Headspace

Empathize

What do users need from a Mindfulness App?

Improving health, especially mental health, can be difficult to nurture. It’s a concept that many dismiss or feel is not important enough to prioritize.

The interest in managing mental health and the conversation around it has grown in recent years

And rightfully so. There are many that deal with some kind of mental malady in one form or another but rarely vocalize it or seek help around it. Apps like Headspace and others have made it easier for users to tackle that issue in private.

I wanted to find out exactly what drives users to engage with an app like Headspace, their behaviors around its use and if anything further could be added to improve its service.

Research Goals

• Gather information about the app and other wellness apps similar to it 

• Learn what engages and disengages user interaction

• Identify strengths and weaknesses of wellness competitors

• Determine the target audience 

• Understand what user’s want out of a wellness app

Methodologies

• Secondary Research (Market Research & Competitive Analysis)

• Primary Research (Personal 1:1 Interviews)

Mindfulness in the Market

Headspace applies mindfulness in a very approachable and digestible way, even for the newest of practitioners. Some benefits of mindfulness are shown below.

Since 2020, the company has had user counts in the following areas:

• Paid subscribed users: 

  • 2 million

• Users that have downloaded the app:

  • 65 million

• Presently being used in:

  • 190 countries

  • Over 600 businesses

Demographics

• 61.9% of headspace's followers are female

• 38.1% are male

• 18- 75 years old

Wellness Market & Impact of COVID on Mental Health

A lot can be said of how a global crisis affects mental health. Below states some findings on how the wellness market has been thriving and how COVID has impacted digital services around mental health.

A Battle of the Minds

Exploring competitor strengths and weaknesses provided insights into what other wellness apps offered and how they measured up against Headspace’s model.

Calm, being the largest competitor, had many similarities, but was shown to have an abundance of options, which became overwhelming for users. My Possible Self and some of the others were free to use and offered tracking abilities of a user’s progress and mood.

Let’s talk about Mental Health

After conducting about 20 minute 1:1 interviews with 6 participants, I was able to obtain insights into users experience with the app and their own mental health struggles.

This proved to be quite challenging as it was difficult to find users specific to the app

Each user had unique ways of arriving at the app and eventually leaving it after a time.

Number of Interviews: 6

Participants: Those who have used Headspace

Age: 18-75

Summary

• Users love its aesthetic and playful charm

• The app lacks personalization

• Frustration with limited options, especially with the free trial

• Yearly subscription is higher than most, deterring continued use

• Users pair counseling with their meditative practice

• Users have trouble prioritizing their mental health

• Users rarely invest in their mental health long term

• Overall users have a positive experience with the app

Finding Patterns in User Experiences

In order to synthesize all qualitative data collected from the research phase, an empathy map was constructed to show all observations made from each participant that was interviewed. After clustering similar themes, 2 main patterns emerged that specified insights and needs that needed to be taken into consideration when adding a new feature.

Analyzing the Foundation

After gathering insights, I performed a heuristic evaluation. I began analyzing the existing Headspace iOS app to assess its usability in its current state through Nielsen's 10 heuristic principles. Below are some noteworthy concerns that came up during this evaluation.

Welcome, Jane!

Based on all prior research conducted, a persona could then be reached to define who the main audience for Headspace is, and the specifications the new feature would need to cater to based on their goals and needs. This helped me to focus on addressing the major needs of the most important user group.

Ideate

Prioritizing Features

To begin the Ideate process, a features roadmap or a product roadmap was constructed which ranked most important to least important features needed for the app - Must-Haves [P1], Nice to Have [P2], Surprising and Delightful [P3], and Can Come Later [P4]. This helped to gain a clearer sense of what the priorities of the project were. A comprehensive list can be seen here.

Creating a Site Map

A site map could then be constructed, which helped to sort the information architecture and define the navigational hierarchy of all pages and features the app would offer.

Testing

Putting it to the Test

Usability Testing helps to understand how the test will be conducted, by outlining the objectives, methods, participants, and tasks to be completed. A plan is drafted and participants are recruited.

Results from each session were recorded with the participant’s consent. Each participant is given scenarios and asked to complete the previously developed task flows. Below is an overview of the results of the test. A full outline of the plan can be viewed here.

Gathering Insights & Solutions

From the usability testing, an affinity map could be comprised. The affinity map serves to document all observations from user testing and identify specific insights to improve usability. By compiling observations from user testing, patterns of user experiences are able to be identified and placed into a priority matrix to gauge the level of effort needed to complete suggested updates.

Below are details of the main insights gathered and suggestions to resolve user frustrations.

*** NOTE:

Since the objective is to add a feature to an existing app rather than an app redesign, these recommendations do not fit within the scope of the project and will not move forward in revisions.

Prioritizing Improvements

The priority matrix then determines the importance of suggestions made according to the impact and overall effort that would be needed to complete the proposed updates in the allotted time.

Priority Revisions

Using the recommendations from the priority matrix, revisions were made based on insights acquired from user observations and then implemented into the final high fidelity prototype to improve usability.

A small addition to the Set Goals screen was also added to ensure users can edit their goal and further add more goals if they choose.