Seak | Devpost

Figma file link with various histories open: https://www.figma.com/design/Nw7fqKos7Wu1QhCg7Fj90V/Seak?node-id=172%3A1929&t=X9dlxhYFWYgwKYvN-1

Interactable Figma Prototype Link: https://www.figma.com/proto/Nw7fqKos7Wu1QhCg7Fj90V/Seak?node-id=203-10550&t=oErwoh95uLFv5Lti-1&scaling=scale-down&page-id=17%3A3&starting-point-node-id=203%3A10525&show-proto-sidebar=1

Like to video demo of product: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KVM1ApriO0

Free Response: Briefly describe your project in relation to the challenge prompt (200 words) People struggle to creatively express themselves due to fear of judgment, perfectionism, and intimidation among a myriad of other issues. Seak aims to help overcome these issues by providing a quick, low-commitment, and imperfection-embracing opportunity to explore creative expression by engaging in community-oriented daily challenges. Seak’s activities act as a stepping stone to help users initiate their creative self expression journey through consistent artistry. Taking the first step is regarded as the hardest part of initiating a change. Seak guides users in taking this first step by lowering the barrier to entry for artistic expression and simplifying the creation process. Our application reduces unnecessary hindrances to the learning process through providing an evidence based structure and tools derived from industry standard applications for prospective creatives to explore.

Describe your main design decisions and how they contribute to your product (300 words) In the early stages of our app’s development, we believed our sole audience to be those whose creative expression was hindered by a lack of motivation, fear of judgment, and perfectionism. While this remained partially true, we discovered through research that our original concerns were not holistically accounting for issues preventing creative exploration. During our research, we also found that 76% of young adults would be interested in expanding their comfort zone. We used this data to steer the focus of our app onto activity discovery, in which we enable our users to try new creative outlets with the ultimate goal of fostering enhanced self expression capabilities. Our blue-green aquatic aesthetic was engineered with stress relief, creativity stimulation, and motivation heightening in mind as these colors have been shown to increase these qualities. Our app was named Seak as it plays into the water (sea) theme and also helps users in seeking their next creative outlet. Because 86% of users reported interest in seeing other’s creations, we built the app with positive community experiences at the forefront of our priorities. After conducting and analyzing our competitive analysis, we observed that other artistic apps required time commitments that deter expression. Through further research on this topic we found that task paralysis (the phenomenon of becoming overwhelmed by excessively planning out and dwelling on the perceived demands of the task) prevented many from committing to activities they wanted to do. By guiding users to start the task immediately, rather than allowing time for extensive planning, we eliminate the risk of them getting stuck in a loop of counterproductive analysis. Restricting access to the community/friends tab until after the daily challenge is completed further incentivizes users to create so they can see what others have made.