Before addressing the how, I needed to get to the bottom of the why.
So, I formulated the following research questions:
Interviewees:
5
“Busy brains don’t like busy tools.”
“I need the right environment to approach goals.”
An encouraging tone is important.
“I need to break down goals into smaller tasks, so that I don’t feel as intimidated and overwhelmed by them.”
“Approaching a goal itself is difficult because I don’t know where to start."
Strong desire for simplicity, both in terms of visuals and of functionality
“I need a mindset shift in regard to habits… I think that validation, empathy, and encouragement could help with this.”
“The easier a habit is to log, the more likely I am to do so.”
Research Methods
Brief
Design a mobile-first responsive product that has to do with taking care of one’s health.
Role
Sole designer
UX research, UI design, branding
Competitive analysis, user interviews, card sorting, usability testing
Background
Timeline
September-November 2024
Responsibilities
Tools
Figma, FigJam, Adobe Illustrator, Canva, Zoom, Google Suite
It all started with a broad topic area: habit and goal management. I had long struggled with managing habits and goals, stuck in a cycle of excitement, ambition, and attempts, followed by disappointment, discouragement, and a feeling of stuck-ness.
I knew that I wasn’t alone in this. My friends, coworkers, family, and even supervisors voiced their struggles with managing habits and goals, tired of searching for a solution that could help them take the reins in a meaningful way.
This is when I knew that I might have a problem to solve.
What role does habit-formation and goal-setting play in people’s lives?
What makes doing these things more difficult?
What methods do people currently use to set goals, form habits, and keep track of each?
If people use any digital products to address these needs, which do they use?
What aspects of those digital products are helpful? Which are not helpful?
Why do people stop using these sorts of products?
In order begin exploring these questions, I moved into user interviews.
Modality:
Zoom and in-person
Duration:
15-30 minutes
I wanted to connect with my participants organically and intentionally, so I kept my list of questions on the shorter side. I figured that allowing the interviews to be somewhat relaxed in structure and duration would be more conducive to open and honest conversations.
Within minutes of the first interview starting, I began to see how crucial it was that I (and my interview guide) remain flexible.
Certain questions, as I had written them, weren’t entirely clear to participants. Others didn’t need to be asked at all, as participants had addressed them indirectly in previous answers.
That we were jumping around the interview guide and not going in order signaled something exciting to me: we were having authentic conversations.
The interview process itself was iterative, allowing me to conduct each next interview with a better understanding of how to approach it based on the previous one. I was ecstatic about the results that were taking shape.
Here are some anecdotes from interviews that helped lay the foundation for the rest of the project:
With user interviews complete and a new-found passion for user research discovered, I moved onto affinity mapping.
Affinity mapping wasn’t immediately intuitive to me. I made the rookie mistake of prematurely thinking about solutions, so I had to quell my excitement and give it another go. My second try yielded much better results, as I focused on identifying the problem, rather than jumping ahead to the solution.
Users valued and desired:
Users’ pain points were:
With key insights gleaned from interviews and affinity mapping, I could see 2 personas beginning to take shape.
These personas evolved throughout the rest of the design process, but here’s an overview of how they started:
Lynn
A young professional who wants to build better habits and routines, hoping that her daily efforts will help her reach her longer-term goals.
Detail-oriented
Creative
Tech-savvy
Thorough
Perfectionist
Anxious
Reliable
Phoebe
A semi-retired parent who wants to tackle her life-long struggle with keeping track of daily routines while staying aware of future commitments.
Adaptable
“Old school”
Not so detail-oriented
Helpful
Busy
Driven
Active
Utilizing “How Might We?” questions based on my users’ goals and pain points, I began to ideate solutions.
For ideation exercises, I abandoned considerations of feasibility, instead focusing on potential for positive impact. Here are 2 idea-generation techniques that I used that yielded promising results:
10 minutes to come up with at least 20 ideas
Start with a bad idea and find the opposite
At first, I really liked the idea of having a vast bank of user-created templates for habit and goal management. I thought that providing users endless options for how they managed their habits and goals would be helpful.
After reflection and conversation with my mentor, I concluded that a bank of templates could actually be counter-intuitive to solving my users’ problems. After all, they had clearly voiced that they desired simplicity, and part of their struggle was that they had already tried countless methods and tools to no avail. Providing them with even more options to sift through might actually exacerbate that struggle, so it probably wasn’t the answer.
Here are some ideas that stuck:
Help users break down goals into actionable steps and daily habits
Allow users to “link” habits to goals
Provide users with encouraging feedback
Create a media section with tips and resources
Allow for flexible reminders
Create an encouragement or inspiration section
I was most excited about the idea of helping users to break down goals into actionable steps and daily habits because it captured the essence of my primary goal: to help users approach habits and goals in a new way.
This idea served as the basis for a feature that I decided to call “Goal Mapping”.
Here’s a storyboard that I created to illustrate its use for one of my personas:
By now, I had established that my design…
Should be
Simple
Approachable
Clean
Positive
Encouraging
Should be able to
Add habits
Add goals
“Link” habits to goals
Create “subgoals” (i.e. intermediate tasks that work towards a larger goal)
Provide encouraging feedback
Set reminders
