Plant — App concept from Scratch!
Follow my Design sprint for a wellness App from research to prototype!
My Role: Individual academic project : Concept sketching to Hi-Fi prototype
Duration: 2 weeks
Tools: Figma, UX Benchmarking, Surveys, User journey, Expert interview
Brief: Create a wellness App from scratch
Where did I start? What did I learn? What would I do differently? I’ll guide you through the process of coming up with my concept for a wellness App ‘Plant’.
Wellness App’s
First off, wellness!! Let me just say… it’s crazy! The amount of App’s available. Health & wellbeing… a GIANT amount of wellness App’s are available on the App store! Meditation, Yoga, Running Apps, Medical App’s, Calorie trackers, Cooking App’s … you name it! If you search the internet you find lists of ‘The best wellness App’s’ … which are sometimes just clickbait or they add even more remotely related categories to the wellness sector.
It’s an Ocean of choices….
Almost 50.000 Wellness App’s were available on the App Store in Quarter 3 in 2020 according to statista.com. And no… we did not look at all of them… but if you want to get a taste you can have a look! And this is only the App Store, not including the App’s that are only available for Android.
Surveys
After the initial desk research, we send out a survey that was answered by 44 participants. This Survey named Lack of motivation (36 %), Time management (36 %) and emotional issues (28%):
…or just like this:
Tired, exhausted, other problems eating up your energy….
The described problem is similar to the New Years resolution problem. Many of us want to live healthier lives and many of us still make New Year’s resolution to change. But then reality hits and we discover it is not so easy to change. And this can cause feelings of guilt or disappointment and be even more demotivating.
2020 was probably not the year of health for most people around the globe!! (If you read this in 2030 and don’t remember…2020 was the Lockdown year because of Corona).
2021 is now a few days our new year! So hopefully less closed gyms, being stuck at home, restrictions that keep you from family & friends.
Can wellness App’s really help … do they work? Which App’s are successful in changing life habits and which are being used over and over without long-term changes?
44 Survey answers showed what which feature they value in a wellness App:
36 % Positive Visual Feedback
33 % Daily Activities
31 % Weekly Activities
Interviews
I conducted an interview with a Biology Major and asked about Human biology and health as well as 2 additional user interviews. One interviewee described how one area of health in her life will effect the other and she could bring it all back to the subject of sleep. If she wouldn’t sleep well she would not feel the energy to do stretching or Yoga in the morning, therefore would feel a low energy level all day and not want to go for her regular walk outside.
The expert interview expanded on this topic of the rhythm and interconnectedness of health and she mentioned the circadian rhythm — for example the natural rhythms of waking and sleeping that are caused by human hormones. Queues in nature trigger a hormonal response.
If the air get’s cold and the sun goes down we get sleepy because of Melatonin being released. Problem is — we are floated with artificial light and use App’s, TV shows or games to calm ourselves down… but this can mess with the Circadian Rhythm. This was interesting and seemed to be less focussed on in terms of the App’s available on the App Store.
Empathy
To help the imagination and to create empathy with the user, I sketched out a possible scenario. The user in this example is under time pressure and always working late. This affects the wellbeing and productivity and turn and the user is in a loop of stress and guilt.
User Stories
“As a User, I want to see positive visual feedback, so that I stay motivated to achieve my wellness goal.”
“As a User, I want to get feedback that encourages me to log in regularly, so that I can work on health goals consistently.”
“As a User, I want to be encouraged to restart after a set back, so that I keep going.”
“As a User, I want to have short tasks daily / weekly, so that I can easily fit it in my schedule.”
How might we…
How might we motivate a user to check into a wellness App when the motivation is low and time is limited?
How might we provide information on the biological factors that impact health in a playful and engaging way?
Biology + Health
Once I had generated data and researched aspects of health, I had to filter the information. Below you see a screenshot of my digital wall with the information gathered from interviews, survey’s and desk research as well as the insights I got from the Affinity Map, Empathy Map, Value proposition canvas and competitor analysis.
When I run out of space on my digital wall and I start feeling like smoke is coming out of my ears I know I am close to the top of the Discover — Define part of the Diamond diamond model of the UX process.
This is when I have to filter it down. I use visuals to get a grasp on information for myself in many instances. Sketching, visualising, bringing things on paper helps me to process it. In this case I made a visual as well by quickly sketching and writing down some of the information I had gathered:
I quickly thought through ideas and ended up with one clear process that was original yet directly inspired by the results of the survey, interviews and the competitor analysis.
UX Benchmarking
Below you see a diagram that visualises the Apps on a scale from Nature to Game and Competition to Care taking. The green dot stands for the area where I aimed to place my new App ‘Plant’ in relation to other Wellness Apps that have a playful or nature related theme:
The Concept for my App
‘Plant’ — Your Tamagotchi for health
The concept of the App is have game App that appeals to the care taking of humans and uses the attention grabbing principles of the hand-held digital pet Tamagotchi. This Japanese invention from 1996 was a big hit in the late 90s but again in the early 2000. If you didn’t take care of it by providing food or playing, the animal would visually suffer. In my App I want to use the same principle of visual feedback and the appeal to care taking to help people take care of themselves. The idea is inspired by several other concepts and App’s as well. Instead of an animal I came up with a plant + environment as metaphor for your health.
Screen
The kind of information and tasks in the App are about the Circadian Rhythm and what we can do that can help to achieve a healthy balance. The App will allow users to complete tiny tasks on their own schedule.
You can select a task from one of three areas:
Water
Air
Light
In contrast to other goal setting or tracking Apps, the user starts the journey by answering lifestyle questions about water, air and light quality and intake and the answers determine the health of the environment + the plant. You see a metaphor for the state of health you are based on what you have already done and you try to improve from there.
Goals
The App is aiming to inform users about biological facts they may not know about and inspire small action on a regular basis. The goal would be that the user checks in regularly but does only need to spend a few minutes on the App. A big struggle for users is to adopt long-term habits into their lives, therefore the App rewards regular use in a longer time frame rather than short-term intensive use.
App Goals
- Provide information on healthy habits
- Engage the user in a playful way
- Provide small, manageable tasks
- Encourage the user to use the App regularly &
build long-term habits
Paper Prototype
After the concept was sketched out and tested, I started sketching each screen. Below is a small selection of the first screen sketches. With this paper prototype I asked 4 testers to comment on what they saw and where they would click. The paper prototype clarified that the questions during onboarding where not clear and simple enough for users. I iterated the wording of the questions and the choice on the sliders.
The concept testing as well as the paper prototype did show that the imagery of the plant was clear enough for the understand. Each tester in fact grasped this concept very naturally. During onboarding you are first asked how old you are and then you see the plant grow. After that you are asked about the quality of water, air and light that you expose yourself to in a regular week and you see the health of the environment + plant being affected by your answers. This makes the metaphor more clear without explaining it explicitly.
Mid-Fi Prototype
The Mid-Fi prototype helps to space out the text with the images and test the t interaction by linking the different screens in the Prototype view with the Prototyping software Figma. During the Mid-Fi testing I had additional feedback about the onboarding questions with the sliders.
Hi-Fi Prototype
In the Hi-Fi Prototype the sliders where still the screens that asked for the most attention. I have observed unsolved problems from the Lo-fi and Mid-fi tend to keep chasing you to the Hi-Fi. This is something for me to keep in mind for the next time. I kept iterating the colors of the text, the answers, the slider and the arrows and finally found a couple of elements that were 1 pixel off which may have caused testers to know that something is not right without being able to put the finger on it.
In the beginning of the process the sliders seemed a small element of the concept. They ended up demanding a lot of time during the iteration process. Looking back I realise that any small element can cause problems. There is no more or less important screen since any screen that causes confusion or is misread can have an effect on the user experience.
Colors
The colors in this case were informed by nature since some colors would look ‘unhealthy’ … which is an interesting subject by itself. The more instinctive or biological reaction to color in nature or food. I did some desk research on colors in nature and then made a selection for the App. I aimed for a balance between natural colors and playful colors that are reminding the user of a game and fantasy.
Interactive Prototype
Below you see a screenshot of the interactive Prototype of the App. Each light blue line represents an interaction between screens or between the user and the screen.
Video Prototype
Next Steps
- Testing alternative Color palet
- Reviewing UI examples of sliders or other forms of onboarding
- Making a selection of examples of tasks and biological facts to refine the content of the App
- Review the concept in relation to the goal and come up with alternative versions of the App.
- Creating an animation in animation software like Flinto.
Reflection
- Stick to MVP (!) — Minimum Viable Product. I ended up working out a lot of screens and different flows. In order to give enough attention to the most important screens it is important to keep focus on the MVP first. Being overly enthusiastic over an idea but also feedback about the concept caused me to go too far and in to many directions. The ‘What is next…’ (Worked out in Explore) caused a lot of my time while it was. not relevant for the MVP. This was mainly triggered by a questions about the concept. While I enjoy thinking about concepts it is important to stick to ONE concept and to MVP in order to be able to work it out well and test it first.
- The animation of the plant has caused a lot of time and I learned that the prototyping software Figma is good for simple interaction animations but not ideal to animate an organically growing plant. Therefore it would be better to make a simplified version of the animation for the MVP prototype and either ask an animator or prototype in a software that is used for animations specifically, like Flinto.
- I enjoyed coming up with a concept that is original, yet I came across a problem that I didn’t think about beforehand. Once I had a concept that was more original, it was harder for me to find UI examples. Especially as a beginning UX UI Designer I need reference to learn from. The feedback from teachers was as well to look at more UI examples. So for future prototypes I would keep in mind that while I want to aim for original new concepts, I also want to keep it close enough to existing Apps that I can learn from.
If you are interested in Wellness and new ideas or if you have other articles that I might be interested in, let me know! I’m always happy to hear from readers and get inspired by others.
