Expatful Revealed: Creating a Special Place for Expats to Feel Good from the Startđ§
By: Valeria DĂaz Schiaffino.
Barcelona, Spain.
Hey, itâs Valeria, the junior designer here! Iâm excited to tell you about making Expatful, a special app for feeling good.
Our team is spread out in Germany and Spain â Kasia, Manasi, Miriam, and me. We got to create this app from scratch, and weâre going to show it off at with intetion of presenting it to a health conference!
Why did we choose to make a wellness app? Good question! as part of the program of the bootcamp, we got a task to create a wellness app, and we had the freedom to pick any topic. Now, three out of four of us are expats ourselves, and we noticed thereâs not much out there to help people like us settling into new places. That got us curious, so we did surveys and research. So, why did we lean towards Germany and Nordic countries? Well, itâs because we have close connections there, and there are some external things going on that make wellness more important for people who recently moved. Turns out, Germany is like a goldmine of data, and there are specific things like language barriers and gloomy winters that affect expats.
Secondary Research Spotlight: Navigating Expatriate Wellness
1. đRising Mental Health App Market: Recent years witness a surge in the mental health app market, projecting a colossal growth to USD 17.5 billion by 2030, reflecting an escalating demand for mental well-being solutions.
2. đ§ Expatriate Mental Health Challenges: Expatriates grapple with unique mental health challenges â from depression to stress and anxiety. Factors like a lack of support networks, language barriers, and cultural adjustments compound these challenges for those navigating new territories.
3. âď¸App Adoption difficulties and Holistic Strategies: Despite the rising need, expatriates encounter barriers to mental health app adoption, including stigma and usability concerns. To tackle expatriate depression, strategies like fostering connections, setting boundaries, engaging in activities such as volunteering, and maintaining a link to oneâs home culture emerge as crucial components of holistic well-being.
Exploring Expatriate Insights: As we dug into the lives of our main users â expats aged 25â34 who recently moved to Germany â we discovered that cooking was a favorite comfort zone, kind of ignored by other wellness apps. These expats, dealing with high hopes, loneliness, and language challenges, wanted a bit of emotional support.
Survey Findings: Our surveys gave us a sneak peek into usersâ minds â surprisingly, 58% didnât use wellness apps. The reasons were clear. The usual apps focused on mental wellness, but they didnât quite match with usersâ daily lives and interests. People wanted content that felt real, mixing science with personal experiences. They also missed info about how food affects feeling good.
Expatsâ Wellbeing at the Core: Getting to know the daily struggles of expats guided our journey. Our research highlighted the importance of emotional support in dealing with the usual expat challenges â high expectations, loneliness, stress, language barriers, and the search for new friends. Recognizing the value of daily activities and a good meal, we set out to create Expatful, a friendly sidekick catering to the unique well-being needs of expats in a meaningful way.
Understanding Rosiâs Journey
In the intricate process of understanding our users, we introduce you to Rosi â Picture her as the main character facing tough times in a new place. Sheâs dealing with mental health issues and wants things to be easier. Rosi likes all-around approaches and wants to fit into her new life.
Now, letâs talk about who Rosi is. She used to be an engineer in Monterrey, and now sheâs in Potsdam. She enjoys warm coffee, working out, and hanging out with friends to feel at home. Even though she likes indoor activities, sheâs excited about exploring her new German city. But, there are some challenges. Rosi finds it hard because of the language in some places. She also struggles to make friends and feels stressed because everything is so new.
Rosi has some goals, too. She wants to be healthier in both body and mind. Sheâs looking for new things to do, like activities and cafes. And she wants to make a routine that fits what she likes. Through understanding Rosi, we make sure to create things that match what real people want and need.
Setting the Path for Expatriate Wellness: Our Big Task
Our job is about recent expats, those whoâve just moved and want to feel better overall. Theyâre dealing with homesickness and finding it tough to adjust to this new way of life. What they need is a simple way to discover things that can cheer them up and improve how they feel. Our aim is clear: make Expatful the answer for expats on the lookout for a way to feel better in their new journey. Now, letâs put our heads together and figure out how to make that happen.
Ideation process
As we set out to help friends like Rosi, our first step was defining the specific problems they faced. One big challenge we spotted was the difficulty in building a sense of community. In our ideation process, we generated a bunch of ideas to address various challenges that expats encounter, and one key focus was on solving the puzzle of establishing a strong sense of community. So, from live chats to friends groups and community forums, we were on a mission to make settling into a new chapter feel a little more like home.
Cooking Up Ideas: Ideas kept bubbling up like a pot of soup on a Sunday. Community was a big deal, so we thought of live chats, friend groups, and forums. But we also played âKeep or Kickâ with the MosCow Method with other features crafted on lo-fi from all the members of the team. Keeping some other feautres like offering recipes in the form of challenges was a must. And kicking out voice recognition and podcasts was hard but it was the correct call because the complexity of implementation was bigger than the added bonus to our app.
Putting Ideas to the Test: Expatsâ well-being was our main focus, addressing the daily challenges they faced. Our initial âFrankensteinâ of ideas, embodied in the Mid-fi prototype, encountered some hurdles during testing. While users liked the concept, they found the user flow a bit like a maze. Round two was all about simplification, especially focusing on refining the Today and Explore tabs.
Hi-Fi Designs: our makeover moment centered around branding. We opted for a simple font, Barlow, and blended it with lively purple and salmon colors to create a friendly vibe. The onboarding process underwent a transformation to be more engaging, using collage compositions to give the app a lively and inviting feel.
After much debate and tweaking, we arrived at solutions for the âTodayâ and âExploreâ screens, tailoring them to the needs of users like Rosi.
A bried demo of the app experience: Rosiâs Experience Unveiled On the âTodayâ screen, Rosi encounters suggested activities and challenges. She can either join them or shuffle for three more personalized ideas. In the âExploreâ section, Rosi has the freedom to specify her preferences, searching or filtering by health concerns, culture, or language. We made it even more convenient by allowing her to choose between indoor and outdoor options based on her current weather and mood.
Letâs zoom in on a specific challenge, like the âResourceful Gourmet.â Here, Rosi can follow video instructions for a Mole recipe and create her own masterpiece. Completing the challenge earns her points, and she can share her experience with the app community. This marks the exciting transition from mid-fi to hi-fi, transforming Expatful from a concept into a dynamic and interactive reality for expats seeking wellness and connection.
- đď¸Keep eyeing the main problem. Itâs crucial to revisit and iterate, keep going back to the main problem statement while working on solutions to stay on the right track.
- âď¸Watch out for copyright stuff. Good copywriting can make usersâ lives easier and enhance their experience. This was specially appreciate it in the user testing phase.
- đ¤Pick what matters most instead of piling on everything. Itâs clichĂŠ but narrowing down the focus on one aspect rather than trying to cover everything, help us to create feautires with greater quality and effectiveness.
- đManaging surveys and data needs a real grip and some dedicated time.
Expatful isnât done cooking yet. Weâll keep tweaking and fixing, making sure itâs just right for expats like us.
- đ¤Implement voice/speech recognition feature.
- đŞˇPromote Expatful as the go-to wellness app.
- đExpand its reach to more places beyond.
A heartfelt thank you for taking the time to journey through my article! đŠˇ
Below Youâll find an interesting fact about the link between well-being and volunteering
Volunteering emerges as a powerful coping mechanism for expatriates, fostering a sense of purpose and positively influencing mental well-being. Supported by the World Happiness Report of 2019 and a US longitudinal study, this connection proves to be a universal motivator, benefitting individuals both before and after relocation. Engaging in community service not only aids expatriates in navigating the challenges of moving but also promotes integration into their new surroundings, creating a mutually beneficial relationship between individuals and their adopted communities.
