HONEYBUDDY
ROLE
Lead UX Designer
Lead UX Researcher
TOOLKIT
Figma, Miro, Adobe Illustrator
TEAM
3 Designers
(Ashley Cha & Hayoung Ryow)
TIMELINE
2 Days (2025)
OVERVIEW
"HoneyBuddy" is an AI-powered habit tracking and gamified community challenges to make goals easier for busy college students. This project was awarded Best User Interface Design at Rice's 2025 Design-a-thon.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
USER RESEARCH
Core Pain Points & Behaviors
Through 11 one-on-one user interviews and 47 survey responses we identified college students core pain points and phone usages. We focused on three key insights:
Findings
Design Implications
90% of students want to improve, but lack of time and motivation are the biggest hindering factors.
Students should be able to track their goals and habits efficiently with consistent reminders.
70% of students have their phones within arm's reach nearly 100% of the time.
The system should leverage student's proximity to their phones.
Most wanted improvements are eating healthy and exercising.
The application should leveraged shared goals and social engagement to provide motivation and accountability.
SOLUTION
AI-Powered & Community Focused Habit Tracking App
To support students in building successful habits while juggling busy schedule the app have the following key features:
Community challenges that provides external motivation and accountability
Gamified elements, such as badges and streaks, as motivation
AI-powered chatbot for quick habit creations
Widget & personalized notification for low friction visual reminders and encouragements
My Key Contributions
Strategic Problem Solving: Led concept ideation by synthesizing user research to identify core needs and then creating effective feature sets that successfully addressed foundational user challenges.
Interaction Design & Flow: Designed and tested key pages (Challenges, Goals, and Chatbot) by focusing on simple layout and clear navigation so users can effortlessly complete tasks.
Prototype & Design System: Built the working prototype and established the comprehensive Style Guide for usability and consistency.
KEY FEATURES
Weekly Challenges & Personal Goals
Weekly challenges are designed to inspire and motivate students to achieve a healthy lifestyle together with their community. Streaks and badges also provide additional motivation for students to keep up with their goals.
KEY FEATURES
AI-Powered Goal Creation Chatbot
Using an AI chatbot instead of a traditional form-style goal-setting approach offers greater flexibility. Users can share the goals they want to achieve and the chatbot provides personalized suggestions on how to accomplish them based on their current habits.
KEY FEATURES
Widget & Notification
To accommodate college students' busy schedules, we aim to create the most effortless way to achieve goals. This is achieved through a home screen widget that delivers visual reminders and notifications that provide periodic encouragement. The app also leverages data such as screen time and motion to offer lifestyle suggestions through notifications. Some examples are: "take a walk" or "put the phone down for a break."
