Foneship is a service focusing on ‘Relationship’ and ‘Phone’. It is a self-help tool for smartphone users to build a healthier relationship with their smartphones to ultimately achieve their personal digital wellbeing.
Nattanun Sainont
Hi, I'm Nattanun, you can call me shortly.. Parn :)
I’m a Product & Service Designer believing in a blend of creative and critical thinking as life pursuits. Artistic curiosity drives me to excel in diverse fields varied from the conceptual areas to the logical disciplines. Multidimensional aspects become my everyday playground with no boundaries or end in learning.
And this is how my journey begins.. I started my career path as a (Wearable) Product Designer - in other words, a Jewelry Designer. During this time I navigated through several concept-based designs. Without any jewelry background and rationale, industrial design knowledge is the only asset to apply to the new field. However, I found that the design metaphor could keep the beautiful identity of creativity alive and could help better support design thinking and practice as well. Along the way of experiential knowledge and first-hand experience, the involvement of users does primarily exist. Without the real understanding of users, design means nothing so that I decided to step into a new and challenging world as a Service Designer.
From my point of view, Service Design is a holistic approach to the perfect combination of people, business, and technology with the objective of identifying an unmet need, addressing the underlying problems, and enhancing the experience where the opportunities exist. Furthermore, Service Design is a new territory where I could develop skills in research and also help foster the capability of project management. As a result, this has shaped my thought and kept me on a right track, but still not to limit creativity so far. I, therefore, have been free from wandering around aimlessly. Instead, it has enabled me to set a meaningful goal to satisfy user’s needs and fully adopt logical reasoning, critical and creative thinking altogether.
Now.. my journey has not been complete yet. I continue this journey to further discover the right balance between the conceptual area and the logical discipline to find my secret sauce with the hope that this could bring the impact and more engaging integrated outcomes to life.
No more nomophobia..
Nomophobia - a fear of being away from the phone - has become a universal truth affecting people at all ages since it has permeated every single aspect of our lives. Most of us have been experiencing a moment living with our phones from the beginning to the end of a day. This endless social phenomenon is going from strength to strength, especially in the Covid-19 situation that could lead to a more dependency on phones. However, smartphones undoubtedly bring a great benefit to our lives, but also come with the undeniable drawback of suffering from excessive use such as sleep deficit, anxiety, stress, and depression. Before these problems of physical and mental health have been exacerbated, now it’s time to find a healthy balance of a relationship with a phone that could prove to be the right wellbeing for you.
User's voice matters.. — First, it’s realistically impossible to stop using a smartphone as it is a part of our daily lives. Second, achieving a personal wellbeing goal and lifestyle is a key. Reducing time spent on a smartphone is just a quick-fix solution. Lastly, compulsive behavior could cause an unnecessary journey leading to a smartphone addiction. Based on these findings, we came up with.. How might we help smartphone users with nomophobia to achieve their wellbeing through a healthy relationship with their phones.
This is just a beginning.. — Foneship is aimed at helping users achieve their wellbeing of daily activities between on phone and off phone. Our strategy is to provide a tailored support for self-control over the use of applications to tackle compulsive behaviors, by offering a healthy balance that is right for individuals. Next, this idea will be applied to all electronic devices. In the future, we also plan to quantify relationships and make a balance between productivity and intimacy to become a comprehensive platform for wellbeing.
Learn fast fail fast..
We conducted several workshops with end-users and professionals to improve our service. During 3 rounds of prototyping, we proved some ideas and also removed some parts according to users' feedback and technical feasibility. Also, we found that greyscale could help users feel less interested in their screens. To ensure an effective idea of greyscale, we used some metaphors such as paper alarms for the validation. The participants like the grayscale screen since without the color they totally lose their interest and also find the provocative text helpful to help reconsider the usage of smartphones. After all, this is how our final service, Foneship, comes in.
We're here to help..
Foneship is a self-help tool to help users build their digital wellbeing with their phones through only 4 steps – register, onboard, use, get a report and tips. Users need to register when they first access Foneship. Then onboarding will help them set up their preferences and wellbeing goals with two options as a facilitator. For users who are not clear with their goal, they can take a short survey covering their habits and desire. For those who are clear, they can set it up manually. Foneship will then automatically create modes and relative apps according to the survey and users’ previous screen time report. These apps are divided into priority apps standing for users’ priority tasks and optional apps meaning apps of distraction under a certain mode. Users only need to go through registration and onboard, then they could continuously use our service, get reports and tips.
A simple start.. — In the beginning, users will be welcome with the introduction showing the values they will be provided. Next, users will go through the process of account creation using their email, phone no, and password, followed by giving a permission for our service to access their screen phone report.
Ready-to-use modes.. — Once they finish survey, Foneship will auto-create modes and relative apps according to both the goal setup and users’ previous screen time report. If the auto-create is not satisfying, users can always adjust them manually. Speaking of modes, there are priority apps which stand for users’ priority tasks, and optional apps which means apps of distraction under this mode.
A friendlier nudge.. — To help users focus on priority tasks, Foneship constrains the time that could be spent on optional apps. The algorithm behind is based on the users’ willingness from the survey, and the time they spend on priority apps which is users’ behavior. While users are using optional apps, the screen will gradually become greyscale and totally become white. When the time reaches the limit, provocative text and notification will appear to remind users to be more aware of unhealthy behavior.
Greyscale.. — Our core service feature, a strategic tool for friendlier nudge, is scientifically proven to be a quick cure to smartphone addiction by stripping away all the neuron-stimulating colors on smartphones, then users will be less motivated to use their phone.
Self reflection.. — Foneship will record their smartphone behavior in 2 types of reports, first, a multi-dimensional data report where users can check their behavior in diagram format from different perspectives.
Visual animations.. — Second, a status tag showing their behavior with real-time change through a transition of color and shape. The result will be displayed in both our application and a physical globe, aiming to help users to check behavior more conveniently.
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