My First Design Sprint: The Mindful Minute App
For my first UX design sprint, I was tasked with creating a lifestyle app. I landed fairly quickly on the idea of Mindfulness — something I think we could all use a little more of. While meditation is the typical approach to practicing mindfulness, I thought there might be room in the market for a more accessible solution.

Step 1: Ideation & User Research
Prior to conducting user interviews I created an empathy map and storyboard based on the assumptions I had regarding the way users deal with high-stress situations. From there, I chose to focus my user interviews on three main points of conversation:
- How users approach mindfulness and/or meditation in their daily lives, and the reasoning or beliefs behind their response. My assumption: Users do not consistently practice meditation because of time-related factors.
- Typical steps followed to recover from periods of stress and anxiety. My assumption: The most common anxiety recovery method is deep/focused breathing.
- Discovering how stress and anxiety contribute to overall function in their daily life. My assumption: Users do not produce their best work when they are experiencing stress and anxiety.


Taking into account my own understanding of mindfulness and the instances in which I feel it would be most useful, I decided to interview young professionals, aged 25–40. I interviewed 3 women (1 student, age 26; 2 full time employees, ages 29 & 37) and 1 man (age 34, full time employee). I organized my findings into an affinity map and found there were 3 main categories of feedback.

Mindfulness
First, I asked users to explain their understanding of “mindfulness” to me, and then to walk me through their last experience in practicing their version of mindfulness.
“When I start to get overwhelmed I have to dissect the issue so that I can identify the smaller problems that are contributing to the feeling.”
“Mindfulness to me is when I get into a situation that I don’t agree with, and I try to see it from a different perspective.”
Conclusions: All users practice some form of “mindfulness” and find it valuable in their day-to-day lives. 4 out of 4 users we able to communicate an understanding of mindfulness, and expressed that a practice of some kind is of value to them. These findings validate the need for the product. By giving users an accessible resource for practicing mindfulness, they will likely do it more often thus improving their overall stress level.
Anxiety
Second, I probed the users on their most recent experience with anxiety, and more specifically, what steps they took to overcome it. Through these conversations, I was able to get a wide range of responses from typical high-anxiety situations (work-related), to more generalized anxiety that result from the user’s personal experiences (general life worries).
“The most recent instance of anxiety occurred last week, on my second day at my new job. A woman in labor did not speak english and I was the only person at the clinic who could translate. I was VERY nervous but had no choice but to take a deep breath and do it.”
“I have been feeling anxious often over the last week. When I start feeling anxious I have to stop what I’m doing and try to focus on breathing and on the environment around me. I remind myself of the things that bring me joy.”
“I took some deep breaths and tried to tell myself that what I was anxious about was not a big deal.”
Conclusions: Deep/focused breathing is the primary strategy for coping with instances of anxiety. 3 out of 4 users noted focused breathing as their primary solution in high-stress moments. Related findings: 4 out of 4 users mentioned using some form of physical activity to reduce anxiety (e.g. taking a walk, exercise, etc.) From these results I can conclude that the strategy of focused breathing exercises is solution that would suit the most users.
Meditation
Lastly, I asked the users if they ever practice meditation. If they responded yes, I asked them to describe their most recent experience meditating. If no, I asked why not. The responses here confirmed what I had suspected — lack of time was the primary pain point when it came to practicing mindful meditation. The secondary issue was inability to focus. One user also stated that she simply didn’t feel mindful meditation was something she was interested in doing.
“I don’t really meditate — I don’t have the time to dedicate to it. If I can work on short mindfulness exercises it’s enough of a meditation for me.”
“No — I am really busy and it stresses me out to take time out to practice mindfulness. It takes too much time out of the stuff I do.”
“It seems a little phony to me. Like, if I’m being myself then my first reaction or feeling is the best, and trying to be mindful would be changing that inclination.”
Conclusions: Lack of time was the primary reason for not practicing meditation. 3 out of 4 users said they don’t practice meditation because of time-related factors. These results prove that a time-efficient solution is a priority for the target users.
Problem Statement
Based on the user interview feedback, I formulated the following problem statement:
Young professionals in high-stress jobs need easily accessible and time-efficient ways to reduce anxiety so they can achieve their best work.
Step 2: Sketching & Iteration
Step 2: Sketching & Iteration
The conclusions drawn from interviews determined the primary app function: guiding the user through short breathing exercises. Inspired by a breathing visualization exercise (see left), I set out to sketch the “Mindful Minute” app. In my first iteration, I decided that minimal elements and instruction would keep the interface free from clutter and put the user more at ease. Once I started sketching, I ran into a usability road block. Since the idea is that the user would be watching a breathing visualization, I realized it would be difficult to test the true experience of the activity. I revised my approach and created a more interactive experience where the user would trace a star shape as they took breaths in and out.


Step 3: Usability Testing
Usability tests were conducted on both first and second iteration prototypes. The first iteration was tested by 2 users, both UXDI students. The second iteration was tested by 4 users — 2 students and 2 full time employees, ages 25–40.
When users were testing the prototype, I wanted to make sure they could provide feedback on both the usability and the experience of performing the breathing exercise itself. In order to accomplish this, I set the user up with a fairly general task and followed up with probing questions throughout the test.
“Imagine you are a an employee in a busy marketing department. You are about to make a presentation to an important client and are experiencing symptoms of anxiety. You open the Mindful Minute app in an effort to calm yourself down.”
My expectation was that users would go through the login screen, choose a breathing exercise and follow the “inhale” and “exhale” instructions as they traced the star shape and clicked through each screen. Upon completion, they would choose to either go through the exercise again or go to a screen that would offer some final words of wisdom before closing the app.
First Iteration Feedback
Once I began testing users with the first prototype, it became clear early on that there were significant usability issues in my testing approach. Both users were confused by the steps required to start, perform, and exit the breathing exercise. Since minimal instruction was given both verbally from me and within the app itself, users became confused as to how they should be completing the task at nearly every point. As a result of this feedback, I changed my strategy in two ways. First, I revised my sketches to clarify CTAs. Second, I added more verbal guidance on my part. During the second round of testing, I probed users on what they thought they needed to do upon starting the breathing exercise, and I would also ask them to breath in and out as they clicked through.

Users also found difficulty when it came to the end of the breathing exercise. While users could communicate what the buttons did when asked, there was a significant disconnect between knowing where they were in the app and understanding where the buttons would take them. To solve this issue I revised the exercise completion screen by adding the question “how do you feel?” and labels of “good” and “bad” on the buttons. This helped to give a more clear directive for the user as well as a more personalized experience.

Lastly, both users appeared frustrated when clicking through the exercise and found they were unable to exit the activity. To solve this, icons were added at the top left and right of the screen so that the user is able to exit to the main or settings screen at any point in the exercise.

Second Iteration Feedback
Testing of the second iteration prototype proved to be more successful. 3 of 4 users were now able to understand the functionality of the app and could accomplish the task without confusion. Unfortunately, half of the users were still unclear on the concept of the breathing exercise itself. I concluded that in order to test the viability of the concept, a different form of prototype would need to be created. Alternatively, the initial research strongly suggests that the concept of focused breathing is already an effective practice for most users, so perhaps this area of testing can be put off until a more high-fidelity prototype is developed.
Step 4: Next Steps
The short term next step would be to develop a more interactive prototype. This would allow users to provide more focused feedback on the overall experience of the product.
Long term next steps would be to add additional options for exercises that would personalize the user’s experience. In the initial research I found that users have a wide range of strategies for reducing anxiety. Promising additions might be a short “walk around the office” guided meditation, humorous videos, or coloring pages.
Conceptual next steps would include adding a goal-achievement feature to the app. Feedback from the second round of testing included interest “leveling up” so the user would be motivated to return. Adding a way for users to track progress and achievements as they perform the breathing exercises would increase usage and also help users to develop a more consistent practice in mindfulness and stress relief.
Final Thoughts
In referring back to my problem statement, I feel that the Mindful Minute app would be a highly effective tool in instances of high-stress and anxiety. Feedback from the second round of usability testing provided validation of my high-level hypothesis that short, guided instances of focused breathing would reduce anxiety.
“I really liked this and I really hate breathing exercises!”
“That was a really short exercise but I definitely feel a little better.”
