Strategizing Well-being
This platform provides a tool for sharing and managing stress, developing resilience, and navigating major life transitions within a secure and supportive environment.
streaming | calmness | community | platform model
My Role
UX Strategist
Leader, Storyteller
Targets
Young Adults,
COVID Survivors, NYC
Timeline
3 months
September - December, 2021
Coach
Elena Drobova
The New School
The Challenge
HOW DO WE HELP PEOPLE, COME OUT OF THE STRESS OR THE PANDEMIC?
Young adults are facing stress caused by feelings of loneliness and isolation, which often makes it difficult for them to express their emotions to others for various reasons. With the added unpredictability of Covid-19 development and public health concerns, this situation has become even more challenging.
While there are several applications designed to address this issue, they tend to be too distracting, noisy, and time-consuming. Therefore, we embarked on a quest to discover a new approach to fostering silence and companionship in the midst of a global pandemic.
The Insights
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Communication & Change
People are happy about having more time to self-reflect because it allows them to reassess their values so they get to know more about themselves.
People & Communities
With reciprocal care, people find it relieving when their fear of obligations in social conventions is addressed.
Trust &
Guidance
Receiving guidance from someone close and authoritative takes off the stress from people because they know they are in the hands of trustworthy people who provide reliable information.
The Solution
RENDEZVOUS
A Non-Conversational Streaming Platform
Rendezvous is a platform where individuals can come together and engage in various activities with one another. It serves as a source of inspiration, motivation, and stress relief through the power of community and social connection.
The platform is user-friendly and easy to navigate. Once you log in, you can select from five channels based on your current mood and begin watching or streaming content directly.
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The Research
We conducted the research as a 2 forked approach. Primary research helped us to speak to stakeholders, friends, and family to understand and feel the mental models and identify their structures behind them.
Secondary research complemented the findings and helped us find patterns and connect the issues as a whole.
The Primary research involved interviews with 16 participants, as part of our community search and reach outs. Also, we gained information from the survey responses of 162 participants.
The Primary research involved interviews with 16 participants, as part of our community search and reach outs. These participants were further involved in testing our prototypes and for our final solution evaluation and feedback
Also, we gained information from the survey responses of 162 participants who could not be accommodated for personal interviews..
interview participants
95.1%
Of the survey respondents reported that they have experienced stress during Covid, among which
79.2%
Of them experienced greater than level 3 (out of 5) stress;
91.4%
Of the respondents who experienced stress were concerned about their stress level.
survey stats
These were some of the revealing finds from the interviews and other interesting and equally depressing stories from the participants and their family or friends. We also got some interesting insights from various experiences such as utilizing the lockdown period to introspect within one’s self, learn various cuisines, help friends and family by providing mental support and cope up with virtual learning.
The secondary research involved journals, experiments, studies, books and articles on stress and related topic. We also made notices of the trends, competition, brands, groups, platforms which uses and addresses the problem with stress and stressed individuals.
The broad topic of study under stress were in the areas of:
1. Stress Causes
2. Stress Measurement
3. Stress Impact
4. Coping Strategies
PHYSICAL
Headache,
Tension/pain
EMOTIONAL
Anxiety
Restlessness
BEHAVIOURAL
Overeat
Undereat
COGNITIVE
Poor judgements
Racing thoughts
LONG TERM
Heart, BP
Mental
stress causes and impacts
The Synthesizing
With the data we collected from the research and our experiences, we grouped it and started to derive valuable hypothesis to prove and test them. We started with personifying the findings and grouped them into archetype. Journey map was created on the information to take a closer look at the user’s life from the beginning.
It was important to understand the different phases the user has been through. We went on to identify the hidden opportunities and start leaning on them to add value to our participants and prospective subjects
We definitely observed how different people react differently to stress and uncertainty during the pandemic. So, we created this persona archetype to better understand our users. They are categorized by their stress level and stress coping skills. For our consideration, we would be focusing on the two groups of people on the right, the overachievers and needing-helps, both with high stress level but with different coping skills.
The Journey Map
The data from the interviews and the surveys was interpreted, grouped and connected to their feelings and expectations. By this we were able to map out the recurring themes and the prominent space in which we could drive our focus towards.
Synthesis board
The Ideation
As we grouped the collected data, we started working on our identified buckets or themes.
Through our interviews, we heard people saying they have fear towards open communication, losing community support, lack of guidance and change in their lives, and that fear leads to unresolved stress.
Therefore, through brainstorming workshops, we want to produce solutions for the above stress-causing problems.
The collective brainstorming session provided us with new perspectives, they shed light on how people perceive stress and how they choose to cope with it. However, we wanted to explore the scalability and applicability of these ideas
So, we conducted another brainstorm workshop within the team.
We classified the session findings into 7 main ideas and picked the top two favorables
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Theme park (D-stress Junction)
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Fun games
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Community support (Rendez-vous!)
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Small steps
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Cafe & sharing
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AI assistant
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Nature
D-Stress Junction, a theme park
Insight
Solution
Target
Benefit
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People need a non-judgmental space to relieve stress.
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To offer a masquerade venue for people to be whoever they want to be while engaging in stress-relieving activities, and not worry about how others perceive them.
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Young adults who want to escape from the stressful reality;
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Who do not like to verbally communicate about their stress
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Enjoy stress-free role playing/exchanging identity;
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Gain new perspectives on their own stressors, personal identities, and life experiences
Rendez-vous, a community support platform
Insight
Solution
Target
Benefit
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People need a communal space where they don’t have to deal with stress alone
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A non-conversational streaming platform where people join and accompany each other with different activities, such as studying, gardening, or making art works.
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Young adults who are stressed due to loneliness and isolation, thus seeking non-verbal companionship
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Those who love to share, support, help community members
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Feel less lonely when they can be present with someone
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Enjoy a sense of satisfaction through sharing life moments and offering help to others
The ideas were measured for feasibility and scalability. Also, they were assessed for the ease of testing the concept within the course restrictions and hence the Rendezvous was taken up for further development, iteration and testings. There were 3 levels of iterations tested with a combination of participants, there were assumptions to prove, lessons to learns and further steps in each of the iterations.
The Solution
Rendez-Vous! is a non-conversational streaming platform where people join and accompany each other with different activities. It is a place to get inspired, motivated, and de-stressed through the presence of others and communities.
The platform is intuitive and easy to use. You log in, choose from 5 channels whatever suits your mood today, and start watching or streaming directly.
Here, you can meet someone you don’t know through serendipity and curiosity, without pre-scheduling. You would feel less lonely when present with someone. And you can also enjoy a sense of satisfaction through sharing daily life moments and offering help to others at the same time.
Silence is the most distinguishing feature of Rendez-vous! We are the only completely non-talking platform of the similar kinds. According to mental health professional, silence has therapeutic function to our stressed bodies by effects like lowering blood pressure, calming racing thoughts and so on.
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People prefers to avoid the awkwardness of meeting and the pressure of talking
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The platform is completely anonymous for viewers, you don’t need to stress about your identity been reviewed.
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Adding light music of ones choice if you want to bring the relaxation to another level
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Private settings allows one to choose who can see their streaming
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To be present with real people, in real time, with a stronger sense of togetherness
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Social impact actions through rewards
The Business Plan
There are about 40M young adults in the US, 40% of which are stressed or lonely. We can target at a 40% penetration rate for that population, which leads to a 6.4M market size.
40M Young adults in the US 40% Are stressed or lonely. 40% Penetration rate
Currently the Health and Wellness market is about 3.31B and is expected to grow by 21.9% by 2026.
Between 2021 to 2028 the live streaming market is expanding by 12.1 % per year and expected to be more than double by 2028, reaching about 10B market
Based on the market trends, participants feedback and our observations with the experts, we extend our support through various established and relevant platforms and institutes. By doing this we intend to reach a larger mass and address the problem at hand
As young adults, we understand the level of stress that our peers have in their lives, especially our shared stress experiences brought by Covid. It prevents us from relieving stress by natural in-person communication. We want to bring change to the situation and help people like us better solve the problem of stress caused loneliness without forcing people to communicate with words. We want to help them to share & manage stress, build resilience, and cope with changes in a safe space
The final phase was to estimate the impact of this idea, both in providing value to the participants and the target population we selected and in providing business and the revenue around it.
