Building the next generation of well-being technology
Role: Lead UX Researcher
Direct Collaborators: UX Research team, UX Director, Data Engineer, and Content Manager
Stakeholders: Company Co-founder, Director of Program Development, Director of Research and Measures, and Chief Technical Officer.
Methods: In-depth user interviews, concept testing, surveys, and competitive analysis.
TL;DR: My research pinpointed a rich set of user insights and opportunities to guide the direction of the next generation of the company’s products. My team and I also laid the groundwork for a product roadmap toward this outcome.
The Challenge
Even though the market for mindfulness products is rapidly growing, many people, for a variety of reasons, do not engage with mindfulness programs, let alone on a digital platform. So how might we create well-being products that engage many more people, yield maximum efficacy, and have minimal barriers to engagement?
Since there is significant scientific evidence pointing to the benefits of mindfulness activities, even ones with a duration of under one minute, HMI’s leadership originally came up with a rich set of visions for a set of new products called “Micro-Supports”. The goal of the products would be to deliver short mindfulness activities through a range of different types of prompts and cues, leveraging a breadth of different device ecosystems and technologies. These activities would also create little to no friction in the users’ daily routine. However, UX Research needed to be done in this area. That’s where my team and I came in.
What would be the best set of user experiences in terms of how exactly the micro-supports are delivered, when, and to whom? What is the roadmap to get there?
Objectives
Primary research questions we answered:
In what areas of users’ daily life do they need the most support in terms of their well-being?
To what extent would users engage with micro-supports?
Who will engage with micro-supports? What are our target user types?
What kind(s) of micro-supports might people be most likely to engage in?
What level of user agency is desired?
The Work
Conducted 12 in-depth user interviews (preceded by a screener survey) to gain high-level insights to inform concept development.
-Established target user types.
-Conducted Competitive & Comparative analysis.
Conducted concept testing sessions with 9 users (preceded by a screener survey), factoring key themes from round 1 and target user types.
-Established key learnings and opportunities for product solutions.
-Made recommendations toward a product roadmap.
Key themes from user interviews:
User personas and target users (starred):
Concept samples (we shared 15 concepts with users):
We also explored some spectrums of what users would want more or less of in terms of prompts (left). In addition, we also explored their preferences of cue types (right):
The Result
Areas where users need the most support:
Key Insights & Opportunities
Recommendations based on findings:
Smart watch concepts were very popular during testing. Our research suggested that an HMP watch integration is something that people would definitely use.
More measures coming from smart watches could help create even more robust scientific research. It would also help the company learn about more ways to improve its products even more, which would in turn benefit the user.
Opportunity to better integrate with key apps such as Apple health, breathe app, etc.
HMI’s biggest competitors already have smart watch integrations.
However, there is the challenge of access: not everyone can afford a smart watch.
Let users benefit directly from data supplied to HMI through their usage.
Provide users with both real-time and aggregate data to support their well-being practice.
Combine passive user data, with data that users input (e.g. input responses to prompts), to generate impactful usage reports.
The more users see how their data benefits them, the more likely they are to trust HMI.
Impact
My team and I showed leadership the way, based on concrete evidence, toward the next generation of HMI’s products. We were able to tell a significant story of user needs toward a concrete guide for product development.
We were able to demonstrate how this next generation of products would significantly increase user engagement with our platform. We found that ~75% of users are eager or are curious to integrate micro-supports into their well-being routine. ~1/4 of these users do not use mindfulness apps on a regular basis, but would be more likely to use micro-supports. If the above metrics are factored in conjunction with market trends such as exponential growth in smart watch usage and apps such as Apple Health, then micro-supports could mean a huge growth opportunity for HMI.
Our findings helped to inform a scientific study on the impact of micro-supports on educators.