UX: My Mindfulness App
Part 2 From Ideation to Lo-fi Prototype
Previously in several usability tests on mindfulness-based apps, I identified three main issues:
- It’s hard to keep on practicing every day.
- Novices tend to get distracted easily when practicing.
- It’s hard to break the habits and apply mindfulness in action.
IDEATION
Design Philosophy
Design is not only about solving the problems, but also assumes responsibility to challenge societal issues, norms and values. Designers can also embody different strategies in the system (not constrained to app or website) and take the associative contexts into consideration:
- Reflective Design: Design a immersive interactive game to let players experience how it feels to have mental diseases.
- Participatory Design: Design a online platform for people who have the same disease support each other and share their story and experience. Meanwhile, we will also invite psychiatrists, government officials, staff responsible for mental disease prevention to our conversation.
- Critical Design: Build some acting workshops to encourage participants to experience how it feels to be a patient who suffers from mental diseases.
This exercise helped me to look at different approaches and how each philosophy plays into it. I learned to look at both online solutions as well as workshops which will be prevalent in more traditional situations.
Sketching Alternatives
I appreciated this methodology because it not only helped to stretch myself to think of unique solutions to my problem but also served as a icebreaker and gave interviewees clue to talk about.. The interviewees loved the cartoonish style of my character, a little guy with a cloud on his head.
Three Interviews
- An entrepreneur: He has come up with two applications but both of them failed at the end. He thought the real solution should be a tight network which connects psychiatrists, patients, friends and families of the patients, communities and other stakeholders to create a positive atmosphere to ensure people to stick on this beneficial relationship, as opposed to a bunch of mobile applications that are already existing in the market which only provides the techniques that the depressed people would probably lack the motivation to use them in the first place.
- The first patient: I interviewed with a student who has depression for about 10 years and she is currently in a good state. She shared with me some techniques or tools she used to combat depression. She has used some depression apps, called hotlines when she had suicidal thoughts, met counselors several times but found it hard to stick to it, went to some online communities but felt overwhelmed by the negative thoughts, and had never participated in any group counseling because it made her nervous.
- The second patient: I talked with another patient afterwards. She has practiced Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) for four years and she admitted it was not an easy task because she had to put a lot of effort in it and depressed people usually lack the motivation to stick to the practice because they can’t control themselves to stop thinking negative things. She also liked the idea of the MOOC course because DBT is a well structured technique with clear decision trees which requires a lot of understanding and practices. However, she often found it hard to pick the right technique for the emotion in a specific situation, because she was so overwhelmed to think through the whole process. Although she already had a DBT app to remind her of the existing technique, she still felt it necessary to have a wearable which could remind her the emotion in the present moment and the appropriate technique.
Key Learnings
- I would probably combine the top five functions to help patients to build their own knowledge base and repertoire of techniques to deal with emotion fluctuations in daily life.
- I would also add the function of support group to share their experience of applying the techniques in their daily lives. Moderators are necessary because they can guide the group or the community to build a positive atmosphere.
- Patients can also get access to individual counselor to solve the problems they meet and learn the techniques better. When they really have a emotion fluctuation that is hard for them to deal with by themselves, they can reach out to the counselor without hesitation.
Brainstorming
To tackle the untapped desires, I generated a lot of ideas (30 ideas) by staying focused on a single opportunity area. To generate this large number of ideas, I tried out each of the techniques I learned in the User Experience: Research & Prototyping: listing ideas, eliminating a constraint, making an analogy, exaggerating, and getting in the garbage. The goal here is to diverge, or generate as many ideas as possible. I give myself the safe space to be creative without judgment.
Card Sorting
To prioritize the features, I conducted a card sorting exercise with 5 people to learn about what features are important to users when they try to learn about a product and potentially get it. I provided 23 cards with a feature and a brief description written on each and asked each participant to arrange them in three decks (Favourite, So-so, Dislike). To further understand their needs, I asked them to arrange the Favourite deck in the order of importance.
Analyze
To analyze the results, I assigned different values to each deck.
- +4~+1: Most Favourite~Less
- +0: So-so
- -2: Dislike
Then I entered the results into a spreadsheet, making sure to capture the title and number on each card.
Key Learnings
- Top 5 favourite features are:
1. Activities (What am I doing/ Where am I)
2. Program-based Training
3. HAPA
4. Personalized Mandala
5. Coach
Users wanted a scientific and systematic training program. They also focused on focused on HAPA principles which can enhance their efficacy and planning. The most interesting one is Personalized Mandala, a flower that will grow with users’ progress and will wither if they give up practicing.
“I feel a sense of spirituality from the mandala. Besides, I love Simulation Game of growing plants, because it helps me to realize my responsibility and will encourage me to keep practicing.” —User 5
- Top 5 dislike features are:
1. Group for Friends
2. Message Me! Communicate with Guru (Sakyamuni)
3. Scrapbook for Collection
4. MBCT-based Solutions to Negative Thoughts
5. Portable EEG
Users disregarded Group for Friends. They thought the practicing is a more intimate journey of self-exploration. Some of them were struggling with personal affairs like anxiety or depression. So it’s important for the app to provide the password lock rather than share button. Besides, some users didn’t like Portable EEG. They were not accustomed to wearing a clumsy hat to record their brain waves. On the contrary, Vital Signs Camera which can record breath counts was more popular because it’s less intrusive and more convenient. One mistake I made was that most users didn’t understand what MBCT-based Solutions to Negative Thoughts mean based on my description.
“I don’t need an electronic gadget to record my data because it’s strange to wear a hat on my head. It’s easy for me to recognize that I’m in the state of mindfulness. Peaceful and comfortable. But I think the function of recording breath counts or heart rates is a must to understand myself better.” — User 4
The card sorting results helped me sort features that users really care. I believe the experience would be more desirable when it gives people what they need not everything it can provide.
With the card sorting results in mind, I proceeded to Personas as shown below.
SYNTHESIS
Personas
Personal Information
- Name: Lily Wang
- Age: 20
- Profession: Undergraduate
- Location: Nanjing, China
- Quote: “I hope mindfulness can help me combat depression but it’s so hard for me to practice alone every day.”
FEATURES
Design Stories
The engagement loop is composed of four parts:
- Professional Guides The glue that allows people to learn not only the techniques, but life attitudes, in a professional platform without hassle.
- Support and Sharing Start from experienced practitioners, building up a ripple effect within the learning community for a more confident self.
- Scientific Feedback Support people with more intuitive and rational tools
- Personalization and Reflection To fully engage people, learning experience needs to rely on people’s tastes and progression.
EARLY SKETCHES
I began with a lot of sketches. From early ones with only boxes and lines all the way to some detailed sketches with icons and graphics in it. I was impressed by the design of MUJI to Relax and Pause, and I tried to make a same feeling of my app. I also created a pinterest board to gather my ideas.
ITERATION
Low-Fidelity Prototype
I later converted the sketches to digital versions and linked them in Axure to create a clickable prototype.
Prototype Link: http://8s0lzs.axshare.com/
The Interaction Framework
Because of some limitations in Axure, I decided to use Pixate to communicate the app’s interactions and transitions. The transitions in the app were chosen to create a sense of intimacy like card swiping. Because Pixate offers all the native Android transitions, it was the perfect tool at my disposal.
Heuristic Evaluation
Soon after I regretted using Pixate to design transitions so early, especially I was still in a low-fidelity stage. I should figure out the information architecture and the layouts of the icons before I dig deep into the nitty gritty so early.
Design Suggestions:
- Discard the upper arrow to call out the panel for techniques.
- Add texts to each icon for users to navigate effortlessly.
- Redesign the daily tasks to make them different from onboarding pictures.
- Add tutorials to guide users how to navigate the app if the app can’t self explain itself.
- Make the hierarchy more intuitive for users to figure out the relationship between daily tasks, technique panels and program.
High-Fidelity Prototype
I later converted the lo-fi prototype to hi-fi prototype by Sketch and linked them in Marvel to create a clickable prototype.
See my design rationales here:
Takeways:
- Use navigation bar to make the hierarchy more intuitive.
- Add texts to each icon for users to navigate effortlessly.
- Use tab bars to flatten the information architecture and to help users to understand the relationship between different sections (course, tools and group) and quickly switch between them.
- Replace quotes with scientific prompts for users to reflect their practices and learn effectively.
- Replace a Facebook page with a Q&A learning community.
- Add Hotline for users to get help as soon as possible.
Upcoming Usability Tests and more iterations.
Note: It’s an individual project and I hope to take advantage of my UX knowledge to improve my daily meditation experience :) Many thanks to Norman Tran, Eric Lee and Sean Melchionda. Their UX stories have taught me a lot.
