Case Study - Goal Hub

Improving wellness through goal-setting.

Angel Kwong
Jul 10, 2017 · 6 min read

Wellness isn’t always easy to maintain for a variety of reasons. Having a device that assists one’s personal/health goals can help goal setters achieve goals and be healthy. Through a little research, it seems that being healthy often meant being happy, doing more things that one enjoy, and finding balance between the mind and body. Goal Hub was designed with the intent to create something that helps people get closer to their personal health goals.

Problem/Individual wellness is a worthwhile issue to explore because…

  • It’s prevalent — 1 in 5 Canadians experience a mental health problem.
  • It’s systemic — Mental and physical health are linked. People with a long-term medical condition such as chronic pain are much more likely to also experience mood disorders; people with a mood disorder are at much higher risk of developing a long-term medical condition.
  • It’s costly. The economic impact of physical inactivity can be substantial and has been estimated at $5.3 billion, or 2.6% of total health care costs in Canada in 2001. | The economic burden of mental illness in Canada is estimated at $51 billion per year. This includes health care costs, lost productivity, and reductions in health-related quality of life. | Unemployment rates are as high as 70% to 90% for people with the most severe mental illnesses.

Proposed solution: Find a way to make wellness easier to maintain and more integrated with our digital lives so that people can do more of what makes them well & balanced.

Research: Was comprised of a mixed/multi-phase methodology first deployed to qualitatively understand how individuals perceive health and identify their goals and frustrations in particular, then quantitatively determine the importance/prioritization of needs/features or attributes of an app that would help them reach their goal (to be explored).

Phase 1 — Interview. Six interviews were conducted; represented by a mix of gender, occupation and age (21–45 y/o); all resident of or work in Toronto. The objective was to explore 3-4 key elements: What does being healthy mean to you or what does a picture of perfect health look to you (how do they act/look/behave? What do you do to stay/be healthy? What are your health goals? What (barriers) prevents you from them?

Key findings (Qual)

  1. Health, wellness — encompasses the mind, body and soul. Being healthy meant being free of physical pain/illness, mobility/agility, having fun/doing things you like, mentally a generally positive outlook, possessing resolve, being open-minded, being balanced.
  2. ‘What are your personal health goals?’ was met with some uncertainty. (for some, none). Top-of-mind goals were often to eat better/more balanced, drink less, be more active and stay more active → implying balance was an integral component; all which contribute to balanced mental wellness → goal-setting itself is somewhat a pain point/challenge and less easily identifiable. ( though I now recognize this is fairly personal of a question that could/probably should have been factored in.)
  3. Common barriers to living as healthy as respondents idealize were often a general lack of motivation / ‘just lazy’, having to leave one’s comfort zone, and ‘…none’. One mention was simply not in habit of identifying personal health goals; another was that goals tend to be loose, hard to quantify, therefore easy to lose sight of. → indicate: SMART goal-setting method (specific, measurable, actionable…) might be a helpful tool.

Phase 2 — Surveys. Two surveys; first sample (n=11); second (n=23). Small sample; results should be interpreted directionally.

Survey 1 (general)

  1. General satisfaction with health was at 6.9/10 → okay, could be improved.
  2. Asked to pick just one, the most important part of health was one’s mind (46%), followed by body (36%), then spirit (18%).
  3. Eighty-two per cent said they would turn to the Internet for help or tips/advice on staying healthy (nearly twice the proportion to those who selected doctors/physician 45%; friends 45%; family 18%).
  4. Promotional material about events or products, and healthy messaging materials were not of interest. → don’t spam alerts — offer something valuable.

Conclusion: a solution through technology to assist health endeavours may be viable/resonate with people (potential users), but require proper supporting features.

Survey 2 findings (features): Top 3 product/app interests; top 5 features wanted were…

… therefore showing that the desired product interest was something that helped people find balance, stay positive, and achieve goals. In terms of specific features, seeing the goals, providing analysis and tracking activity details are the most important requirements.

— Following primary research, affinity diagramming, creating the user story persona and sorting out minimal viable features helped flesh out the key needs and gaps to address

Consistent theme: positive physical/mental associations with ‘wellness’/’health’; Pursuit of happy/active/balance.
Envisioning the user based on combined qualitative persona research
4 key goals must be met: set goals, record, sync with wearables, report/analytics. track location/reminders can be be considered in v2, sync with calendar and share/socialize goals really not needed.

Product Design

1 — Sign in/on-boarding: A 4-part on-boarding process designed to encourage signing in to store goals and progress and immediately take the user into setting their first specific, measurable, timely goal.

[Loading animation: clouds lifting] Sign in / Onboarding process →leading to initial empty state

2 — Home page/see your goals *** 3 — Record/track goal

Left: home page, see overall goals status; Centre: view specific goal history/progress data; Right: upon pressing ‘Record activity’ button, tracking progress.

4 — Inspiration *** 5 — Settings

Left: stored images / text for positive reminders and inspiration/motivation when needed; Centre/Right: settings.

— and always present, setting goals feature:

Left to right: as you describe your goal in more detail (activity, quantity, time/specific duration, reason to remind why goal is pursued), the icon grows brighter to signal that a ‘s.m.a.r.t’ goal has been set. Right: new goal set.

Designed on Sketch, Goal Hub was then prototyped and tested in InVision for feedback.

User testing and the presentation of this design revealed important feedback and insight for future UX/UI considerations, some of which have now been incorporated:

  1. Goal ‘bubbles’ need to be made more prominent.
  2. Pay attention to the colours used (initial sketch had colours corresponding to goal categories, which misled users to believe colours were corresponded to goal completion.)
  3. Consider more animation → Consider enhancement to create a more atmospheric background…. e.g., sun clearing — a metaphor to healing, provide mental escape
  4. Placement of icons — Flow of the user experience; what is the proper order? i.e., Set goal, get inspired, work on goal, adjust settings.
  5. Consideration of interaction/integration with external physical products (i.e., synchronizing with wearable tech — how to integrate this seamlessly?)
  6. Consider reminders about recent goals — although reminders were not overly popular as revealed in the survey research, some may possibly find this valuable since it was brought up as a possible missing component that would enhance the user experience.
  7. What is the key goal? Find balance or complete goals? [revisit/prioritize]
  8. How does the categorization of goals align? [logical design consideration]

And that’s where Goal Hub is at currently — I did a C/C analysis in the initial-mid stages of this study, and found that there is a plethora of goal-setting app on the market. Some also promote the s.m.a.r.t goal system… and some, perhaps unsurprisingly, leverage the mountain to symbolize goal/achievement. Certainly there are plenty of overlaps… though through my research, I feel that a missing component (that people wanted, that was less present among products in the market) was help in goal-setting itself.. and providing fuel/motivation to follow through — while “inspirational images” may not replace actual/inner drive, I’m hopeful that future versions of this design (through more in-depth design and research), become a tool that helps people set balanced goals that provide the balanced wellness desired.

Angel Kwong

Written by

Marketing researcher | UX enthusiast

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