Duktig Flicka

Problem

The mission was to promote female empowerment using technology. I wanted to bring light to a problem called "duktig flicka syndrom" or "good girl complex". The "good girl complex" is made up of widespread social behaviours internalised by young women. From childhood, many women are socialised to please others, at the cost of their own wellbeing or needs. It often leads to young women who put enormous amounts of pressure on themselves and have a hard time setting boundries and putting themselves first.

Research

I read three sociological studies from different universities about this as a start to my research. The studies made it clear that most women don’t see the expectations put on them as unreasonable, rather that they themselves aren’t good enough to live up to them. They also found that women with the “good girl complex” are more prone to burnout because they don’t get the right level of validation for the amount of work they put in, as well as that they often don’t listen to their body when it asks for rest because of their need to please others and accomplish everything.

Insights

From my research, I could put together a HMW. How might we help women and young girls out themselves first using technology? I decided on a firsthand focus of the app: setting up goals that have nothing to do with productivity. If we can get women to make goals that don’t fuel their performance-based self-esteem, we can slowly break down the pattern of putting others first att pushing oneself to the limit.The secondhand focus I decided was going to be a feature that makes it easy to have an overview of your mood and being able to write about what you’re feeling and experiencing. This will help the user to find patterns in their moods and really think about certain aspects of their lives.

Greybox

I started with lo-fidelity wireframes to prototype my ideas, then in Figma created high-fidelity greyboxes to better grasp the layout and usage.

Prototyping

I created a design system, which I made sure reached a contrast ratio of at lest 4.5:1 (or AA), that I used to build an mvp.

User Testing

I tested my prototype on multiple users with Maze to find out if they understood how to navigate the app properly. They were also able to leave comments on aspects they didn't fully understand or like. I used the heatmaps of where the users pressed to see common mistakes.

I iterated the design and removed confusing and unnecessary aspects to make the app more clean and easy to navigate.