Fox Tracks
Timeline
September 2022 - August 2023
My Role
UX Researcher
Fox Tracks Project Details
My Role
UX Research & Design Strategy: I ensured timely delivery of high-quality designs by managing projects, defined a research-aligned design strategy, and conducted diverse research methods to understand user behaviors and needs. Additionally, I created design principles for a cohesive user experience.
Team:
2 UX Researchers: Michelle Thangtamsatid and Allison Ngo
2 UX Designers: Michael Monks, Tara Singson
My team worked with an advisor from Intentional Futures.
We were given an open-ended brief to design for the future of the "information ecosystem."
Background
What are the odds that our entire team suffered from chronic digestive upsets?
This left us feeling curious on how others who suffer from FGIDs go about their days.
How do FGID sufferers deal with their symptoms? What various symptoms do people most commonly experience?
We set out to learn more.
The Problem Space
Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders (FGIDs) are characterized by persistent and recurring GI symptoms as a result of abnormal functioning of the GI tract.
25 million Americans suffer from FGIDs
50-80% of people with FGIDs do not consult with a doctor
FGIDs are the 2nd leading cause of missing work or school, after the common cold
Symptoms and triggers for FGIDs vary wildly between individuals. Each patient must embark on a lifelong journey to understand how best to live with this condition.
Ideation
Our design direction lead us towards a holistic symptom management platform for individuals with functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs) to practice mindfulness in their digestive health journey and discover management methods that work for them. We decided to brainstorm individually, then come together as a team.
After going over about 80 ideas in total, we narrowed our focus down to four ideas, and decided to combine them into one.
Because the scope of our first iteration was too broad, we decided narrow our scope to only Part 4: TUMagotchi. We pivoted from focusing on community support to focusing on the unique personal journeys of individuals with FGIDs.
An example from our ideation on the TUMagotchi concept is shown on below.
Deciding on the form
We weighed the pros and cons of the TUMagotchi being a new wearable device, a smartwatch app, or a singular mobile app. As a result of our evaluation, we moved forward with a smartwatch & mobile app integration.
Our Design Response: Fox Tracks
Fox Tracks is an integrated smartwatch & mobile lifestyle tool that supports individuals who suffer from functional gastrointestinal disorders. It leverages machine learning to optimize logging food & symptoms while uncovering digestive insights, thus improving the user’s overall quality of life.
But what really is a functional gastrointestinal disorder, anyway?
To put it plainly— think of irritable bowel syndrome, otherwise commonly known as IBS. IBS is a common intestinal disorder that causes abdomen pain, gas, diarrhea, constipation, and a myriad of other symptoms.
Qualitative Research
Desk Research: Key Takeaways
Discovering a trigger can be difficult, especially if there exists a combination of reactions to food sensitivities, intolerances, and other co-morbidities.
Triggers vary among individuals and can involve dietary, behavioral, and psychological factors.
Monash University ran a clinical trial that championed hypnotherapy is as an effective alternative when dealing with gastrointestinal symptoms.
Due to an interplay of complex factors such as one's coping mechanisms, associated psychological morbidity, and more, symptom management has to address a triad of behaviors, cognitions, and beliefs.
Enlightened by these key takeaways, we set out to learn:
How do individuals with Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders (FGIDs) identify their triggers and manage their symptoms, if at all?
This led us to our next phase..
Generative Research
Qualitative Research Methods
Diary Study
Follow-up Interviews
Auto-ethnographic Research
Our team gathered 10 research participants, conducted a series of diary studies over the span of a week, then followed up with our research participants with semi-structured interviews.
To learn more about our diary studies, I invite you to check out the instructional video we created for our participants down below:
What we learned:
When considering triggers, participants engage in a trade-off between digestive discomfort and other quality-of-life factors.
Mental health and digestive issues have a cyclical relationship since stress & anxiety are both symptoms and triggers.
Participants tough out their digestive discomfort to avoid drastic lifestyle changes.
Persistent symptoms can be perceived as normal, making it challenging to identify potential chronic issues.
Given these takeaways, our team set out to discover…
We came up with 4 design principles to adhere to when facing this challenge:
Desired User Outcomes
Belonging
De-stigmatize FGIDs and have a safe space.
Discovery
Discover & learn healthy FGID lifestyle tips.
Confidence
Gain education and insights so users can feel confident about making more informed decisions.
Hope
Foster a hopeful outlook on their digestive health.
Undesired User Outcomes
Toxic Positivity
Make light of the pain and challenges that come with living with FGIDs.
Overwhelm
Feel overwhelmed by presenting too many options.
Shame
Feel ‘other-ed’ for having an FGID.
To evaluate the space & understand where we wanted to focus our design, we created a comprehensive journey map of people who live with FGIDs based on our research.
There’s a lot on this map, so I want to focus our attention on the 2 stages where we thought we could drive the most impact: “Clarity” and “Living with FGIDs”.
We found 3 high leverage pain points we wanted to tackle in our design.
User Journey Map: Pain Points
Pain point #1: It's common for individuals to find the lifestyle changes they need to make for themselves are too drastic. This ultimately leads to them prematurely giving up.
Pain point #2: Triggers can range across a variety of factors - within diet there’s not only ingredients, but also portion to consider. In addition to one's diet, there are psychological triggers like stress and anxiety that are hard to isolate. All this to say, triggers are very hard for people to identify themselves.
Pain point #3: People constantly have to make decisions that weigh their digestive health against other quality of life factors, such as socializing. Prioritization and decision making are very subjective. It’s hard to know exactly how your digestive health is doing & furthermore, how it will be impacted.
Given these pain points, we narrowed down our goal.
Our Goal:
Help individuals stay at this part of their journey longer. Help users create healthier relationship with their gut, reduce flare-ups, and ultimately increase overall their quality of life.
IDEATION AND DESIGN
So what is our design approach? We call it Fox Tracks!
Fox Tracks is an integrated smartwatch & mobile lifestyle tool that supports individuals who suffer from FGIDs with the help of Foxy, their digestive support animal. Foxy makes it easy to log digestive data and discover insights based on their unique situation to ultimately improve the user’s overall quality of life. Our experience aims to provide:
Sustainable & personalized methods to manage digestive health
Guidance and empowerment to build healthier habits
A hopeful outlook that compassionately acknowledges their challenges
Brand Values & Mascot
Playful, simple, trustworthy, caring, thoughtful.
Deciding on an animal mascot:
We went through a variety of mascot options before choosing our final one.
Initially we decided on a rabbit. We decided on “Habit Rabbit” for a name, but ultimately decided against this because we felt it wasn’t the perfect match for our brand values.
Capybara’s are cozy and tranquil, fitting well with our brand values. However, it felt too foreign and the lack of a full-body made it hard to work with.
Milk and Onion are a cat and bird duo who were meant to represent the gut-brain connection. Ultimately, we thought the two representations would be hard for users to understand.
Ultimately, we decided on Foxy.
Foxes are intelligent, sensitive, proactive, and cheeky - qualities of a perfect digestive health support animal.
Weather metaphor:
To de-stigmatize symptoms like flatulence and diarrhea, we used Foxy’s weather surroundings to subtly represent the symptoms being experienced by the user.
Distance metaphor: Foxy’s position on the user’s devices represents the level of user engagement. When the user neglects the app, Foxy is distant. This also represents how accurate our insights are.
Branding for Foxy needed to align with our brand values: playful, simple, trustworthy, caring, and thoughtful.
Wearable Functionality
Our team prioritized effortless logging via the Apple Watch, including:
Hassle-free logging of food and digestive flare-ups.
Passive logging of biometrics through smartwatch integration.
Logging Food & Digestive Flare-Ups
With Fox Tracks, logging food is made simply on your Apple Watch and iPhone.
Next Steps
Crowdsource logging data
Make it even easier for users to log food by importing menu data and crowdsourcing items for other users to reference.
Symptom management trials
Partner with businesses so users can easily test out different symptom management methods to see what works best for them.
Foster community
Create a safe space for a community to form around Fox Tracks where users can support each other and share tips.
Partner with restaurants
Collaborate with restaurants who have a list of Foxy approved safe meals or offer a barcode allowing users to scan for trigger ingredients on the menu.
Expand to Android
Currently we’ve designed our experience for the Apple ecosystem. Next, we’d like to expand this to Android.
Reflections
FGIDs are a widespread problem
The overwhelming amount of people who suffer from FGIDs surprised us, especially since they tend to do so in silence given that symptoms are embarrassing and can cause feelings of shame.
Vast world of triggers
FGIDs manifest in a wide variety of symptoms that differ for each individual. We learned that things that seem like they would not be related, like sinus infections, can in fact be symptoms of FGIDs.
Navigating sensitive topics
As we conducted interviews with participants, some reported substandard and occasionally hostile interactions with healthcare professionals. We learned how to navigate these conversations with empathy & compassion.
Designing for an Apple Watch
We were surprised by the technical constraints of the Apple Watch, notably the clever industrial design creating the illusion of a larger screen which requires a #000000 header in order to avoid OS text visibly running to the edge of the screen.
Prioritization
Designing a product can take years so having a short amount of time required our team to prioritize which features and user flows were essential for the minimum viable product.
