Skip to main content

Anathema

Faculty of Fine Arts of University of Porto

Interaction Design, Web and Games
Guilherme Vila Maior, Afonso Matos and Matilde Ferreira

Mar 2022 — Jun 2022

Context

Anathema Sexual Health is a Mobile App that comes from the project Anathemaby Fraunhofer AICOS. Anathema is 'the first smartphone-delivered sexual health promotion programme that seeks to adapt traditional face-to-face interventionsfor older adults, people with chronic diseases, and their partners'.

Despite our app having a different target audience, our app kept the sexual health programme as the main goal. During the development of the project, we were accompanied by Doctor Ana Barros and Joana Couto from Fraunhofer AICOS.

User Research

Forms

Since sexuality is a sensitive topic, we chose to develop and share a questionnaire aimed at people over 16 years old with sexual experience. Through it we tried to understand how we could improve people's sexual satisfaction, what types of topics we should address in the application and what type of dynamics we could explore. We gathered 533 answers.

I - We understood that romantic satisfaction in a couple translates in sexual satisfaction. Thus, the app should encourage not only sexual but also romantic behaviours.

II - It was considered important to stimulate communication between the couple through the app, given that the more the people comunicate with their partners about different aspects related to their sex life, the more satisfied they feel about it.

III - It was understood that sex toys should be promoted and encouraged in the app given that only 9% of the respondents don't have interest in trying them. From the 91% that had interest 46% hadnt't tried them yet, mainly because they haven't given it much thought.

Form analysis for 'Sexual satisfaction according to romantinc satisfaction', showing that the less Romantic Satisfied relationship has less Sexual Satisfaction, and the higher the Romantic Satisfaction the highest Sexual Satisfaction Form analysis for 'Frequency of communication patterns according to sexual satisfaction', showing that the higher the frequency of communication patterns, the higher level of Sexual Satisfaction a couple has Form analysis for 'Sex toys with a partner', showing that most couples are interesting in experimenting with sexual toys, almost the same amount of number of people has already experimented with sex toys

Interview

An interview was done to the Doctor Raquel Pereira, from the SexLab of the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences of the University of Porto in order ot better understand the context of Sex Therapy.

With the interview we understood that our target audience's age would be 25-35 (mainly it's between 20-30 that go to therapy, but 25.35 is an age were couples start living together and creating more habits and routines as a couple that we intended to develop in the App); That it should demystify sexual myths, predispose couples to new sexual experiences and self-discovery;The interview also reinforced the importance of a romantic experience as well as communication in context of sex therapy. We also understood that Sensate Focus would be an activity to explore in the app.

Moodboard

We developed a moodboard with examples of Mobile Apps within the Sexual matter, as well as a search for physical and digital games. The results gathered apps for Mind & Body Exploration, Self Discovery and Audio Sex Stories. We realized that there are more physical games than digital ones, and these are usually adaptations from classic board games. In these physical games we noticed that the majority has a randomness variable.

User Experience

User Persona

User persona for the project

User Scenarios

Joana and Bernardo both had an exhausting day of remote working, full of meetings, where they barely saw each other since they don't like to work in the same room. In the evening, after a day that caused them an extreme level of fatigue, Joana remembered a magazine she had of cocktail recipes for them to make and abstract themselves. While Joana is getting ready to make dinner, Bernardo is putting together the ingredients for the cocktails. With his eyes on the magazine, Bernardo notices an advertisement in the corner of the page. An app that seems to open doors to new sexual experiences and interactions in a playful and even competitive way, he comments with Joana and they both download the app to try it after dinner. Already more relaxed after the meal, they make their way to the app. They notice that before they can try the games and activities they have to pair their accounts. As they do so, the app asks for an important date of their relationship, which they enter the date they met. So Joana and Bernardo take the first step of many towards what will become a better, healthier sex life.

Joana takes advantage of the fact that Bernardo is on a business trip to explore her body with the help of the app. Following the audio-guides given by the app, she gets to know points of pleasure of her body that, until then, were unknown to her. Then she redeems the points she earned for a random romantic coupon, in which she buys a massage from Bernardo. Bernardo picks up his cell phone to read the notification he received, smiling, knowing that when he gets home he will have a special moment with Joana.

Bernardo has been craving a walk by the beach. In order to get Joana a coupon from the Kiosk, Bernardo decides to do a few rounds of Demystify in hopes of getting the missing points. While playing, he realizes that he is, in fact, quite mistaken when it comes to matters of Sexology. After a few rounds, Bernardo not only manages to collect the necessary points for the coupon, but he also becomes much more informed and starts commenting on some curiosities with Joana, taking advantage of this and acquiring a Date Card coupon.

Bernardo noticed that the app offered a quiz:'What's your sex toy'; he found it interesting and decided to answer. In the process of answering the quiz, Bernardo became even more interested in the topic of sex toys, when he saw the result he thought it would be a good opportunity to know Joana's opinion on the subject. In conversation, Joana showed fear for the fact that it is a high price and they may not like it, however, Bernardo reminds her that there is a discount coupon for a Sex-Shop in the Kiosk. Although the coupon costs a lot of points, they decide to work together to get them, using the Sensate Focus exercise, since it is a cooperative activity. Given that this is a prolonged exercise, it nevertheless has a high reward, not only in terms of points for the coupon, but also in terms of positive consequences for the relationship.

On a Saturday afternoon after lunch, Bernardo and Joana are on the balcony sunbathing while they relax. Being the weekend, there is a new Bingo rotation, and it is never too late for a good healthy competition between a couple. Joana starts checking off some of the activities, and notices that perhaps if she had shown more love during the week through certain activities, she could have completed more items, getting a more complete game card for the week. Bernardo, on the other hand, left only a couple of items uncompleted, staying ahead of Joana and earning the full Lovers' Bingo points. Seizing the spirit of the competitive mode, Joana wants revenge. Pouring herself a glass of wine, she challenges Bernardo to participate in rounds of 'Risk or Spill', through which they reveal things they had never told one another, while also performing challenges that elevate the relationship both on a romantic and sexual level...

Bernardo opens the app and notices that the suggested conversation topic for today is about sexual fantasies. During the lunch break, he takes the opportunity to ask Joana if she has any fantasies that she has never revealed to him. While they have lunch they share their desires and reflect on what they would both like to try.

Requirements

A list of functional, informative, ambient/context, usability, experience and user requirements was created and can be consulted here

Wireflows

Wireflows for the application

User Interface Design

Prototype

Images of the Low-Fi prototype Images of the High-Fi prototype Images of the final iterations on the prototype

Usability Testing

For the first round of Usability Testing we gathered 2 couples to test. With these users, we understood that we should follow a colour scheme focused on the purples, and, given that the users would use the app more at home, at the end of the day, we went with colors more towards a night mode.We also noticed that we needed clearer instructions, particularly for the 'Lovers' Bingo' game, so the users could understand better that when the two phones are together, they become a single board for both players and it's no longer a phonefor each one.A 'Custom Card' was also added to the Kiosk.

For this second Usability Test we had 5 couples take part. From the test we analised the users' behaviours one last time and went for the final iterations on the prototype

T and J participants dating for 4 months; and F and S participants dating for 6 years DI and G participants dating for 1 year ang 6 months, T and I participants dating for 1 year ang 8 months, F and D participants dating for 9 years, J and R participants dating for 6 months, A and P participants dating for 6 years

Video

Promotional Video