Beneficial Communal Meditation

Smartphones: Friend or Foe?

Smartphones are amazing, but the business models of the tech giants lead to the pinnacles of addicting technology in everyone's pocket.

Challenge

How can smartphones be redesigned to help smartphone addicts with the development of a mindful lifestyle?

Process

I spoke with many experts on mindfulness, addiction, and software entrepreneurs. I also interviewed lots of people that struggle with controlling their habits surrounding smartphones and discovered that some of the design decisions behind smartphones and their software are not putting humans first. I validated lots of ideas and tested with the same audience to incorporate their feedback.

Results

Lots of concepts, like the Beneficial communal meditation app, turned out to fall in the same patterns of software that proved to not be successful. Continuous iteration and reflecting enabled me to have a go at redefining the software running the devices.

Learnings

This particular concept did not at all achieve what it was designed for. It did help me uncover to not perceive smartphones the way I was used to, but to look at the foundational issues, and redefine their Operating Systems. It ended up leading to the creation of Human Phones, a tool that enables people to map out their habits and design their phones in a way that supports them in these habits.

I wrote an extensive case study, which can be found here: Human Phones case study