Case Study Coming Soon
The all-in-one app that will finally make a difference in the lives of women struggling to calm the chaos and regain focus. After going undiagnosed for decades, you can finally make sense of things, knowing it was ADHD all along. Now you can turn to Breakthroughs for the coping methods, guidance, and tools you need, to get things done.
The purpose of this project is to learn more about women who've been diagnosed with ADHD as adults, and how we can ease their daily frustrations or struggles. The goal is to develop a user-centered solution that supports their needs, enhance their daily functioning, and promote overall well-being
Have you ever taken 20 minutes to find your keys, then left your freshly made coffee on the counter, forgotten your work laptop, and somehow gotten off on the wrong exit on the way to work all before 9am on a random Tuesday? (Did we mention you were up until 2:30am finishing the brief you thought would take half an hour?)
Let's just say I know people who have, and it wasn't until everything started hitting the fan, that they looked to a professional for help. That's when they realized they weren't "just spacey," they had ADHD.
I chose to find a solution using secondary research, extensive interviews with my target demographic to develop a digital product that would address the multifaceted manifestations of this disorder, while creating a simple and beautiful design to delight and engage users. Read more about my process below, or jump right into the prototype.
Many of these girls find ways to cope with their symptoms, but as they grow older, they find the day-to-day responsibilities of work, home, kids, and self-care somehow seem like too much to handle, and something is always falling through the cracks.
Then they start looking for answers.
But once they finally get their diagnosis, there's still the struggle of learning about the disorder, finding support, and getting treatment.
ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects behaviors, and usually leads to constant patterns of inattention, hyperactivity, forgetfulness, or impulsivity. These patterns can lead to challenges in how people function on a daily basis.
And while it's now believed that a similar percentage of boys and girls can have ADHD, that wasn't always the case.
This is what people used to think ADHD looked like...
Despite more than a century of research and thousands of published studies, ADHD remains largely misunderstood by the public. Women and girls experience the same general symptoms of ADHD as men and boys, but the way they're expressed can appear different. This difference in expression has historically been one of the reasons girls and women are underdiagnosed.
Before more research was done in the 1980's the ratio of diagnosed cases among boys vs. girls was 25:1.
For decades, it was thought that ADHD was primarily a condition in boys and some men. But we now know this to be inaccurate.
The current ratio of diagnosed cases among males vs females is slightly less than 3:1.
So, while women still receive fewer diagnoses for ADHD, the gap between in overall prevalence has at least narrowed.
They finally sought out help as adults. The percentage of women newly diagnosed with ADHD from 23–29 and 30–49 years of age nearly doubled from 2020 to 2022.
For my primary research, I chose to with the decontextualized method of qualitative user interviews. I was able to get detailed responses and when necessary, dig deeper with follow-up questions. Through these interviews, I found that women diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood:
"I was just having a lot of brain fog and I was kind of hopping from job to job. Things just weren't really clicking for me and I was talking to my doctor about it, and she was actually the one who brought up that I might have ADHD."
"What’s been most helpful for me is just more information about how it can present and what it looks like. It helps people realize like, 'Okay, this isn't because I'm lazy or this isn't because I'm dumb. This is because my brain is different.'"
"The two biggest things are that I space out and I don't hear things and I don't know what's going on. And I have no idea how time works."
The main symptoms of the women I interviewed included:
After my interviews, I used my transcripts to break out all of the relevant data points, and I organized them into pain points, motivations, and behaviors, which looked something like this...
I was then able to gather themes and insights by grouping my interviews together based on similar data points. The themes included:
I then decided to focus on what the data showed to be compelling theme & insight:
Symptoms & Strategies
There's a critical need for a deeper understanding of the impacts of ADHD, especially for women diagnosed as adults. These women are looking for effective strategies to help manage symptoms and improve their daily lives.
Based on this information I revised my initial How Might We to the following:
How might we help women in the U.S. who were diagnosed with ADHD as adults easily access coping strategies and treatment information in order to help them feel empowered, manage their symptoms, and address their unique needs?
Using my secondary and primary research findings, I came up with an example of the typical user I would be solving for with this app.
I also created a journey map, to help visualize how users like Noemi currently experience the journey that comes with navigating the uncharted waters of an ADHD diagnosis.
After creating dozens of user stories based on my persona’s likely wants and needs, I sorted them into epics to help guide our solution.
Out of my five epics, I chose one to focus on for the next steps of this project - Improve my planning and time management.
I chose this epic as it touches on a lot of aspects of the daily lives of women with ADHD. There are several digital solutions we can provide to address these issues, which are usually a result of inattention, time blindness and forgetfulness.
User Story #1: As a woman diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood, I want a feature that syncs with my existing calendars, so that I can choose to incorporate work and personal commitments into a planning tool.
User Story #2: As a woman diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood, I want to easily prioritize and categorize my tasks by importance and urgency, so that I can focus on what needs to get done first and reduce overwhelm.
User Story #3: As a woman diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood, I want a simple clock/timer feature I can use at any time so that I can have the visual cues I need to stay on track.
I based my task flow on these stories. The flow will walk through the steps the user would take to complete a task from her list using a focus session, after receiving a notification from the app. She will then choose how she will be rewarded for completing the task, as the app provides external motivation to help the user accomplish her goals.
With my task flow decided, it was time to move into the design phase of the project, where I worked on developing easy-to-use digital solutions that will provide features that are helpful to our user. I created multiple sketches for each of the screens.
From those exploratory sketches I chose my solution sketches to base my wireframes on.
Next it was time to turn these screens into a usable prototype to get valuable feedback from potential users. I did two rounds of tests with people in my target demographic: Women between 23 and 49 years old who were diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood.
I got amazing feedback from users and made several changes and updates that I then incorporated into my final designs.
I started the brand development process by choosing words that described what this product will accomplish, and the feelings it intends to evoke from users, based on the solutions my target demographic is looking for.
I also used the "More A than B" method to describe the purpose, goals, and features of my app, through nuanced or contrasting comparisons. Some examples include:
Why I chose "Breakthroughs": Much of the feedback I got from my primary research was about the significance of getting an ADHD diagnosis, and that it was something similar to an AHA moment, combined with a sense of relief.
"Breakthroughs" speaks to that initial feeling of making sense of everything, while also alluding to the potential breakthroughs the user still wants and hopes to make to address their symptoms... which is what this product is all about.
After a lot of debate, I settled on an inspirational and uplifting representation for my mood board, to express what I want this app to provide for my users.
The visual representations I chose is based on my research and my brand name "Breakthroughs." and my brand development process. I also encompassed the feelings from my brand descriptions and "More A Than B" comparisonsThis is the 2nd iteration of my colors after getting feedback from educators. The colors have several meanings that tie in to my brand:
For my font, I went for a clean and modern look, with Urbanist.
My wordmark is meant to be inspiring and reminiscent of a sunrise. I also chose heavy serif font to make an impact.
My app icon also follows a similar and simple style.
I truly believe that this app would be an amazing solution to a very real problem. The features will help women be more productive, find the answers they need, and keep them motivated with a unique reward system and by keeping track of their habits, symptoms, and progress.
Through the development of this app, I've learned a lot about myself, as well as the UX design process.
The information and feedback I received through my interviews and usability testing was invaluable. From learning about the ins and outs of ADHD, to getting advice and tips on how to make the app best serve my users, the experience was extremely beneficial.
While the final prototype is clean, straightforward, and easy to use, I learned about new ways to design during this process and came across inspiring that I look forward to implementing as I build out this app and in future projects.