Create a Wellness mobile app: Zenspirit

Brief

This new opportunity brings us to collaborate with an extremely important client: The National Wellness Institute, an organization founded in 1977 with the mission of providing health promotion alongside with wellness professionals ultimately resulting in unparalleled resources and services that fuel professional and personal growth respecting the six dimensions comprised of. This time, in 15 day sprint, the design went into the necessity of create a wellness app. The tools that we used for our purpose were: Figma, Miro, Maze.

Introduction

The National Wellness Institute, has been very successful over the years and their annual National Wellness Conference has become the most highly acclaimed professional conference in health and wellness.

Even though NWI has numerous years of experience in the wellness field, their program has been slow to catch up with technology. They have seen a substantial drop in memberships and want to find a way to add value to their members. To do this they have decided to focuson two things:

1. Create a set of digital wellness tools for Wellness coaches

2. Update their image — create a new visual system that reflects their innovative and updated approach to wellness.

The health and wellness industry has been experiencing an immense disruption due to advancements in technology. Today’s consumers are embracing wearable technologies and other activity-tracking products more than ever before.

On this new opportunity we were challenged to collaborate in this relevant project associated with the wellness field by selecting a specific category of health and wellness. This time we chose “Stress reduction and relaxation” as the topic to develop in an innovative mobile app.

We cannot forget the context in which this particular challenge took place, we talk about the undeniable reality that today still affects a high percentage of our population in USA.

Secondary Research

According to the American Psychological Association, nearly 2 in 3 adults (65%) say the current amount of uncertainty in our nation causes them stress. Furthermore, 3 out of 5 adults (60%) state that the number of issues America faces currently is overwhelming to them. This finding speaks to the hardship many Americans may be confronting at this moment. Issues they are stressed about are not going away, they are piling up. More than 3 in 4 adults (77%) say the future of our nation is a significant source of stress, this number has increased significantly from 2019 when 66% of adults said the same. Additionally, more than 7 in 10 Americans (71%) say this is the lowest point in our nation’s history that they can remember. In 2019, only 56% of Americans shared this sentiment. The impacts of the pandemic have left few unscathed. One important underpinning of this is stress related to the economy. More than 6 in 10 adults (63%) say it is a significant source of stress. This is significantly higher than the proportion who said the same in 2019 (46%) and it is near the levels reported during the 2008 recession (69%).

Those reasons motivated us to develop this project for the sake of having some participation in solving this urgent problem that humanity in general is facing.

Discover

Lean UX

Following the primary reasons that led us to this particular wellness field, we strategized using the UX canvas, helping us to establish the challenges that ultimately, we are going to face, such as, to get a new visual system reflecting the innovation and the refresh approach to mental health. On the other hand, the goals that eventually we want to achieve are as follows:

- Adapt to technologies changes.

- Create a set of wellness digital tools.

And as guidelines, it is pivotal to understand the tools that will be useful for our research and define the strategy.

Feature Comparison Chart

Following the strategic logic, we focused on a Feature Comparison Chart helping us to compare how the direct and indirect competitors implement those features and to evaluate what works and what does not. This context revealed to us some key learnings, all of them related to the features that they have already or not. This time we found more opportunities in order to consider some insights that the market provides, and the trends that advocate for a better implementation of this app. We took into consideration several important aspects that conducted us to determine which ones were the direct or indirect competitors.

Therefore, as a direct competitor we found: Calm, Aura, Smiling Mind, Inscape, and Headspace; on the other hand as indirect we found: AllTrails and SportTracker.

Market Positioning Chart

A Market Positioning Chart was also created allowing us to know where existing products and services are positioned in the market so we can decide the location (blue ocean) as an uncontested opportunity to improve the product and the business objectives and move straight forward with our goals. This primary research came up with conflicting expectations in the business community in order to ensure the objectives taking in mind the market context as well. The key insights revealed us that the market segmentation and what opportunities have to be targeted in this scenario.

The axes in this case took in consideration the Mental impact and the Emotional support that could act as differentiator elements.

User Research

Quantitative Data

After obtaining this important resource, we proceeded to determine the quantitative data, elaborating a survey with 11 questions in order to quantify how many customers put value in sports events call and the attendance frequency. This tool allowed us to access users’ opinions and elaborate on reasonable statistics.

So, in order to understand habits, how people take care their mental and body, what kind of activities they do, how is the average of stress in their life and what decisions they take in we conducted a survey with the following results

Qualitative Data

Also, we decided to make a questionnaire and get five interviews (qualitative method) allowing us to filter the data collected, engage with those users, going deeper and share the user’s stories with others.

Sample questions

What is the essence to feel that your mind and body are cared for in the face of life’s adversities?

Answers:

“As meditation becomes more mainstream, you have to account for users that are different.” Jelen.

“Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary.” Arianne.

“We have to find solutions in every resource that we know will provide body and mental care” Karol.

Valuable information collected from these users who really appreciate the fact that an effort is made to dedicate more technology resources, based on mental well-being.

Define

The next step was pretty much to analyze the data already collected from our interview and put it on board in order to find patterns and values that allow us to regroup all the information and define posteriori the problems that could affect our users.

Affinity Map

By doing so, we started to display the data that we gathered before, and then we placed rows and columns in a logic sequence of ideas, visualizing what main themes came up. Using the Affinity Map tool, we put it on the following information:

That gave us the possibility to understand the users on:

1. Stress dealing attitude

2. Apps used most

3. Level of satisfaction using wellness app

4. Users motivations using a wellness app.

5. Most wellness and mental activities

6. Pain Points

Value Proposition Map-Customer

After analyzing those results, we were in position to examine what the Value Proposition Map - Customer reveals, understanding how the product meets our customer’s values and needs, and how it fits in the market. We also learned about what kind of user’s motivations and desired outcomes they have and we examined all these in an emotional and social context.

User Persona

Assembled from the behaviors and motivations of our actual users, we decided to create our User Persona, the data already gathered allowed us to bring to live this representation of one audience segment with the purpose of informing the product design that we ultimately have to create. In the definition of a primary type of user, we empathize throughout our process and serve us reference in the rest of tools used.

Sally Vega

As-Is Scenario Map

Following the Double Diamond insight, we found it convenient to introduce an As-Is Scenario Map with the objective of identifying improvement opportunities the phases chronologically set up on the canvas, analyzed the activities in a stepwise manner and the interaction, and also the impact of those stages of feelings and thoughts in our users. This allowed us to further empathize with the user in this mental model when they have to attend an event or a spectacle.

This tool also allows us to re-examine the key interaction points in the story and think about what technology would help the user in this specific context.

Journey Map

Then we got set for a Journey Map, these tools allowed us to visualize the process of interaction between user path and the pursuit of a goal, also focusing on those channels and touchpoints that he has with the service, by identifying opportunities to improve or enhance his experience at each touchpoint.

On this specific case, our user recreates a situation that eventually

combines therapies in clinics with the use of an app at home.

Problems Statements and How Might We.

That conducted our research to elucidate the following Problems Statements and their correspondent How might we.

1- Users who want to reduce their stress level by using a wellness app are concerned because they are not able to interact with a coach or have access to specific motivational talks.

How might we facilitate an appropriate interaction with coaches or motivational speakers?

2- Users struggle to track their progress and their current status throughout the treatmentsessions provided by wellness apps.

How might we bring data visualization of the users health progress when they access into the wellness app?

3- Users are wanting to improve or gain self-confidence.

How might we provide users with opportunities to improve or gain self-confidence?

Ideate

A brainstorm comes suddenly and focuses our efforts in different aspects that the problem statements and the HMW pointed to. That allows us to begin thinking. We had so many ideas in our parking lot and it went by quick building off of each other. Finally, we came out with about 27 ideas.

Develop

MOSCOW Method.

In order to know the simplest way to satisfy the business effort and the users’ values we elaborated the following MOSCOW method.

Value Proposition Map-Client

After using this important method, we were ready to complete the product and service side of the Value Proposition Map-Client conduct us to understand how our product can best serve our users for the best product market fit:

Minimum Viable Product

That conducted us straight forward to the Minimum Viable Product, which is:

A health and wellness mobile application providing users with the ability to reduce stress, engage and interact with health coaches and specialists, track personal goals and progress, and improve their overall well-being.

Jobs To Be Done

We can complete that task by taking into account the following

• When using a wellness app, users want to get insights and receive personalized attention which helps them gain self-confidence and feel relieved from stress.
• When providing visualization reflecting the progression of the user and addingmore value to their experience with personalized interaction and coaches, the mental health community will be able to trust the platform which increases customer loyalty.

Site Map

In order to validate the user’s journey, we present the path that will take to complete this task through a Site Map. This is an exciting tool that always allows us to bring all those ideas in a scheme subject to change while landing in a solution that eventually will be the basic representation of our product.

User Flow Chart.

The other tools that serve to our purpose of representation but this time taking in consideration the user flow, is the User Flow Chart.

Representing the workflow that our user has to go through, this tool allowed us:

• To analyze each stage of the mental process.
• Homogenize the process looking up quality results.
• Identify obstacles, and unnecessary steps through the process and help us to improve it.

Deliver

Finally, we are in the last stage of our Double Diamond process through our Lo-fi, Mi-fi prototype, and the Hi- Fi, showing the features added and the onboarding to those one who the user can wait for. Finally, the Zenspirit is ready to be used as a wellness mental health app.

Lo-Fi Prototype

Usability Test Results by using Maze

We completed a usability test and that revealed

• 100% of users complete the mission via the expected path.
• The average time spent on screens during the path was 8.3s
• The mission’s average misclick rate is high: 23.3%
• Incorporate necessary actions and flows

Mi-Fi Prototype

Usability Test Results by using Maze

• 80% of users complete the mission via the expected path.
• The average time spent on screens during the path was 10.4s.
• The mission’s average misclick rate is high: 34.2%.
• Align the margins and keep in mind the sized of the typography.

Visual Competitors

After these prototypes, the next step was to search for Visual Competitors that reflected how our product could fit in the market and how trends are behaving in real life.

Moodboard

Then we were able to find our color options, and how the concept through some pictures can reveal the brands attributes that we pursue to exhibit when we elaborate our Hi fi prototypes. Please, see the patterns below that we used to create this Moodboard.

Then we started building our brand identity:
serenity, natural, calm, imaginative, and kind.
By testing our mood board we understood that it represented well our brand attributes.
Our interviewees said it made them feel calm, positive and full of optimism.

Style Tile

Atomic Design

As Atomic Design we elaborated this mental model to help us to think of our user interface as a cohesive whole and collection of parts at the same time. Components with clear guidelines that will build our wellness app and will be a reference as a single source of truth to diminish discrepancies in the future are seen below

Hi- Fi Prototype

Users will be able to:

- Quick onboarding and set up their account

- Customize their profile taking into consideration their preferences or necessities.

- Access to all the resources that the app provides.

- Track their progress.

- Interact with a coach and specialist and set up appointments and get live sessions with them.

The success and failures metrics.

Success

• Users inclusion.
• Coach and Specialist online consult.
• Increase the level of interaction.
• Increase level satisfaction.
• Time on tasks is reduced.
• Positive reviews online.
• Data visualization achieved.
• More clients using the app.

Failure

• Market competitors upgrade their features.
• Customer increase requires more coach and specialist staff.
• Increase in bounce rate.
• Low completion rate
• Low task level satisfaction

Conclusion

Key Takeaways

1. This app can be an engaging and even fun way to learn about mental health and improve well-being.

2. Trust that the features have product market fit.

3. Value in the quantitative and qualitative data collected and feedback from my teammates.

4. Trust in the research process.

5. How important it is to analyze the situations but keeping in mind the human component.

6. Improve your strategy during the prototyping process.

Had we had more time

1. Test the High Fi prototype.

2. Make micro interactions.

3. Develop more features added in our projects.

4. Go deeper in our quantitative data.

5. Use more Adobe XD software.

Thank you!!

Let’s stay in touch… www.linkedin.com/in/arielito88