Reimagining Wellness Tracking Apps

 

Project Overview

I set out to reimagine what users want in a wellness app; what they are familiar with and like, what they want more of, and what they do not want at all. What would make for a more meaningful wellness experience. I performed remote directed story-telling interviews and usability tests, and prototyped mid-fidelity solutions.

 
 

My Role

I conducted and observed remote interviewing and usability tests, then synthesized this research data. From here I created mid-fidelity wireframes, an interactive prototype, and wrote a findings and recommendations report.

 

Tools and Methods

  • Remote User Research and Testing

  • Wireframing

  • Information Architecture

  • Interactive Prototyping

  • Affinity Diagramming

  • Pen and Paper

  • Keynote

  • Sketch

  • Axure

  • Zoom

  • Otter

 

Users and User Goal

The users are young, urban adults with busy schedules who want to improve their physical health by maintaining a healthy and consistent day to day routine, and to view their healthy progress, in order to feel motivated and empowered over their wellbeing, leading to reduced feelings of stress, and allowing them to feel happier and more confident.

Research and Testing

 

Directed Story-Telling

Goal: the purpose of remote directed story-telling was to discover what current users of wellness apps enjoy and do not enjoy about apps they have used, then synthesize this data to determine user pain points, areas for opportunity, and determine possible solutions.

Findings: Users wanted an app that helped hold themselves accountable, while also feeling positively motivated in reaching their goals. They want an app that is easy and quick to use, and which is customizable so as to focus on themselves as individuals, with personal goals and needs.

 

Wireframing

Following the discovery of common user pain points and opportunity areas I made hand-drawn sketches and digital wireframes of a few screen ideas. My proposed solutions centered on ways to keep the user motivated and focused on their personal goals. Features such as daily goal-tracking rings, quick access buttons for frequently performed activities, viewing current and long-term activity, and connecting with friends and other users of the app provide users with accountability and propelling visuals of their progress.

 

Information Architecture

Equipped with information from research and proposals for wireframed screens, I started creating a new experience using information architecture. Navigation is narrowed down to the basics like, “Yesterday”, “Profile”, and “Tracking”, and all pages are available to the user in just a few clicks.

 

Interactive Prototyping

Next up was creating mid-fidelity interactive prototypes. I wanted to focus on ease of navigation, and simple vocabulary to help users interact effectively with the app. Key features include an intuitive navigation bar at the bottom of each screen, a Home Screen featuring a visual representation of the users’ daily goal-tracking (using tracking rings), quick access buttons on the Home Screen for activities frequently performed by the user, and navigation to both user progress and user connection screens.

Ultimately, the result is a wellness and fitness tracking app with customizable goal-setting and short-cut features, daily and progress tracking options, and a simple, clean layout.

 

Remote Usability Testing and Report

Goal: The purpose of usability testing was to gain insight as to the experiential quality of the app, to evaluate the usability of the current architecture, and to determine necessary changes moving forward.


Findings: Utilizing affinity diagramming, I was able to determine that for my participants personalization and customization was present, but not enough. Choice of vocabulary was not intuitive for all users, which caused some confusion with navigation. There were not enough short-cuts, and there was a desire for clearer inter-navigation.

 

Recommendations and Moving Forward

Customization: improve user feelings of motivation, accountability, and personalization by providing a vast range of options for goal-making and tracking, as well as options for activity.

Clarity: overhaul app vocabulary to reduce user confusion and feelings of frustration, and to improve ease of navigation. This would involve the merging of the “Tracking” and “Progress” categories.

Accessibility: provide more intuitive organization of app themes (i.e. “Tracking” and Progress”) to create shortcuts which are intuitive to the user.