I am currently working on the prototype using Adobe XD but I thought I would upload some wireframe videos first. I used Procreate to roughly "animate" some of my ideas, especially because they are easier to depict when movement based.
Digital addiction is becoming more and more of an issue. People are spending up to half of their day on their phones. It is not fair to pin all of the fault on individuals, for screens are designed to take advantage of our psychology (see: Hooked). Tech companies have the responsibility to encourage healthy consumption of media. One of the most effective ways to do this is by changing User Interface. Ideally, all of the screen-time interventions would be optional and you could choose to activate as many as you want, since they are able to overlap. In the videos below, I explain and show what might help mitigate addiction to our feeds, specifically looking at Twitter.
First: a broad overview. This video describes all four ideas, what they will contribute, and why it's important.
Idea 1: Limiting the number of tweets one can see per day.
Many current screen time limits focus on time, but users may be surprised to see how many tweets they read/ scroll through if they set a limit for themselves. Is their ideal limit 1,000 tweets or 200? Initially, I had the idea to limit how many times a user can tweet in a day, but I don't know whether that is as big of an issue. It is certainly possible to feel the need to tweet every thought though, so that might be an idea to table for later.
Idea 2: Limiting one tweet per scroll.
This would be similar to Instagram, except tweets take up much less space than Insta posts. Ideally, there would be a "break" effect after each scroll, so that the tweets don't just keep coming due to the momentum of the scroll. This will make users aware of how much they scroll. It may also get them to pay more attention to the tweets that they do see. Rather than just skimming through dozens of tweets in seconds, a user can take time to process the kind of content they do like and who they maybe should unfollow.
Idea 3: Reintroducing pagination
Infinite scroll was created because designers thought that an option to go to the next page of content was unnecessary. "Users should be able to decide for themselves when they want to stop seeing new content!" Well... instead we are left with one of the most effective yet dangerous user experiences there is. Infinite scrolling is similar to a bottomless glass of wine. We need cues to remind us when to stop or to help us reflect on whether we've seen enough. Sometimes, that cue is an empty glass of wine, and in this case, it could just be a pagination feature.
Idea 4: Fading Screen Time
The current screen-time limit options from Apple force you to stop consuming content cold turkey. On top of that, they give you the option for more time immediately after. This sudden halt of content can annoy some users. Some users may be about to read an interesting tweet before the limit pops up. Now they are left with no choice but to ask for a few more minutes to read that tweet. Inevitably, that leads to more scrolling. I propose a limit that slowly fades the content away from the users. For example, if a user set their time limit to 20 minutes, the content would ever so slowly start to fade during the last 3-5 minutes, until they are left with a blank screen. This would signal to users that a limit is approaching and prepare them to exit the app once they can't see any more content.
I hope you enjoyed reading this! Now get off your screen!
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