Overview

BeWell is a social wellness app with the goal of motivating adults to regularly engage in wellness activities. It also aims to provide a deeper understanding as to why it’s important to do so. BeWell is for adults who want a simple and accessible way to begin a healthier lifestyle.

Timeline:
September - December 2022 (11 weeks)

Role:
UX/UI, Research

Tool:
Figma

Team:
2 Information Sciences students @ University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign + myself

Problem

Adults struggle to care for their mental health & wellness

My team and I found that while most people agree that mental health and wellness is important, it’s an aspect of their lives that they tend to neglect. How can we help them improve this aspect of their lives?

Solution

Simple recommendations & motivation from companionship

1) Simple Recommendations

  • Simple and accessible wellness activities users can incorporate into their everyday lives

  • Brief descriptions of the health benefits of each activity

2) Motivation from companionship

  • Social media-inspired feature turns an individual’s wellness journey into one that can be shared and enjoyed with friends

  • Community experience to increase long-term motivation to maintain healthy habits

3) Low time commitment

  • Many adults lead busy lives, with their schedules being filled with commitments from work, family, and/or education.

  • Recommend activities designed to be quick, simple, and flexible to the user’s schedule.

User Interviews

We conducted a total of nine 30-minute interviews with adults aged 18-50 to ask about their lifestyle, habits, and opinions as they relate to mental health and wellness.

Main Insight

Even if they realize it’s important, many of our interviewees neglect their mental health and wellness because they feel too busy or unmotivated.

Major insights:

  1. Busy schedules

    • 100% of interviewees cited work, family, or education commitments as a key reason they don’t spend more time taking care of their mental health/wellness

  2. Unmotivated

    • 89% of interviewees stated that having a friend(s) to engage in wellness activities with would help improve their long-term motivation

  3. Lack guidance

    • 78% of interviewees shared that they would like to improve their mental health and wellness, but don’t know where to start

Our Goal

How might we create an enjoyable wellness experience that is both convenient and motivational?

Ideating Solutions

When considering what type of technology to use for our solution, my team and I knew we wanted to prioritize convenience. This is because we intended our solution to be for easy everyday use. My team and I ultimately decided on an app design because we found that a mobile application would be the most accessible and convenient option.

Competitive Analysis

After identifying our interviewees’ goals and pain points, we began exploring solutions and opportunities.

Headspace

Strengths:

  • Helps improve mental health through meditation

  • Beginner friendly

Weaknesses:

  • Lacks strong incentive to continue long-term

Virgin Pulse

Strengths:

  • Track fitness and wellness methods

  • Complete challenges alone or with friends

Weaknesses:

  • For employers/employees (not accessible)

Design

Wireframes

Usability Testing + Iterations

Redesigns based on usability testing

After completing our initial prototype, we conducted usability testing on our Figma prototype with nine potential users. In order to do this, we utilized the think-aloud method. My team and I chose to use this method because we wanted to get a better understanding of what parts of our design worked well, what parts could still use improvement, and the users’ thought processes.

Three Major Improvements

  1. Clearer & simpler onboarding screens

    • It was suggested that we only require email for sign-up instead of requiring username, so we applied this to our redesign and changed “username” to “display name” for ease of use

    • Increased spacing and broke up text in onboarding screens

  2. Redesigned buttons & increased scannability

    • Multiple users didn’t recognize certain buttons to be clickable, so we changed their design to make the function clearer

    • We received feedback suggesting we make descriptions more concise and less text-heavy

  3. Refined color palette

    • The initial design featured multiple pastel colors, but our users felt that the color scheme throughout the app didn’t appear uniform or fit the theme of the app

    • We switched to a color palette that mainly features blues and greens as they felt that these colors are more soothing

Final Screens

The final product

Reflection

What I learned

  • Be flexible and open to new ideas (even if it sets you back)

  • Thoughtfully prioritize tasks. We had many ideas but did not have the time/resources to flesh them all out. I could improve on determining which issues are most important and should be addressed first (rather than trying to tackle them all).

If I had more time

  • I would go through more iterations, especially for features we didn’t have time to flesh out

  • I would conduct more research on what types of content and features we should promote for a more inclusive experience

  • I would ideate on ways to increase customization so that users can have a more personalized experience

BetterHelp

Strengths:

  • Users get help from a therapist

  • Highly personalized experience

Weaknesses:

  • Can be difficult to track progress