For my second-to-last project through the Ironhack UX/UI Bootcamp, we created a wellness app, mine focusing on self-love coaching, partnering with the National Wellness Institute.
It was an individual project that was effectuated over a time-span of 2 weeks.
I used Adobe XD for the entire project, and Useberry to test my prototypes.
My agenda is built around the Double Diamond method of design thinking, going through the following stages:
Discover
- Secondary Research
- Competition Analysis
- Business Analysis
- User Research
Define
- Research Synthesis
Develop
- Ideation
- Evaluation
Deliver
- Brand-building
- Prototyping
So what is self-love?
Self-love is simply caring for yourself and your own happiness.
Discovery
I dove into the project by first conducting some secondary research, which led me to my business analysis, filling out my Lean UX canvas and uncovering business problems such as a lack of resources and accountability; potential outcomes, like consistency; our type of users, which are people with low and/or inconsistent self-love; and their potential benefits like staying motivated, or an overall improvement of quality of life.
Through my competition feature analysis, and by looking at both direct and indirect competitors on the market such as self-care and organization apps, as well as actual self-love coaches, I realized two important features were lacking: the possibility to customize your experience, and to set goals and track your progress.
With a market positioning chart, I was able to uncover the blue ocean areas of the market, where I could place my app in order to have the least direct competition possible.
Here, if we only look at apps, especially at our direct competitors such as Remente and Fabulous, we see that they both have goal setting and progress tracking options, however, there is still room for improvement in the level of personalization of the process, consequently, this is where the best opportunity area lays.
I also created a survey in order to collect quantitative data.
It revealed that 80% of respondents believe self-love is important.
However, 60 3% don’t practice it and 62% wish they had access to more resources.
Finally, the most sought-after features on such apps are:
- habit settings
- goals setting and progress tracking
- mental coaching
- concrete exercises
- extra resources
Additionally, in order to gather deeper insights on my users, as qualitative data, I conducted interviews, from which I picked out the following quotes:
“People have to understand. Before helping others, you need to help yourself.”
“It’s easy to get lost in the routine of daily life and neglect small but necessary acts of care.”
Define
With all this data, I was able to then go on to my second stage of the process, which focuses on synthesizing my research.
First I created this affinity map to regroup my findings under common themes.
I was able to identify the recurring patterns of my users such as a lack of efficient tools and motivations; and the gains like opportunities for self-discovery, putting their happiness first, and creating long-term healthy habits.
I also use the value proposition Canvas as a mental model of the customer to recognize the functional emotional and social jobs our users are hiring similar life coaching apps for, which also helps highlighting additional pain points, such as a feeling of “made-up” positivity, a lack of efficient tools and explanations, and a shallow approach.
Thanks to the previous research conducted, I was able to create a user persona.
Confident Cara is based on accurate data which would represent my primary user.
She wants to be more confident and to establish routines that help her be more focused and motivated in her daily life while making time for herself.
This tool allowed me to emphasize continuously throughout the process with my targeted customers.
Going even further, I used an empathy map to make sure I understood the motivations of my users for their behaviors.
I was able to emphasize even further with them, really analyzing their motivations next to their goals, as well as all of the other factors that could motivate their behaviors.
I uncovered that they might be reluctant to use such apps because they believe they might be too “shallow,” spreading “made-up” positivity while not really helping them reach their goal and only focusing on the money they make.
They also feel guilty for wanting to enhance their self-love, believing it might be egotistical, and/or narcissistic of them, because of society’s beliefs on this concept.
Finally, I created an As-Is scenario, looking at what users do, think, and feel at each stage of their experience.
This tool allows for a deeper understanding of the motives of the user, as well as the potential impacts our product could have on their experience, going all the way to the emotional level of it.
Here, I decided to look at a typical day of a potential user with the following phases: morning routine, trip to work, at work, after activities, and night routine.
Additionally, I looked at the specific experience of my user persona, taking them through that daily journey, which allowed me to uncover the opportunity areas associated with their pain points when they do not have access to an app like mine.
Here, the opportunities laid in the morning routine phase, the trip to work, and the night routine.
Thanks to what I uncovered, I came up with three problem statements:
- Our potential users are having a hard time being active and establishing a healthy routine because they do not have enough motivation.
- Our potential users are having a hard time staying positive throughout the day because they do not have access to the necessary tools/resources.
- Our potential users are having a hard time finding time for themselves because they don’t prioritize and/or organize their activities efficiently.
I then reformulated them into these How Might We’s:
- How might we help users establish healthy and invigorating daily routines?
- How might we help users stay positive and motivated throughout the day?
- How might we help users allow time for themselves and for self-discovery?
Develop
With these in mind, I was able to go on to the developing stage, starting with a brainstorming session, coming up with a total of 45 potential features and solutions.
My ideas were being regrouped under main ones, which allowed me to dig deeper into each one, using the “yes, and” method, focusing on the following themes:
- Reminders
- Built-In Calendar
- Customization with Coach
- Self Chech-In
- Tool Box
- Alarm
In order to start my prioritization process, I created a MoSCoW and Value vs Effort matrix, classifying my ideas into four categories and only focusing on the ones that landed into the “must-have” and “should-have” for the rest of my process.
Indeed, the one falling into the “could-have” and “won’t-have” categories either required too much effort to implement or did not bring enough value to the user and/or the company for now.
The next step was to complete the product side of the value proposition canvas which uncovers how/if our product will alleviate customer’s pains, as well as the gains they get out from it.
In this case, I looked at the features that I previously classified as “Must Haves” and “Should Haves.”
The main pain relievers were avoiding frustrations along the user’s personal growth journey and avoiding losing motivation.
The main gains creators were for them to feel proud of and realize their progress, as well as to building healthier habits and have constant access to helpful tools.
With that, I was able to come up with both my main job story and product job story, accordingly:
When in an optic of enhancing their overall life and mental health quality, users want to have access to self-love tools and resources, so that they can further structure their process and acknowledge their advancements, which makes them feel more successful in their quest.
When using self-love coaching apps, users want to be able to customize their experience, so that they can set their own goals, track their process, and build a program that works for them, which makes them feel motivated, supported, and well accompanied.
This led to my MVP, which is:
A wellness app connecting clients to their self-love coach, allowing for goal setting, feedback, reviews, self-check-ins, and access to numerous tools and resources.
It also carries reminders to stay on track and motivated.
Now that I had established the overall concept of my app, I started the process of information architecture by creating this user flow with three leading happy paths.
The one for first-time users logging onto the app, setting up reminders, preferences, a goal, and making an appointment with their coach.
The one for users simply writing their daily journal entry, and the one for users completing their daily exercise, issued by their coach.
In order to help structure my app, I created an open card sorting test, which I presented to three people.
Finally, with that information in mind, I made a sitemap.
It mainly just helped decide on the organization of my navigation and the information that would live on the landing page.
Deliver
Going onto the delivering stage, I first drew my lo-fi prototypes, which I then presented to five people. They had three different tasks to complete, according to the previously mentioned happy paths.
The feedback I got was that testers wanted to click around and enter information. They did have an issue with the reminder screen when it came to clarity. However, the overall flow was easy to navigate.
Going on to my mid-fi, I made a few tweaks following the previous feedback I got. Although I thought most issues would be resolved with higher-quality prototypes.
For my second usability testing session, I pinpointed two main problems with my prototype, which were clarity and organization.
Consequently, I took some time to interview testers in more detail in order to rearrange my content in the most user-friendly way.
I then started building my brand identity by defining the brand attributes:
wholesome, truthful, honest, reliable, and friendly.
With these in mind, I created the following mood board in order to start giving a fitting visual direction to my design.
By testing my mood board I understood that it represented well my brand attributes.
People said it made them feel optimistic and positive.
“I see a story here, with a girl crying, getting help and information, then achieving her goal and practicing self-love.” -Ari
Finally, I was able to create a style tile, adding along my process different atomic design pieces. I went for hand-drawn icons and fun illustrations to reinforce my brand attributes.
Finally, I was able to create the high-fidelity prototype of my wellness app: Within.
In order to assess if the product has hit its objectives, as well as to gain more insight on users’ behaviors, and in order to make informed future decisions for both designers and stakeholders, I determined the following success metrics:
- Positive reviews
- Increase in downloading rates
- High number of consistent users
- High NPS (Net Promotion Score)
- Coach’s positive feedback
- High task completion rates
- High app ratings
- Positive progress for users towards their goals
and failure metrics:
- Negative reviews
- Low or non-increasing downloading rates
- Low NPS
- Low completion rates
- Low ratings
- Users don’t progress
- Low number of consistent users
Key Takeaways
My learning from this project were that it is primary to come back to your research, especially when you’re feeling when feeling you’re deviating from your jobs to be done. That was reinforced by the fact that it was a two weeks sprint. Being used to four days projects, I felt a little disconnected to my research at times.
I also had to take a few steps back during my hi-fi building process to notice that I was not fully satisfied with the design direction I was taking. I did some more bench benchmarking before starting over.
Finally, I learned a lot by doing especially for micro-interactions in my prototype, and it was extremely satisfying to see it all come to life.
Thank you so much for your attention, do not hesitate to ask questions about my process and/or add comments.
