01. Understand

The Problem Statement

Our users need a way to record and track their daily moods and feelings, as well as to educate themselves and engage in helpful, mindful activities because they want to monitor their mental health and wellbeing in order to achieve a healthier and happier lifestyle.
We will know this to be true when we see how many people use the app to track their health and engage with helpful, tailored content in the resources provided.

Competitive Analysis

The next step involved learning more about potential competitors in the health and wellbeing industry, so I decided to take a closer look at two competitors: Daylio and Headspace - for an in-depth analysis, visit this link.

Looking at these products allowed me to get inspiration for my own project as well as identify areas of improvement, such as providing educational, science-based content, a well-organised and functional web platform (in addition to mobile), and an easy-to-use, decluttered interface.

Next, I wrote a Business Requirements Document, a high-level overview of what the app is meant to do, introducing the intended target audience, and exploring risks and opportunities. Read the full document here.

02. Observe

User Interviews

As I started recruiting participants for interviews, I defined 3 research goals:

• Find out needs and pain points for people who use existing mental health and wellbeing apps

• Gain insights into user behaviour around mental health and wellbeing

• Identify specific tasks users might want to perform with my app.

I then carried out interviews over Zoom with 4 people from my target audience: health-conscious adults aged between 27 and 37 who had previously used wellbeing apps.

Research Analysis: Key Insights

03. Point of View

User Personas, journeys and flows

04. Ideate

Sitemap

I tested my first sitemap by carrying out a closed card sorting exercise with 5 participants. For the most part, the exercise validated the hypotheses made for the original sitemap, which remained mostly unchanged.

First Sketches

I decided to go for a bottom navigation bar to enable users to easily access and switch between the main categories of the app - meditate, sleep, community, and calendar - as well as Search. At the outset, I imagined a double navigation bar that would give access to the app’s sub-categories, as shown in the sketches below.

High-Fidelity Wireframes

The next step involved converting low-fidelity wireframes into mid and then high-fidelity (for mid-fidelity wireframes see section 9). Some of the changes made include:

• Replaced the double nav bar with a filter/button solution at the top of the screen: I decided that the second navbar would have taken up too much screen space

• Added home button to the navigation bar

• Moved Search next to profile to make room for the home button

• Presented content vertically rather than using a carousel to increase discoverability.

At this stage, I also began experimenting with colours; however, I decided to test my designs in greyscale, so that participants could focus on the information architecture rather than visual elements.

06. Test

Usability Testing

My main goals were to evaluate the usability of my prototype and observe how easily a first-time mobile user would understand and interact with the basic features and navigation of the app. For a full test plan, script and report, visit this link.

Methodology: Moderated remote tests (video and audio recorded)

Participants: 6 participants aged between 27 and 37. Some participants had been previously interviewed during the generative research phase of the project. For demographic information and schedule, visit this link.

Metrics & Frameworks:

• Errors: Jakob Nielsen’s scale, a four-step scale used to establish the severity of usability problems.

• Satisfaction: Single Ease Question (SEQ) after each task and at the end of the test, using a scale of 1 (very hard to use) to 7 (very easy to use).

• Reporting findings: Rainbow Spreadsheet, a flexible framework that allowed me to easily visualise participants’ behavioural patterns.

10. Conclusions

Mindful was my first major UX project, and as such, it has taught me a lot. Something that really stood out for me is the importance of user research and testing, and how these steps have shaped my project in unpredictable ways: I first started this project with a mood-tracking app in mind, and thanks to my interviewees’ insights, ended up with a completely different product. Like in all things, however, there needs to be balance: while it is important to recognise the value of users’ feedback, it is also crucial to know when making revisions is actually necessary, or if it’s just a matter of personal taste. Something that I found particularly rewarding was working on Mindful’s visual design, as well as finding solutions to improve accessibility: these are two fascinating areas I would definitely like to learn more about in the future. 

Credits

Thanks to everyone who has helped me with this project: my tutor Duong Le and mentor Derek Mei from CareerFoundry, as well as everyone who participated in user interviews and usability testing.

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Illustrations: Pablo Stanley & Afsar Hossen

Icons: flaticon.com / freepik

Pictures: unsplash.com