The 3 Pillars of Headspace’s Success: a UX perspective
Design for growth, persuasive design, and UI design
You might be experiencing an increase in stress in this time of uncertainty. To find peacefulness during COVID-19 time, a lot of people have chosen to start meditation to help ourselves get through.
Headspace is one of the most successful health (not just meditation) apps currently on the market. With a total of 31 million users, what is behind Headspace’s success story? Let’s take a look!
First pillar: Design to scale user growth
Mindful moments, buddy program and direct invitation are the three main ways to attract new users.
Think of mindful moments as sharing beautiful lyrics or quotes from a poet to your friend. Just like you introducing Taylor Swift to your friend by sharing her new single from Spotify, you can introduce Headspace by sharing mindful moments.
Buddy program and “invite a friend” are more conventional referral system. They are also places in the “profile” section.
Mindful moments vs. direct invitation: different user mental models
Mindful moments (quotes sharing) and direct invitation have different mental models. While mindful moments is more for 1:n sharing, direct invitation is more for 1:1 sharing.
It is interesting to see that based on the two different mental models, Headspace designed two different registration pages.
For 1:1 sharing, the potential new user will receive more benefits (get 14 days of Headspace Plus free). For 1:n sharing, this benefit does not apply.
Note that Headspace also has many offline events that support user growth and many more triggers to share within the app.
Second pillar: Persuasive design
Persuasive design is an area of design practice that focuses on influencing human behavior through a product’s or service’s characteristics.
— Interaction Design Foundation
Social presence: “Headspace is better together”
Social presence, originated in the media richness theory, implies that people feel more engaged when they feel the presence of other human beings through the screens.
How does Headspace do it? Meditate together! You can meditate with strangers online at designated times. This feature makes you believe that you are not alone in this practice and keep you engaged in the app.
Another seemly unimportant design is its tagline “Headspace is better together”. It nudges you to think of meditation as a social sport.
Goal setting and badge system: run a meditation marathon and win the medal!
In cognitive science theories, goal setting helps users focus more on achieving the outcomes. It’s like — instead of running aimlessly, the app sets you up with a running track so you can progress toward your goals.
How does Headspace do it? The first time you logs onto it in a day, a pop-up window will ask you to submit your goal. Also, you can view your streak goals in “profile-stats”
Badges recognize achievements. Headspace’s badge design is simple yet powerful — it recognizes you for having spent x days in meditation.
Third pillar: UI design
Wait, you might ask, my app has all these features above, but why isn’t my app as successful?
The answer might lie in UI design. Headspace is quite famous for its cute animation, enlightening colors, and cute font choices. The whole design system is crucial to ensure the success of persuasive and growth design.
For instance, consider the screens on the left and right. Which one are you more likely to click on the Call-to-Action button?
Headspace’s design guideline is a good place to learn design system. For instance, I love the way they use colors to represent different moods.
Taking it together
The cute animation and design system of Headspace no doubt has added value to the success of persuasive design and design for growth.
Together, Headspace provides a more immersive and impressive user experience that supports both new user adoption and user retention.
Next episode: Zoom and its friends.
In the next article, we will explore Zoom — a popular online video conference tool. We will be examining key user flows of Zoom and see what are the problems Zoom has solved in terms of remote meeting, and what remained?
Stay tuned!
