EquOS
INFO 365
Named for equilibrium, EquOS is an OS designed to help its users get off their phones and live in the present by being minimalistic, streamlined, reliable, and balanced.

Physically closing the flip phone separates user from technology, allowing them to fully live in the moment.

Gradual grayscale encourages users to step away from the phone.

Priority & Other tabs allow the user the filter distractions and focus on the important stuff.

Darker screen and "less is more" design helps users accomplish their goals with minimal interactions.

Calendar is color-coded and shows a balance of free time and planned events.

Natural language processing speed things up by automatically creating events.

EquOS

The Creative Process

Role icon
ROle
  • UX Designer,
    UX Researcher
Calendar icon
timeline
  • Oct 2021 - Dec 2021
Sparkle icon
outcome
  • Rated 5/5 stars by Industry professionals

The Creative Process

For my Mobile Application Design course, I collaborated with classmates to create a mobile operating system and its core applications such as Messages, design language, and design system.

Binocular icon

Identifying Opportunities

We had free-flowing brainstorm sessions with lot of ideas, discussions, and energy. We narrowed the topic down to being mentally overwhelmed with notifications and hours of scrolling through social media. From there, we conducted secondary research and grouped our findings into major problems and subsequent opportunity spaces.

User research icon

Conducting User Research

To better understand user pain points regarding notifications, we sent out a survey which got over 50 responses and conducted several interviews. We also looked into what gestures people find the most intuitive when interacting with a phone.

Design icon

Translating Research Insights Into Designs

With our research insights, user personas, and use cases always at the forefront of our design decisions, we delved deeper into ideation. The UX patterns, UI components, app layouts, and interactions were designed with these design guidelines: built for smaller screens, use minimal interactions to help users achieve what they want to do, doesn’t distract users from living in the present, and make everything clear to understand instead of assuming users know how to use the design.

Feedback icon

Seeking Feedback and Making Improvements

We continued to refine the 15 apps into high-fidelity mockups and fleshed out our style guide which were guided by our user's needs, pain points, and motivations, our design principles and goals, and feedback from our professor and classmates.

Presentation icon

Presenting the Product

After countless hours of design studios, meetings, and design reviews, we proudly presented our operating system: EquOS, an OS designed not to be used. We were rated by industry professionals and received 5/5 stars for our consistent, thoughtful, and mature design & features that reflected our design language.