire for material resources and information, evolving from the search for food and other survival needs in our brain’s operating system.
3. REWARDS OF THE SELF (PERSONAL)
  Intrinsic satisfaction driven by the search for competence and completion.

Finally, there are specific behavioral strategies that can help form new habits, or break undesired ones:

Implementation Intention
“I will [behavior] at [time] in [location].”
Habit Stacking
“After I [current habit], I will [new habit].”
Temptation Bundling
“After I [behavior needed], I will [behavior desired].”
Accountability Partner
“I will [behavior] with [person].”
Habit Contract
“If I don’t [behavior], [manufactured, undesired consequence] will happen.”

Primary Research

User Interviews

I conducted five user interviews to expand my perspective on how people think and feel about their habits, and validate my secondary research findings. From these discussions, I created three user personas to guide the design process:

User Interview Questions

What would you say are some positive habits that you have?

What purpose do those habits serve to you? What benefits do you find in them?

How long have you maintained these habits?

What systems do you have to maintain them? What tools do you use? Walk me through the steps of using one of those tools.

Are there any positive habits you don’t currently have, but would like to? Have you tried to implement them? How did that go? What made you struggle?

Survey

Lastly, I sent out a short survey to reach a broader audience. In it, I asked respondents to imagine they were starting a habit they’d wanted to form for a long time, but hadn’t managed to do so yet, before asking the multiple-choice questions below.

Practices

What practices do you think would work best at keeping you committed?

Expressing gratitude
Practicing affirmations
Getting tips for specific habits
Sharing milestones or accomplishments
Following other people’s journeys
Reading motivational quotes
Reading about the science behind habits
Other

Tools

What tools would you find most useful?

Quick notes — jotting down information
General journaling — writing about your day and thoughts
Prompted journaling — writing about your day and thoughts, prompted
Alarms or reminders — receiving notifications with short notes
To-do lists — listing and checking off tasks as needed
Habit tracking — consistently checking off a specific set of actions
Daily/weekly/monthly schedule — writing appointments or deadlines
References (e.g. reading lists, workout plans) — listing resources or planning around a specific topic
Other

Media

What media would you prefer to use?

Mobile apps
Desktop apps or programs
Freestyle notebook/notepad
Fixed planner/agenda
Wall-mounted calendar/planner
Whiteboard
Post-it notes
Other

At the end of the survey, I included an option question to tap into the emotional undercurrents of habit formation and maintenance. I asked respondents to open Unsplash’s “Abstract” gallery and find an image that best captures how they feel about their current habits, and to briefly explain why.

Strokes of blue, white, yellow, and orange paint arranged in a geometric pattern, all along straight lines. Caption reads, "It looks like a bunch of things layered on top of one another. Which is essentially how my life tends to feel 90 percent of the time. You know the things underneath exist but here's something brighter to distract you."

Pattern of metal pipes connected by cables, making out a six-pointed star pattern that gets smaller as it repeats into the distance. Caption reads, "I feel like my habits are a network of connected activities, that interlace with each other, which makes it difficult to find a way to add anything new to that routine, no matter how much I'd like to."

Long-exposure shot with bright read and light blue wisps of light jumbled together on a dark background. Caption reads, "Scattered around, some going all the way through the screen, others end up halfway, some more straight than others and lots of negative space as room for growing/improving/creating new habits."

Close-up of a tree trunk full of grooves. Caption says, "Even though my autopilot habits are structured I still take natural turns towards what I feel is right/what I want to do."

Angled shot of a gray surface painted with a white square grid. Some of the squares are cut out and filled in by light green glass windows. Caption reads, "Mostly ambivalent, with interspersed depth and occasional nuance."

Long-exposure shot of stars, with light spreading in a radial pattern. Caption reads, "It's chaos, but it's organized chaos." Another caption reads, "I feel like it's very structured and organized, while also conveying the sense of being in motion."

Textured paint creating a gradient between very light and dark blue across the screen horizontally. Captions reads, "I have certain habits because they make my life easier and a bit more comfortable, so I chose a picture that I felt conveyed a general sense of peace and quiet."

Dark blue liquid with orange-red foam. Caption reads, "I see habit forming as a fundamentally constructive process but not one of templates - the organic, idiosyncratic nature, the uniqueness that is unavoidable and necessary for my habit formation feels encapsulated in the image."

Angled shot of a white grid structure. Caption reads, "There's a sense of regularity/consistency."

Foggy background with an amorphous gradient, going from light to dark blue. Caption reads, "I feel like my ability to keep up with my good habits changes like the weather. Sometimes I can develop and maintain good habits, sometimes I just relapse. The challenge is avoiding those relapses."

Brightly lit curved tubes tangled against a dark background. Caption reads, "I feel like my daily practices are tangled and difficult to parse as separate from each other, but they tend to cohere along shared lines of motivation and broad notions of success; inversely, it's hard to imagine succeeding with one habit and not with others."

Blurry gradient, most of it a dark grayish blue, with specks of bright cyan, peach, and pink. Caption reads, "I have a lot of things I'd like to be doing regularly tha tI'm not, and I have many things I'm still undecided on regarding my level of interest. I identify mostly with the out of focus effect and with the array of colors, because I feel it represents what has yet to come to fruition."

Series of bubbles of varied sizes against an orange background. Caption reads, "Like a marked checklist, it's almost as if I have to burst a bubble when I get something done to feel accomplished and see a tangible thing to cross off... or pop."

Shot of a tall orange structure against a dark teal background. It is obfuscated by a blurry texture, or perhaps taken from a reflection. Caption reads, "The building is my goal, but it is blurry and ripples are making it unclear."

Goals

Share the science of habit-forming strategies and inspiration for specific habits.

Encourage mindfulness as a means for motivation.

Provide simple but effective tools to track and maintain habits.

Link these features into a seamless and holistic system.

Process

With these goals in mind, I set out to design an app prototype divided into three parts: learn, plan, and track.

Learn contains learning modules and featured content for specific habits. This section provides users the framework for habit formation, and sets the stage for a mindful experience by prompting users to submit journal reflections at the end of each module.

Plan stores journal reflections as well as lists that are linked to habits. This section serves as reference to help users stay on track and motivated.

Track houses user habits, linked to lists, as well as detailed reminder and progress stats. Users can see data points like counts and streaks to fuel a rewarding sense of accomplishment.

Initial Mockups

These static images were used in the final class presentation to quickly explain the app concept.

Wireframes

After getting feedback, I went back to refine each tab's features, with a deeper focus on UI.

Values

To guide both form and function of the app, I outlined four main values: Encouragement, Approachability, Satisfaction, and Efficiency. Following these, the brand identity was designed to be clean, uncluttered, yet inspiring and motivating.

Color Palette

Includes a wide range of vibrant hues, with a core selection representing Force of Habit’s main tabs and supplementary colors allowing extra customizability.

Logo

The logomark uses negative space to intertwine the F and H letterforms, angled upwards to suggest energy and momentum. At the same time, the form has a perfect 180-degree rotational symmetry, giving a sense of balance and stability, reinforced by the justified wordmark. The gradient and mixed width type evoke a fluidity that invites users to approach their habit-forming journeys in their own unique rhythm.

Icon Library

Keeping with the approachability angle, the icon library uses rounded corners and a mix of colors from the palette.

Prototype

The final version of the app achieves the goals I set out to accomplish, while embodying the clean and motivating look and feel.

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Brand in Action

Considering common habits users might want to engage with — staying hydrated, journaling, being active — I designed mockup collateral that would be both useful and stylish.

Tina Solo