WellPaper
Background
Through extensive user research and analysis of the social trends during the global pandemic, it became evident that millennials and Gen-Zs were facing two challenges: a surge in screen time and a decline in productivity. These issues were primarily attributed to the prevalence of remote work and quarantines.
Building on the success of Zen Mode in 2019, I aimed to offer a gentler approach to help individuals gain insights into their daily smartphone usage. Simultaneously, I recognized the importance of providing young users with unique and highly personalized wallpaper to serve as an expression of their identities.
Concept: a Digital Well-being Wallpaper App
WellPaper categorizes all installed app into six predefined groups: Entertainment, Games, Information and Business, Lifestyle and Communication, Social, and Tools. Each of these categories is associated with a distinct visual element on the wallpaper concept.
What sets WellPaper apart is its dynamic nature. The visual representation of each category evolves throughout the day, offering a nearly real-time reflection of the total screen time consumed by apps in that specific category.
To encourage healthier screen time habits, users have the option to set a daily screen time target. Incorporated into the wallpaper design, users can instantly see their progress towards this target, presented in a visually appealing way. As an additional layer of support, WellPaper will gently reminds users when they exceed their screen time target, providing a subtle yet effective nudge towards more mindful phone usage.
Design Challenge: Balancing Diversity and Consistency
Wallpapers serve as deeply personal customizations on mobile devices, reflecting individual tastes and preferences. Crafting wallpapers that resonate with our diverse user community posed a significant design challenge.
Together, these concepts needed to cater to various aesthetic sensibilities while upholding a sense of overall cohesion and consistency.
To address this challenge, I engaged our community through three rounds of polling, resulting in the selection of six wallpaper concepts. Some of them are:
Composition: inspired by Piet Mondrian’s iconic works Composition II and III, this concept presents six colored tiles across the screen. These tiles dynamically represent dominant app categories in a user’s screen time. A simple tap on a tile reveals detailed screen time data.
Glow: Drawing inspiration from the neon-lit cityscapes of cyberpunk classics like Blade Runner and Cyberpunk 2077, the “Glow” concept presents a dynamic neon ring visualization. Each ring thickens as screen time accumulates, reaching maximum width upon achieving the daily screen time target.
Botanical Garden: Inspired by Alex Katz’s “Tulip 4” painting, this concept visually links the growth of a flower to increased screen time in specific categories. A blossoming red flower at the screen’s center subtly indicates extended time spent on entertainment apps.
Although the visual styles are different, my goal was to ensure a seamless transition between themes without disrupting user progress. To strike this balance between diversity and consistency, I placed category representations on consistent locations on the screen, while maintained a uniform color hue for each category across all wallpapers. This approach ensures users can choose from six diverse wallpapers while maintaining a sense of familiarity and coherence.
Design Iteration: Category Configuration for Edge Cases
Following the launch of WellPaper on the Play Store and within the OnePlus community, the app garnered increasing attention and usage, resulting in valuable user feedback and inquiries that uncovered several unanticipated edge cases.
Some users who had side-loaded apps onto their devices found that these apps couldn’t be categorized since they were not labeled by the Play Store. Additionally, there were users who expressed dissatisfaction with our app categorization, suggesting that apps like Instagram should belong under “Entertainment” rather than “Social.” Furthermore, some users voiced concerns about sensitive apps’ screen time being tracked and visualized on their wallpapers.
These feedback indicated that WellPaper had evolved into an integral part of users’ digital lives. In response to this feedback, the first major update introduced a “Category Configuration” feature. This feature introduced a new category called “Do not track this app,” which conveniently housed all side-loaded apps. With the ability to manually assign apps to different categories, users could now accurately monitor their side-loaded apps and relegate any apps they didn’t wish to track to this new category.
While users also requested the ability to customize every color on the wallpaper, this feature was not implemented due to considerations related to accessibility and maintaining design consistency through themes.
Achievement and Impact
Since its launch, WellPaper has been featured in over 30 digital media outlets and podcasts, solidifying its status as one of the Best Innovative Tech in year 2021, as recognized by ZDNet.
In 2022, WellPaper achieved further distinction by winning prestigious design awards. It received both the iF Design Award and the A’ Design Award & Competition, with excellence in concept design and user experience.
I take pride in the fact that WellPaper has made a meaningful impact on over 160,000 users from the Android community, aiding them in gaining a deeper understanding of their digital habits and ultimately allowing them to exercise better control over their screen time.
