User Persona: Scatterbrain Sally

[sab747]

scatterbrain sally

Background and Demographic Information

• Nickname: Scatterbrain Sally
• Demographics: Adolescents and young adults with ADHD
• Overheard quote: Watching squirrels "Oh look! A social media app!"

Narrative

• Scatterbrain Sally is a sophomore in college majoring in econ. Like a signficant portion of students at the college, Sally has been diagnosed with ADHD. Having ADHD already makes it hard for Sally to write their papers for the distribs she is taking that term (on top of having to balance recruiting, replying to friends, etc). However, having ADHD also makes Sally susceptible to social media addiction as it's an easy task that offers endless distraction. Furthermore, scrolling through social media apps like TikTok is both mindless and rewarding, which can cause Sally to stay on social media and lose track of time. Not to mention, Sally completely forgets to text back their friend to let them know that they are stuck in the stacks and can't make time for dinner that day.*

Behavioral and Dimensional Information

• Goals and Motivations:

  • Become more mindful and aware of what they are doing (realizing that they are scrolling through social media and wasting time)
  • Break out of the infinite scroll, which can be even more so of a mind trap for someone with ADHD
  • Combat social media addiction (or any type of digital/internet addiction)

• Tasks:

  • Super easy, visible reward randomly appearing while using social media (or a different app)
  • Simple, enticing way to exit social media and launch our app
  • Make tasks/game not seem like a chore, which is unfortunately often the case with typical mindfulness activities/apps (meditation, journaling, etc.)

• Pain Points, Concerns, and Challenges:

  • Scrolling through social media is the type of mindless action that can become extremely addictive for someone with ADHD (what I call "hyperfocus" mode, seems counterintuitive but makes sense since social media is the perfect distraction)
  • The ADHD mind is reluctant to switch to an activity that requires more brain-power/effort compared to what the person is currently doing
  • Meditation, breathing exercises, etc. can seem daunting for someone with ADHD (especially for the hyperactive-impulsive type)

• User Flow
  (describe a typical scenario of the user interacting with your product – this is a short ordered list of actions)

  1. Sally has a paper due tomorrow at midnight that they want to start working on
  2. Sally pulls out their phone, sees TikTok and opens the app
  3. Sally starts scrolling through TikTok and loses track of time
  4. A push notification appears after at least 15 minutes of scrolling offering an easy reward for a simple, addictive game that Sally just installed
  5. Sally clicks the push notification (super easy to do), which launches Breeze
  6. They earn a reward and are presented with options to earn even better rewards by doing a simple task (which is aimed at improving mindfulness; however, this purpose is not overtly apparent in order to fool Sally)
  7. By opening Breeze and doing a short task (< 5 minutes), the flow of scrolling through social media is broken and Sally now has the oppurtunity to jump to another activity (such as their paper)