The Topic
Our UX team was given the broad umbrella of Health as a problem space. We were to create a responsive website for both mobile and desktop, in minimum viable product form.
Our Challenge
Users currently have an overwhelming amount of options to advise their healthcare choices and needs. While it may be useful, we knew it wasn't enough to just bring multiple health functionalities into one interface. Our team had to solve the unique question our research uncovered within the Health topic.
A resource to motivate, inform and unite people with shared health goals, not just compare and track.
UX Toolbox
Topic Map
Exploring the Health sphere...
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It became clear there are plenty of opportunities within this topic. And interestingly many are interconnected.
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There were two distinct themes: people who take care of others, those who monitor their own health.
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The most popular areas of interest among our team were diet, fitness and mental health as a close third.
User Interviews
Hearing from users firsthand...
A series of screener surveys first helped us narrow down recruits for interviews. Our team then interviewed 6 people from varying backgrounds and age ranges of 20-60+ years. Although they came from different walks of life many of them expressed similar attitudes when it came to their health and fitness.
Affinity Mapping
Leveraging the process called affinity mapping we began to synthesize the data gathered from interviews. Each sticky note is a data point that can range from user actions, behaviors and even emotions. Once recorded, our UX team began forming similar groupings as pictured below. This allowed us to find relationships and insights.
Morning
Work
Home
Evening
Insights
"I would welcome any way possible to live more healthily"
Theresa
Human Rights Officer
46 years old
New York City
Persona
User Journey
Join Theresa throughout her day. Every period brings challenges and opportunities to manage her mom's health and her own.
Morning
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Stretches and meditates
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Caters mom's breakfast to nutritional needs
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Puts step count watch on mom
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Walks to work, checks heartrate
Meet Theresa. She is both dedicated and health conscious. As a caretaker for her mother, Cindy, she is often known to take care of others before taking care of herself.
Goals
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Implement good health habits seamlessly into her daily routine
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Keep track of both her moms and her own health statistics
Needs
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A consolidated space to track health and fitness
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Designate others to receives her stats and hold her accountable
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Suggestions for ways to workout and decompress
Frustrations
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Has to use multiple apps to track health stats
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Unsure which foods to eat for nutrients/underlying conditions
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Needs reminders as caretaker for her mom and herself
Movement
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Almost all interviewees mentioned keeping a step count. They incorporated movements throughout their busy day however they could.
Multiple Apps
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Users all talked about using and having frustrations with multiple apps to manage their diet and fitness.
Care for others
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A majority of interviewees talked not only about taking care of their own health but taking care of others.
Food as medicine
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All interviewees had a consciousness about eating to get proper nutrition and to maintain underlying conditions.
Mental Health
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All interviewees had positive experiences with mental health therapy. This included time to decompress, former counseling, prayer, oils and breathing techniques.
Goal centered
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Users were goal focused when creating their health routines. Oftentimes, they would focus on one goal, see what works and adjust accordingly.
Focus Evolution
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Users had a good understanding of their own health evolution. When younger their goals were focused on physical appearance. As they aged, the focus shifted to longevity and overall mind body health.
Revised Problem Statement
How might we help users stay accountable to themselves and for others in regards to their specific health goals throughout the day?
Bringing Research to Lives
Design features resulting from research synthesis
Moscow Map
A four quadrant system to prioritize features
Design Studio
Timed sketch and team feedback sessions
Bringing Research to Lives
Competitive and Comparative Analysis....
We focused on...
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competitive fitness markers
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meal sharing suggestions
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trending goals
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reminders
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goal focused metrics
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sense of time
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speaking to the user
Usability Test
Mid fidelity mobile prototype
Takeaways
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We found that users wanted to immediately click the plus button in the main navigation over the giant one on the main screen; they believe it seemed like a background instead of a clickable option.
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We noticed that users were confused on who is who overall.
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Users noted they would like to grab and drag items from one plate to another in the Eat page to easily add ingredients to their plate.
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Many users expressed they want to use the hamburger menu to complete tasks rather than options on the screen.
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Users utilized home screen to answer specific tasks, instead of individual pages we had categorized for it.
Mid Fidelity Screen Flow
Responsive Mobile design
We focused on...
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split complementary scale
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healing sea foam pale and dark greens, scrub turquoise
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oranges, yellows for movement and sunlight
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black clean san serif font
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opacity changes for profile pictures
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vibrant orange reminders
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sense of time with gradient sky
High Fidelity Screen Flow
Responsive mobile design
Usability Test
High fidelity mobile prototype
Takeaways
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By visually identifying the profiles, users had an 80% success rating in adding a member to their account. This was a 167% increase from the first round of testing. Providing alternate hamburger menu pathways and clearly worded text with directions boasted the score.
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Adding high resolution plate images in the meal sharing section improved the success rate to 60% which was a 20% increase from the first testing round. Hover states and colorful text and add buttons helped move the task along.
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The success rating fell in the third task to 70%, a 22% decrease from the first round. The human icon might have proved confusing for a "total body" page. People often thought of it as a profile section rather than total body metric scales.
We focused on...
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stationary display screen left
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consistent look and feel from mobile to desktop
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added trending elements to expand the users health community outreach
High Fidelity Screen Flow
Responsive desktop design
Recommended Next Steps
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Providing more food related icons or imagery in the meal sharing section could help boast the usability score even further.
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Taking a look at our last usability test, a more appropriate “fitness” icon would be in order. To ease screen transitions, the total body section needs an icon that cannot be confused as profile account.
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We look forward to providing further ways to motivate users in the fitness area. With more development time to flush out the product we would help users find common workouts appropriate to their circle's varying health goals and conditions.
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Flushing out the trending section to expand the user's community circle would be another future step.
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Having goal success metrics specific to health conditions would require extensively building out user input forms.