Aware

Meditation that fits your schedule

Overview

The project aimed to add a new feature to an existing product, providing the opportunity to practice integrating new features into established systems and workflows. I chose to work on the Aware app, which offers diverse sessions focusing on mental health, well-being, and personal development.

Hypothesize the problem

Users are unable to save their favorite sessions for quick access or filter sessions based on specific criteria. This leads to inefficient and time-consuming searches, making it difficult to find sessions that meet their needs. As a result, this reduces engagement and prevents users from using the app frequently.

Role
User Research
UX/UI Design
Prototyping
User Testing

Timeline
4 Weeks

Year
2024

My Design Process

Research

User Interviews

→

Strategy

Affinity Mapping
Personas
User Flow

→

Design

Lo-Fi Wireframes
Hi-fi Wireframes

→

Testing

Usability Testing
Hi-fi Prototype

Iteration

Research Goal

Research

Research Statistics

User Interviews

I want to understand what users prefer and the difficulties they experience managing sessions. I will specifically focus on the need for a bookmarking feature and advanced filtering options to enhance search efficiency and satisfaction.

Total Research Duration
The research phase for this project lasted two weeks, with 15 hours dedicated to interviews and 2 hours on competitive analysis.

Participants
I conducted five user interviews with individuals aged 28 to 40. Each interview lasted an average of 30 to 45 minutes, aiming to understand pain points in the current workflow.

During my research, I interviewed individuals who use the Aware app. I wanted to understand how they choose meditation sessions and what factors they consider when making their choice. Here’s what I learned:

All participants prioritize session duration.

“If there was an option to select session length I would do 5 to 10 minutes.”

Participants express the need to be able to filter session duration to make it fit into their busy schedule.

“After work, I go to the gym, have dinner, and relax before bedtime. I think a 5 to 10-minute session would be perfect.”

Users find it difficult to remember their favorite sessions because no bookmark feature is available.

“The only thing you can do is copy the link and save it in my notes app or take a screenshot, but that's not very helpful.”

Competitive Analysis

I conducted a competitive analysis on three direct competitors to gain insights into user needs and current market features for meditation apps. Here's what I found: Users want apps that can be customized, offer high-quality content that is either affordable or free, have a wide variety of sessions, are easy to use for everyone, organize content well, allow users to save their favorite content, provide regular high-quality updates, and offer flexible pricing options.

Strategy

Affinity Mapping

After the initial debrief, I went further by creating an affinity map. This allowed me to organize and synthesize the insights gathered during the interviews and prioritize the most critical issues. In total, I identified six themes.

Personas

I began identifying common traits, behaviors, and challenges among users to create personas, helping me better understand and empathize with users for more user-centered designs.

Click to enlarge image

HMW Statement

How might we provide quick access to short meditation sessions to help busy professionals maintain a consistent practice?

Feature Set

The "Must Have" features were selected based on user interviews to ensure that they provided high value to users. Additionally, these features had to align with business objectives, such as promoting regular use and long-term commitment to personal growth. To achieve the company's goals, it was crucial to provide easily accessible short meditation sessions to encourage consistent practice. As a result, developing an advanced filtering system became the company's primary focus.

User Flow

I have created a user flow diagram for the filtering system. This diagram illustrates the journey of both personas searching for a meditation session. Additionally, I have included a bookmark feature to enhance the user experience, allowing users to save preferred content for future use.

Click to enlarge image

Design

Lo-Fi Wireframes

Using the current interface of Aware apps, I created low-fidelity wireframes for the filtering system and bookmark feature, which helped me prioritize functionality and user flow.

Hi-Fi Wireframes

I had all the necessary UI cards and design systems ready, so I skipped the mid-fidelity wireframes and went straight to creating high-fidelity designs. Once I finished designing, I made a prototype for user testing to evaluate the ease of filtering meditation sessions and adding them to bookmarks.

Testing

Usability Test Goals

  • Participants will be given scenarios and tasks to validate high-fidelity prototypes to identify confusion or errors. 

  • Identify any challenges that may arise when performing a task

  • Seek feedback for working on iterations

Key Findings

I conducted two rounds of testing, with 5 participants in each round. Here are the key findings from the first round of testing:

  • 80% questioned the placement of the time duration options outside the search filter screen.

  • 60% mentioned that toggle buttons create the impression that only one option can be chosen.

  • 40% asked where the bookmarked sessions go.

Key findings from round 2:

  • 40% who chose the horizontal scroll option expected the results to populate automatically after pressing the button rather than clicking "search."

  • 40% did not initially click the “new collections” button when creating a new collection.

  • 20% needed clarification on the type of session they had been shown in their search results.

Iterations

Revise filtering system & switch to checkboxes

First round iterations:

  • Moved the time duration into the filtering system. By putting them together users can quickly see and apply multiple filters at once helping users find relevant content with fewer clicks and less time spent.

  • Adding "Reset" to quickly go back to the default filters

  • Switch the toggle to checkboxes. Using checkboxes provides a clearer visual indication, as it lets users know they can choose multiple options.

Badge Icon

Add the plus icon

Add tags

Final Designs

The badge icon can have a maximum value of 4 to represent Length, Sort, Type, Audio. If a filter is applied, it will be applied to all future searches to save users time.

Second round iterations:
I added a plus icon next to "New collection" to draw attention and indicate it's an interactive element.

Adding tags to session cards helps users understand the session type and content at a glance, eliminating the need to click on the cards for more information.

Here are the final designs of the Aware app. I am delighted to unveil the new feature that has been seamlessly integrated into an established platform.

The Results

The Impact

Personal Takeaways

What’s Next?

The introduction of the advanced filtering system and bookmarking feature has significantly enhanced the user experience and engagement within the app. Users expressed high satisfaction with the product's usability, with 40% indicating they were very satisfied and would use it more frequently.

”This is great! I would definitely use the app more often if the search feature existed.”

I realized the importance of conducting early testing in the design process. Additionally, I learned the importance of being realistic about project timelines and accepting unforeseen challenges. This experience has taught me to be more adaptable and less critical of myself when facing obstacles in future projects.

I plan to make the existing filtering system more interactive by introducing new parameters, such as upload date and view count, which were not part of the updated design. I also aim to explore the inclusion of a comment section to encourage user interaction and engagement. This will result in a more connected and interactive user experience.