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My Team
Apurva Patil
Samarth Nagraj
Zhiyu（Zoy）Qi
Dilnoza K.
My Role
Research
User Interview
Tools Used
Figma
Timeline
4 weeks
Figjam
Wire-framing
High-Fidelity
Re-designing Fitbit mindfulness features for young adults (Grad students + working professionals aged 25-30 years) to encourage them to practice mindfulness on a regular basis to improve mental well-being.
Executive Summary
The purpose of the project was to design for building user motivation through the fitness app, Fitbit. The design's expected outcomes could benefit users by motivating them for healthy habits and healthy lifestyles. We studied the Fitbit app and identified our design focus as the Mindfulness branch of the app. This case study summarizes what we did throughout the project including secondary, and primary research, wireframing, testing, and other related steps and substeps.
Problem Statement
How can we effectively design a feature in the Fitbit app's Mindfulness section that addresses the widespread issue of stress and anxiety in modern life, considering the challenges of time constraints, limited resources, and varying motivation levels among users, with the goal of making mindfulness and meditation practices more accessible and engaging, thereby enabling users to seamlessly integrate these practices into their daily routines to enhance their well-being?
Secondary Research
For our additional secondary research, we focused more on exploring Fitbit’s website, and resources, and focused on Fitbit’s existing features on behavioral change. We focused on Activity, Sleep, Nutrition, and Mindfulness areas that Fitbit creates its resources for behavior change. We intended to read and learn more about existing literature about the Fitbit app and its users. So, we viewed more resources on the Fitbit website's resource center.
Refocusing
In our team's focused session, we honed in on improving Fitbit's Mindfulness section, identifying its lack of motivating features for habit formation in mindfulness practices. Our goal: to infuse this section with engaging, user-centric elements to enhance regular usage and user well-being.
Fitbit Mindfulness
The Mindfulness section in the Fitbit app is a feature that is designed to help users reduce stress and improve their overall well-being through mindfulness and meditation practices.
Our further secondary research helped us to learn more about mindfulness. We also looked closer at additional resources and existing literature on mindfulness.
We tried to answer the question: What is mindfulness? We learned that mindfulness is a practice, and existing more mindfully in a lifestyle. In other words, it is intentionally paying attention to the present moment and making space to do so from a place of non-judgment.
Competitor Analysis
Primary Research
Objective: Investigate the user experience of foreign nationals using the Fitbit app, both in their home countries and as international students in the USA.
Methodology:
1. Audience Identification: Targeted foreign nationals for unique cultural insights on Fitbit app use.
2. Participant Recruitment: Selected participants representing our research demographics.
3. Interview Strategy: Used semi-structured interviews to explore three main topics, with room for spontaneous insights.
Focus Areas: Concentrated on three key topics for a thorough understanding of user experiences with the app.
Affinity Mapping
We studied our affinity mapping further to learn more about our takeaways from the interviews and we added some other notes to include to the themes that emerged from the interviews.
Interview Design Frames and Personas
Translating Insights into Design Direction
Based on our interview insights and identified design challenges, we developed a design framework summarized as:
“Promote regular mindfulness practice to improve mental well-being.”
To represent our user base more realistically, we created user personas:
- Practitioner Young Adult: Reflects the aspirations and obstacles of young adults engaging in mindfulness.
- International Graduate Student: Highlights the distinct challenges and perspectives of an international student pursuing mindfulness.
These personas guide our design process, ensuring our solutions are tailored to meet the broad and particular needs of our target audience.
Problem Iden
Problem Identification
Initially, we had seven problems identified based on our interview insights.
Problems we focused on
we discussed them while brainstorming solutions and realized that some of them sound similar and could be grouped together. So, we narrowed our problems down to three. This way we could focus on achievable design solutions considering a given short period of time.
Wireframing
We employed the HOOKS model and Octalysis in our wireframing stage. Prior to this, we conducted a think tank to define the task flow, revisiting the three key problems identified earlier and focusing on our proposed solutions. This was followed by sketching exercises to visualize our solutions.
Personalized Onboarding
Trigger options
Like stories, Tabs of each friend (see what they are up to), Just a friends list that displays friends and Badges on their profile pictures if they have some updates
Homescreen needs to be designers for
1. New Users
2. Old users
1. The new user will have our recommendations and options to add friends (or we can just pick up friends from their contact lists if they allow the app to track that).
2. Old users will have already displayed friend list status and an option to continue their progress along with recommendations based on their mood (NLP Algo).
Group workouts
For problem 3 of regularity we can start maintaining a history/progress page.
Voice memo
Start of session - ask about emotion
By the end - ask them to record their thoughts
Design
High Fidelity
New User On-Boarding flow
Main Homepage Screen of Fitbit
Initial onboarding questionnair
Welcome pop-up poster
Initial onboarding questionnair
New User Homescreen
Returning User On-Boarding flow
Homescreen once the user starts practicing
Main Homepage Screen of Fitbit
User case: Once the user takes up the community challenge
You can hear audio messages from your friends.
Card opens up on the homescreen to motivate our users.
Meditation music player
Feedback screen.
Record an audio clip
Snap a photo and share
Voice Memo
Once you complete session you can hear what your friend has to say.
Your garden view.
Your friend who has not meditated, her garden view.
Journal
Case - Once you are done with the session.
Testing
In this UX portfolio project, we successfully onboarded and utilized the expertise of two skilled testers to execute rigorous testing on three distinct scenarios.
What did we test?
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Is the voice-based motivation effective?
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Are users able to resonate with the garden metaphor?
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Are users able to understand the new flow
What was working?
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The social media aspect of the app was well received
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Flow is easy to understand
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The garden metaphor was easy to understand and effective
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User preferred the voice-based customized notification trigger
What was not working?
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Does not like the fact that the audio I send to my friend will also be stored in the journal because people want to save personal thoughts in their journal which they may not be comfortable sharing with others
Redesign
After analyzing the findings from the testing phase, I leveraged the insights to reimagine and enhance the user interface design.
Reesigned Music player UI
Pop up Feedback
Audio or Write text option
Along with posting picture we can also have a small caption
Picture with caption
What did I learn
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This project was enjoyable and challenging as we worked with Fitbit's existing design system and a tight deadline. The agile design process involved team brainstorming, focusing on mindfulness, researching and interviewing users, identifying critical problems, studying motivation research, and analyzing competitors. We designed features to foster mindfulness habits, iterated through user testing, and adapted design methods to suit the project's needs.
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Throughout the project, I learned valuable skills in conducting interviews and working creatively within constraints. I am eager to continue exploring habit change models and realize the long-term impact of design decisions on people's lives. As designers, we are responsible for positively influencing users' habits and well-being beyond their immediate interactions with our designs.
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In the future, I plan to continue working on this project, learn from my peers about different habit change models, and conduct observations over time for such designs. When designing for experience, I aim to make interactions enjoyable, while for behavior change, I consider the design's long-term impact on the user.
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