Zēno is a hands-on project that allows students such as myself to discover what creating design in a group setting feels like. From my personal experience, I can proudly say that there is beauty when a group of designers come together and provide different strengths to the group to overcome any individual weaknesses someone may be experiencing. Zēno is a small group consisting of three designers, Rachel Cheng leading design thinking exercises, brainstorms, and creating the UI portions with Zhen Li. Zhen also displays her skills by adapting the brand into a website and thoroughly completing our competitive analysis to help push Zēno to be as original and unique as it can be. As for myself, my group members put their trust in developing and leading the brand direction, prototypes and the overall voice of Zēno through design sprints and a user research study. The overall UX portion was a collaborative effort involving our group to constantly meet up once or twice a week to brainstorm over and over, until we found a topic that we could all passionately develop.

The Problem

Living in today’s day and age, students and young adults are constantly entering stressful and anxious environments causing them to feel a variety of negative emotions ranging from anger, anxiety, or disappointment. With the uncertainty of discovering who they are, or where they will end up working in the future, or finding their perfect match, it is only natural for people within this age group to feel anxious about the expectations of obtaining a successful lifestyle, and we want to fix that, even if it’s just by a little bit.

Introducing Zēno!

Zēno is a smart fidget toy that tracks and displays data on the fidgets you make through the smart toy. When paired with the mobile app users gain the ability to visualize data to better understand when, where or what could possibly be stressing them out. Zēno’s main purpose is to ease the user away from stressful environments allowing them to take a quick break, or simply to take a step away before re-entering a stressful environment. Zēno’s objective is to help manage a healthy level of stress rather than letting it build up to the point of discouraging users towards reaching their goals.

Branding

Zēno's branding begins with three key values that we think are the most important for our users to feel when using Zēno. Ambience, Serenity, and Accesiblity. When using Zēno the smart toy should feel ambient and not something that requires a lot of thinking or structure. Serenity is the end goal that we want our users to feel after fidgeting or taking a break with Zēno. Our users need to feel relaxed, and ready to take on the struggles ahead of them. Lastly, Zēno will always be accessible for our users, allowing them to feel comfort through a reliable companion.

Zēno's branding is colourful and reflects inspiration from gathering images that reflect our three key value words, ambient, serenity, and accesiblitiy. Zēno also incorporates basic iconography to keep the mood of the app lighthearted and fun to use. 

If you like what you see or want to get in touch, feel free to contact me! I would love to hear from you :)