Wellpaper Mobile Application by Oneplus Usa Is Granted the Bronze A' Design Award in Mobile Technologies, Applications and Software Design

The Work

Project

Wellpaper Mobile Application

Function

Mobile Application

Category

Mobile Technologies, Applications and Software Design

Discipline

Communication Design

Industry

Software and Electronics & Appliances

Colors

Brown, Black, Midnight Blue, Dark Slate Gray and Dark Gray

Images

5

The Recognition

Laureate

Oneplus Usa

Country

United States of America

Recognition

Bronze A' Design Award

Edition

2021 - 2022

Design ID

#132654

Credits

Team

Mingxiao Hu, Yichen Wang, Soojin Park, Jie Qian, MinYen Hsieh, Sam Twist, Andi Lawley, Avinash Chitturi and Sagare Chetan Basawaraj

Image Credits

ONEPLUS USA Corp.

Design Details

Unique Properties

WellPaper is a mobile app that display's users' screen time and smartphone usage through five creative and dynamic wallpapers. The existing screen time monitoring tools are bland and uninspiring to the user, or deeply hidden in the settings, giving users little reason to return to use the information. WellPaper organizes all installed apps into six categories and tracks their screen times, allowing users to visualize and better understand their day-to-day smartphone habits in an aesthetic way right on the home screen. Users can choose from 5 distinctive wallpaper designs: Composition - Inspired by Piet Mondrian's "Composition No.

Inspiration

During the pandemic, screen times have increased, especially on mobile devices. Alongside that, there has been an increase in usage of tools for digital wellbeing such as Insight AOD or Zen Mode previously built by OnePlus. Both Android and iOS operating systems have their own digital wellbeing sections, but from user research, we discovered that users rarely use these stock tools since they are hidden in the settings - a place rarely visited - and the charts and lists are simply unattractive. We focus on addressing two increasing user needs in this project: 1. To support smartphone users' increasing need for device personalization.

Research

During the design phase, we launched a survey to prioritize the 5 design styles we had. The survey was designed using the MaxDiff method on Google form, and Excel was used for analyzing. It was launched in the internal team and the OnePlus Beta Testing users and received 138 valid responses. It turned out that users preferred the more aesthetic styles over the functional ones. Based on the result, we clarified the product strategy to ensure the usability of wallpapers before adding extra values and decided to prioritize the two styles called Radial and Composition which were best received.

Challenge

The development team used Android Canvas to develop the wallpapers but it has limits in creating the shadow and blur effects. While the developers used the radial color with a large radius to simulate the blur effect, designers exported multiple sets of assets to represent different stages of the dynamic wallpaper. The team was able to realize 85% of the original wallpaper design through this collaboration.

Realization and Technology

After the user research and competitive analysis, the design team actively sought inspiration from different channels to satisfy the different tastes of Android users. From analyzing popular wallpaper apps on the Play Store, to looking into the trending movies and games, then to visiting museums in the New York City including MoMA and the MET, we had concluded eight distinctive directions. We sent the design concepts to OnePlus tester community and internal employees to get feedback, and eventually picked three concepts, Composition, Glow, and Radial to develop in the first season, Cosmos and Botanical Garden for the second season. At the same time, we were designing the mobile app.

Operation and Interaction

Users start with an onboarding process that introduces the core features, terms and conditions, and asks for access to app usage data. Upon granting access, users proceed to the home screen to see all the five wallpaper designs. Users can select a wallpaper to view an introduction of its design and interaction, then set it as the system wallpaper. Back to the home screen, users can swipe left to see the Screen Time tab, which contains the daily screen time target and all six app categories. The default daily screen time target is set to 3.5 hours based on statistics and the users can change it anytime.

Project Duration and Location

The project started in May 2021 and finished in September 2021 in New York City, USA. Our global team is based across Shenzhen, Taipei, Hydrabad, London, and New York. During this time we did not meet in person at all and conducted everything virtually.

Specifications

High battery consumption is always the major concern people have on live wallpapers. To address this concern, WellPaper uses the screen time of six app categories to calculate and render a static wallpaper, then update it upon unlocks rather than always running in the background. There is also a frequency limit of five minutes to avoid frequent unlocks. In this way, WellPaper is able to provide the visual perk of a dynamic wallpaper, but greatly reduces the battery consumption to a level that is close to the static wallpaper.

Keywords

Digital Wellbeing, Wallpaper, Android, Customization, Mobile Application