END-TO-END APP
Word Up
“How was your day?” sounds like a simple question, but it rarely is. The longer you go between check-ins, the bigger it feels. A week to a month holds so many rich experiences and stories that it’s hard to know where to start. Sometimes it ends up boiling down to just "good" or "busy".
We considered and analyzed what is currently available for people to connect, categorizing three basic needs for a good check-in.
Prompt books
Not convenient
Spotify Wrapped
Not frequent
Phone Calls
Not convenient
Not frequent
Every existing option traded one need for another. The intersection point in the middle of the diagram became our brief. An interaction simple enough to be convenient, small enough to happen often, and personal enough to matter.
In other words, how do we help people answer the question,
THE SOLUTION
Today's Word
Convenient
The word appears on the lock screen for a gentle reminder. The same format of a single word prompt is a smaller ask than “tell me everything,” and it can be answered in under a minute through text, a photo, a song, or even a mix of the three.
"I would definitely use this with my friends back at home as a different way to connect because we barely even talk as is."
- P1
Frequency
A new word every day keeps check-ins brief and regular, so nothing piles up. The calendar records each day the group showed up while the streaks gives people a reason to keep coming back, adding a small gamified element.
"I love the streak feature. I feel like it would motivate me to come back every day."
- P2
Emotional Impact
Responses can come as text, photos and songs, with reactions instead of comments for an easy interaction and quick validation. Over time, the dictionary becomes a visual representation of the group’s words and the moments attached to them.
"You get a word that’s somehow cute or connects to an experience we’ve had together; that’s huge."
- P3
We went through several rounds of testing with each round surfacing small moments of confusion that we fixed before testing again.
Version 1
Version 2
The dictionary link first sat in the corner of the word of the day card. Two testers were surprised by its placement and expected it to show more information about the word itself. Moving it to the bottom navigation bar felt more familiar to users and it was clearly labeled to have a better idea on where it leads to.
We first showed who hadn't responded that day, hoping the group would reach out to who's not participating and help build accountability. Instead it added unnecessary pressure and felt like an uncomfortable call-out, so we decided to remove any visual indication to keep things light and avoid possible tension.
Through the usability tests, we learned that Word Up worked really well for three kinds of people, which helped answer the brief of creating a product that a group of people would love while others would hate.
The hardest part was finding a problem space within the brief. Brainstorming ran longer than expected as we moved from broad storytelling ideas like nostalgia and slowly narrowing it down to something specific. I learned to trust the proces and be comfortable with ambiguity. My team shared every idea openly, without judgment, until we arrived at a design question we were all excited about.
Several rounds of unmoderated usability testing gave us a lot of feedback to act on. Using Claude, we turned each round of changes into a new prototype quickly, even within the competition’s time constraint. It made me more fluent in using an AI agent to speed up our workflow and build interactive, high-fidelity prototypes.
