For Ironhack’s 5th project, we were given the National Wellness Institute website and were told to choose within the 6 dimensions of wellness that people were having problems with and do research on how to make those navigation problems less prevalent.
Client: National Wellness Institute
Roles: UX/UI designer
Methods: UK Design Council’s Double Diamond
Year: 2021
This project was very different than what we were used to at Ironhack. Instead of a group project, this was an individual project with only our community feedback. So, instead of our usual 4-day sprint, we had two weeks to hold ourselves accountable for our pace and work.
I faced a few difficulties since I found myself taking too much time with certain parts of the case study. I spent a lot of time researching and pivoting in the first part of my case study. I went into my primary research (surveying and interviewing) thinking personally that spiritual enlightenment and finding ways to unwind would be my target group’s most popular stress, but ended up finding out that their main stress point was school and work.
My last pivot being spiritual enlightenment to occupational stress and how it targets our mental health.
Have you ever felt so stressed to complete something, but ended up procrastinating anyways?
It comes as no surprise that in our fast-paced society, one of the leading causes of stress is feeling unaccomplished which leads to a spiral of emotional and physical turmoil. Therefore, I focused on how to manage yourself in that aspect of life where you might feel incompetent. My target group being millennials.
"Numerous studies show that job stress is far and away the major source of stress for American adults and that it has escalated progressively over the past few decades." -The American Institute of Stress
Taking that into consideration, I dove right into my competitive feature comparison chart where I jotted down the apps that my user was using to keep track of other things in their life.
Thinking process: Jot down the task that needs to be completed and get it done.
Now using our UX thinking caps: People would need incentives to complete their work and if they struggle and completing their work even with a task manager it would still be difficult.
How can we use our idea to bridge our blue ocean with the NWI’s target group?
The competitive feature comparison chart allows us to notice the similarities and differences between the apps that our user uses and how to maximize those features for our own app.
Sleep and Meditation currently relieves their stress
Workload was their major source of stress at workplace/school
School and Work was their major sources of stress
Mental and Social being the lifestyle areas they mainly struggle with
Fairly Procrastinator
when asked about their time management
"Stress, procrastinate, do everything all at once before it's due"
"I like to plan when I take care of which part but then I usually don't completely follow it"
"I honestly don't know how to manage productivity"
A huge issue I’m realizing is there’s this blue ocean where accountability isn’t accounted for. So doing some more research and found out that the American Society of Training and Development did a study on accountability and found out that there is a “65% of completing a goal if you commit to someone. And if you have a specific accountability appointment with a person you’ve committed, you will increase your chance of success up to 95%.” Your chances of success increases when you have an accountability appointment 🧐
Ok, keeping that in mind as I continue on with my process. So we need to be able to jot down the task that needs to be completed and get it done somehow. Now using our UX thinking caps: People would need incentives to complete their work and if they struggle and completing their work even with a task manager it would still be difficult.
Cramped
Overwhelmed
Fatigued
Forgetful
“procrastinate till the last second”
"There’s so much work"
"I can’t do all of this today"
"I barely have time to sleep"
“bad at managing, work a lot more hours which adds stress”
Going back into my research, which is now filled with interviews, surveys, reviews of other apps, and some input from my colleagues. Finding out how our target group feels and fails leads to a clearer affinity map with even more solutions. Absorbing all this information and turned it into a user persona that embodies our target audience.
Exhausted Emily (yawn).
She’s our procrastinator that has a lot on her plate but still can’t find it in her to complete her work on time.
She tried the whole waking up at 5 am and finishing everything before dawn, but some things are left to the fitness influencer on IG with ‘Just Do It’ on their bio.
She comes home from work tired and ready to take a nap but mopes around her apartment until she feels overwhelmed with all the work she needs to complete before tomorrow morning. “I’m never going to finish”.
Feels defeated just staring at her to-do list. It’s now time to go to sleep and maybe 2/6 things were fulfilled.
Ideas were created with a 5 minute time limit
HMW (How might we) create an experience where users don’t feel overwhelmed about their abundant daily tasks?
So we begin to ideate. With fellow cohorts we brain storm on different ways that our user can get their tasks done without feeling particularly inundated. From awards systems, Kanban feature, completion bars, and a “overwhelmed” screen.
The NWI already specializes in coaching so using their already existing platform to complete this task management idea wouldn’t be a huge stretch, especially as their reviews are always 5 stars with their current members. “Their resources and unique webinars available for members are really beneficial for myself as a professional, and the work I do in the field. They are very engaged with their members and provide numerous opportunities to stay engaged!”
Now we begin to sort them through the MOSCOW and Impact vs Effort chart to filter the most important features and most impactful.
Our must-haves being: positive habit checklist, goals, affirmations, and more.
Making sure we complete everything that our user will need from our end and ensuring a practical and productive outcome.
Coaches that specialize in time managing
To show the progress throughout the week
To celebrate smaller task completion
An experience that aids users in work and time managing that will promote mental and social awareness while alleviating their main pain points with procrastination.
Our main goals being time management where coaches that specialize in that field will always be able to contact our user, completion bar to show their progress throughout the week, and affirmations that celebrate smaller task completion.
Now we enter our LOW-FI screens that focus on practicality and effectiveness. Through these screens we can figure out where our users would have difficulty and struggle. Our main issue was an issue of overload of information since our user is overwhelmed this was possibly the worst that could of occurred so I went straight into designing again this time taking 60% of what was cluttering our main page off and working on creating a more open, inviting screen.
Using our visual competition, mood board and style tile, I created a more interactive High-Fi. I focused on reassurance and advisement. Colors that created a more calm and balanced feeling and fonts that were guiding, large, and round. With also a speaking feature for either disable users or users that need more assistance when creating their tasks and reading them.
How would we know when the program works?
*When users feel their life is more balanced and procrastinate less
*When users get more sleep and meditation in because their work is completed
*User Attitudes
*Returning Users
*Task Successes
*Positive Reviews
*High DAU/MAU
How would we know when the program fails?
*When users feel their life has become more stressful and complicated
*When users get less sleep and meditation in because their work has double from before
*Misclicks
*Slow Progress
*Bounce Rate
*Low DAU/MAU
*Churn Rate
The main stress point for users is their workload and how overwhelmed they might be with the amount of task that they have on their homepage. Our failures would be highlighted when our users feel as if their life has become more stressful and complicated.
Our success would be when users feel their life is more balanced and procrastinate less.
We can judge that with mis-clicks, work completion, and user responses after coaching sessions.