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“Smoke Coach”

Creators: Elias, Ann, Oleyrys, and Trillion
High School Students from Mouse & DIIT Design League @ HS of Media & Communications
SMOKECOACH

About this Project:

“Smoke Coach" is a mobile application that wants to help curb underage/teen smoking, by motivating others to not smoke, and to solve addiction. The goal of SmokeCoach is to give teenagers (from ages 13-17) a way to solve addiction and underage smoking in general, by giving them motivation and things to do other than smoking.


The students chose their target user and based on who they wanted to target, they were placed in their teams. I just helped facilitate. Then, they interviewed the youth engagement manager and three teen leaders from Reality Check, a program of NYC Smoke-Free. The team met to synthesize the interview. They brainstormed what challenges "teen smokers" face and chose one issue to focus on.


Lastly, they created their initial design on Figma. They have shared the wire-frames of their design with the folks they interviewed at Reality Check from Smoke-Free.


At this point they are waiting for feedback before moving onto the programming part of the project. Once changes are made based on the feedback they received, they will move on to coding using Figma. Figma is new to them as it is to me, so I will be learning with them.

Project Media

Images

Untitled presentation 6
Untitled presentation 5

Slides

Video

More About this Project

1. The attached image is a screenshot of sections of the app’s design.


2. The video is to the interview that the team did with leaders of the program, Reality Check with NYC SMOKE-FREE


3. The Google Slides link is the team’s final presentation

Share this project:

Community Feedback:

👾 
Fun
🚀 
Innovative
🌎 
Helpful
🌈 
Great Design
💡 
Makes Me Think

Feedback from the Judges:

👏 Chief of Staff at Mouse — Emoti-Con Judge
This idea is innovative, well thought out, and has the potential for major social impact. I love how you make this concept of quitting smoking an interactive, engaging, and accountable experience for the user.

Your interviews and research were extremely thorough. Your designs were clear and showed what you wanted the user to experience and how you wanted them to do it through your user flow.

I encourage you to continue working on this app and to follow the feedback that you received from another judge - to make the educational portion of your app more engaging by utilizing more visuals.

If this is a successful app, can you see this expanding to other areas of focus? How can you utilize this accountability app and social community to help more people?

Great job!

👏 Physics Teacher at St. Bernard's School — Emoti-Con Judge
This app can have a real impact on the health of many teens and I applaud your desire to solve this new but rapidly growing problem. The amount of effort and thought your team has put into this project is admirable. Your wireframes are professional, attractive, and bring your idea to life. The idea to include a social component to your app is brilliant and will give teens the support they need from their community of friends. I really enjoyed reading the "peace path" in the slideshow. It clearly shows your user journey and outlines the purpose of your app well. Keep up the good work and I can’t wait to see how your project develops!

👏 MFA Design and Technology Student at Parsons School of Design — Emoti-Con Judge
Really love the motivations behind the project, the detailed research process, and the documentation of all the steps leading to your current iteration! I particularly appreciated how you consistently adapted your app features to accommodate new information revealed through your interviews. Interviewing people trained and actively helping others to quit smoking have provided many invaluable insights, which you have duly incorporated.

I am curious as to what people who have experienced smoking firsthand have to say, especially those who have successfully quit. What motivated them to pick up smoking, and what made them quit? How do smokers, besides being key stakeholders themselves, affect other stakeholders? What other research is available regarding smoking cessation intervention (Google Scholar can be a great place to start)? More relevantly, which interventions can you incorporate in a social app, such as the one you have created? How will you know when you have succeeded in your goals to help teenagers quit smoking?

All in all, an impressive attempt with great potential for impact. Looking forward to see your progress!

👏 We Need 2 Talk & The Equity & Disproportionality Lab at Temple University — Emoti-Con Judge
This app is a great response to a very real problem. Your research is so thorough, and I really enjoyed seeing your process so clearly displayed in your slides. In particular, the issues of teens being the targets of marketing and the normalizing of vaping really make the case for media literacy as one facet of anti-smoking education. I also appreciate that you are working collaboratively with a group who has been engaged in smoking cessation work with teens who can guide you with their expertise. Partnerships within communities of activists are so important!

The feedback you received from the tech media judge about making the educational component more robust seems like a great suggestion. It also combines well with the social aspects of the app, since users can share what they learn and give each other strength and support as they learn together.

This app has real potential, great job!

👏 Owner, Executive Producer at Wildcat NYC — Emoti-Con Judge
This app is a thoughtful way to address a significant issue within a specific demographic. To my knowledge most smoking cessation apps are targeted to adults, so targeting this to teens fills a unique market that is not currently being served – important, impressive, and very smart from a business perspective too!

The addition of the social element is very clever, as it will lead to increased engagement and builds a community and support system for the user. Including the financial element is also a nice addition as an added layer of motivation. It’s clear that the user experience has been well considered.

It would be exciting to see ways these concepts can be pushed further. Perhaps there could be a way to include savings goals into the financial component – i.e., user can input a goal to save X amount of money to put towards a new phone, tickets to an event, etc. The app then tracks the savings progress to meet that goal. This could also combine with the social element and groups of friends could work towards goals together – like saving for a trip to the beach, or to go out to dinner together, etc. It’s clear that having inventive incentives along the journey will be key to the user reaching their goal. With your unique voice and creativity, it would be exciting to see what teen-specific and original ideas you can build out!

It’s evident that this project has been very well researched. Your presentation and designs are impressive! This has the potential to have a real impact. Great work!

Feedback from the Community:

Laura Ogando 👏 a Technology Professional from NYC DOE, DIIT
I love the concept of this project and how it's aimed at helping solve a real problem for teenagers. I think that you have a really great plan and I would love to see how this could expand to maybe even target other age groups or populations of smokers. Overall great project!