The Code Literacy Final
Initial Problem: A lot of time spent on social media websites isn’t necessarily productive, it’s habitual; we tap into pinterest or instagram or facebook without even thinking about it and without any actual need.
Initial Research: There an countless time-tracking apps that can show you how much time you spend on certain websites, or on your phone in general. Most of these involve complex dashboards and all use screen-based interfaces.
Revised Problem: How do we gently remind users of their social media usage habits so they are empowered to make chage themselves without becoming overwhelmed with data or having to engage in further screen time?
Solution Proposal: A small, phyiscal device that gently reminds the user of the time spend on certain sites so that they can build an awareness of their habits. Ideally, this will cause the user to think twice during the day before lifting up their phone, but should not be guilt-inducing or confusing, rather serve as a tool for awareness building and personal change. Additionally, it will involve no screen-time after set-up.
- Application Component Users will initially use an existing framework for time tracking called ResucueTime. The user can choose which websites they would like monitored and what their desired monitoring times are. After this, the user need not enter this application ever again unless they wish to make changes to these base settings.
- Physical Component Using the existing behavior of a user having to plug in their phone regularly to charge, generally at day’s end, the physical device will interact with the user at this point. Ideally, the device will sit at the center point of the charging cord and be plugged into the wall; the phone will be plugged into the device. When plugged in the device will illuminate a certain color based on whether you have gone over your self-set limits.
Proposed Functionality: When plugged in, a light device uses an API from RescueTime to share daily website usage, and, depedning on a users imposed limits, the device turns a certain color. Example: blue for under your set limit, purple for at your limit (give or take a bit), Red for decidedly over your limit.