HopeLab: gDitty/Zamzee (2009-10)

For over a year we’ve served as technical research and development partner to Hopelab, refining the gDitty product for market. The gDitty is a wearable activity meter with an online rewards program that motivates kids to move more. Research with hundreds of kids has shown a 30% increase in physical activity. The success of the project has resulted in recognition by the White House as a model for social innovation.

Uncommon Projects helped HopeLab and Daylight Design take the gDitty from initial concept to real-world experience. We worked closely with Daylight’s incredible industrial design team to refine the user experience of the prototype. Consulting with both companies showed that we needed a modular, flexible and scalable solution that could meet the demands of the rigorous research methodologies and prototyping process. We researched, recommended and developed a technology platform to meet these requirements. Finally, we worked with HopeLab to refine a workflow for their admins - managing mulit-armed trials, registering kids and devices, managing and fulfilling rewards and exporting data for statistical analysis.

The gDitty isn’t about indoctrinating kids into a tedious fitness program. It’s about encouraging kids to be physically active in whatever way is fun for them - and rewarding that healthy behavior. Uncommon Projects is proud to have had a hand in shaping the technology for this innovative product. A commercial version of gDitty, renamed Zamzee, will go to market in 2011.

White House press release.

Highlights:

Technology research and consulting
System Architecture
Front end development (CSS, AJAX, Flash, Bunchball)
Backend development (Pythong, Django, MySQL)
IA for user/researcher workflows
Control panels for management of devices and users
Admin system to easily manage, track and report rewards
Reporting tools for data collection and export for analysis