Limitless
Limitless is a mobile app designed to gamify personal growth, enabling users to set and compete with friends on developmental goals. As one of two product designers, I conducted user research to uncover key insights into user attitudes toward personal development. Based on this research, I crafted the app’s prototype, presented at Sigma Eta Pi’s pitch night at USC. Limitless earned third place among all pitches.
DURATION
Oct 2022 - Dec 2022 (2 months)
ROLE
Product Designer/UX Researcher
TEAM
2 Designers + 2 co-founders
Overview
The Problem
The Solution
Research indicates that 70% of individuals fail to achieve their goals primarily due to a lack of self-discipline and insufficient external motivation. Without the right structure or support system in place, many struggle to stay on track, becoming easily discouraged or distracted by competing priorities.
Gamify personal development. Individuals can consistently uphold their goals while enjoying the process by using a multiplayer platform like Limitless, which leverages external pressure through friendly competition to maintain accountability.
User Research
To better understand our users and their needs, we sent out a survey and received over 150 responses. Here's what we asked!
1. How often do you find yourself falling short of personal development goals (ie consistently exercising for a certain amount of time or number of times, getting enough hours of sleep, or decreasing your screen time)?
2. Do you think your consistency with these healthy habits would improve if you were competing with your friends and being held accountable by them?
3. Out of these options, which activities would you want to improve in?
Please select your top 3:
a) Exercising more consistently b) Lowering your screen time
c) Getting more sleep d) Eating healthier e) Keeping up with current events
Our Findings:
Question 1: Respondents who rated themselves closer to 5 (falling short frequently) on the personal development goal scale indicated that lack of time management and external accountability were key challenges.
This suggests that integrating a time-tracking feature or reminders within the app could help users stay on track with their goals. Additionally, showing progress toward smaller milestones could encourage more frequent wins, helping users feel accomplished even with minor improvements.
Question 2: Out of the 75% of respondents who said their consistency would improve with competition, many indicated that they value friendly rivalry over strict accountability.
This illustrates that adding gamified elements, such as leaderboards or personalized challenges between friends, could motivate users without making the experience overly stressful.
Question 3: The majority of respondents selected Exercising more consistently and Lowering screen time as their top two areas for improvement, reflecting a general desire for better physical health and digital balance.
This suggests that Limitless could benefit from integrating exercise tracking and screen time monitoring as key features, with the option to set specific goals around these areas. Allowing users to track their progress visually through graphs or streaks would create more engagement.
User Personas
Our main target audience for Limitless is college students ages 18-24. We created personas to better empathize with our users and improve our product's user flow.
Ideating
After conducting user research for our target audience, my team and I began ideating. Here are some of our thought processes in our brainstorming session where we came up with feature ideas.
Features: We wanted to especially emphasize the Social Aspect, Point System, and Betting Amount in order to combat users pain points from our findings in user research.
Our Features At a Glance
1) Create a Challenge
Choose a challenge to compete with your friends. Limitless currently offers three challenges: minimizing screen time, most steps walked in a day, and maintaining a healthier sleep schedule.
2) Personal Dashboard
Keep track of your progress on your Dashboard. Players can check out their ongoing challenges with friends, as well as their Weekly Objectives to complete for more points or LMTs.
3) Track Individual Challenges
Want to know how you're doing against your friends? Through this feature, you and your friends can see who's in the lead, the total betting amount, and your personal statistics.
Final Prototype
Check out Limitless' final prototype that was presented at Sigma Eta Pi's (the premier startup society at USC) startup pitch night and won 3rd overall!
