Overview
Balance is a one-stop wellness application for the stressed-out, busy young adult looking for an easy and convenient way to find their inner zen.
Background
Rates of stress, anxiety, and depression have surged, particularly during the pandemic, making it more critical than ever to prioritize health and well-being. I set out to explore how people currently manage their wellness to identify opportunities for a more convenient experience. While numerous tools exist to track health, fitness, and mindfulness, people often feel overwhelmed by the complexity of building an effective wellness routine.
What is ‘Wellness’?
The act of practicing healthy habits on a daily basis to attain better physical and mental health outcomes. EG: Healthy diet, regular exercise, mindfulness
Research
I began my research by conducting surveys and interviews to understand how people cope with stress and cultivate well-being in their daily lives. I focused on the specific methods and tools they currently use and interviewed individuals actively working to improve their wellness practices. My participants were college-educated, urban-dwelling individuals, 95% aged 20-29, with a gender split of 48% male and 52% female.
Most common approaches to personal wellness
Healthy diet
Physical exercise
Meditation
Journaling
User Interviews
“It can be hard to find the right workout video or meditation since there are so many options to choose from. There are too many different apps and tools to help track your fitness, meditate, and eat right. It can be overwhelming to have so many different apps, that the tools themselves become a hindrance.”
“I struggle with consistency and motivation. It can be demotivating and make you feel guilty if when you miss a workout or a meditation. I’ve used habit trackers in the past and liked that, they’re a good way to keep the momentum going because you feel like you’re making progress.”
“It’s not about perfection but taking time for yourself. Wellness should be about using your intuition to explore what you need at that moment.”
User Persona
Current pain points in the user’s wellness practice
1. Lack of Motivation & Commitment.
2. Too many tools and apps, making it hard to find the right content.
3. Feeling overwhelmed by perfecting their wellness habits and unsure where to begin.
Solution Goal:
To create an application that users find motivating to track and achieve consistency in their health, fitness, and mindfulness habits.
Ideation
After brainstorming potential solutions, I decided on a mobile application to ensure maximum accessibility and convenience. The app would offer curated, personalized workouts, meditations, and journaling prompts—three of the most popular wellness activities among users.
The goal was to design an app where users could easily select one of three activities—meditation, workout, or journaling—and take a short quiz to receive curated content, eliminating the hassle of searching. To address user concerns about motivation, I incorporated a progress-tracking feature inspired by habit trackers, allowing users to monitor their consistency and growth in each area. This idea was influenced by a research participant who successfully used bullet journaling and habit tracking to build new habits.
Storyboard ideation
Feature Ideation
App Navigation
Paper Prototype Ideation
Usability testing & the next iteration
After creating low fidelity wireframes and conducting usability testing, I adapted the application before creating a high fidelity prototype.
In the application, I originally had two quizzes, users would be prompted to take the first quiz when they sign up to curate it specifically to their profile. However, based on user feedback I removed the initial quiz and kept only the one prompted by activity selection. This removal simplified the process and made it faster for users to start an activity.
Users also wanted the option to log a workout or meditation they completed outside the application, so I added a feature to allow for that. This created a more complete and holistic view when tracking their wellness progress.
I learned users had a desire for deeper knowledge and education around wellness and mindfulness. After further ideation, I considered including an education content section in addition to fitness, journaling, and meditation. However, I chose to keep the application more activity-based and chose a different way to incorporate an element of education. When users open the application before being prompted to log in they will see a wellness/mindfulness tip or quote intended to educate and put them in the right headspace to focus on their wellness practice.
User Flow Chart
Final Prototype
1. This is what the user will see when they first download and open the application. They will be prompted to create an account or sign in to an existing account.
2. If the user is new to the application they will be able to create an account using their email or their Facebook account.
3. Once a user has an account they will be able to sign in to their profile.
4. After signing in the user will be taken to the home page. Here they will be able to select the wellness activity that they want to do. The user will be able to choose from fitness, meditation, or journaling.
5. Once the user clicks on one of the three wellness activities they will be prompted to select the amount of time they intend to do the chosen activity for.
6. If the user selected fitness, they will be taken to their personalized fitness home page, based on their selected activity time and profile (Eg. Previous workouts they've completed). They will be prompted to choose a personalized workout video, log a workout they completed outside the application, or select one of the recommended videos.
7. If the user selects the personalized video they will be prompted to take a short quiz to find the right video based on their current preferences.
8. After the quiz they will have the option to watch the video and complete the workout, or go back to the fitness home page and select a different option.
9. After they have completed a video they will have the option to rate and make notes about the workout, this information will factor into their future recommendations. They will have the option to view their progress at the bottom of the screen.
10. If the user selects log a workout, this is where they will be able to enter information about a workout that they completed outside of the application.
11. Here the user can view their progress in the three different wellness activities. This is designed similarly to a habit tracker to track consistency and frequency in the three wellness areas.
12. Each time the user opens the application they will see a different quote or wellness tip. This helps in educating them and putting them in the right mindset to begin their wellness practice.
Visual System
In terms of the visual look and feel of the application, I knew users wanted their wellness practice to feel empowered as opposed to overwhelming which drove many of the design decisions.
I chose a muted pastel color scheme that would bring a sense of calm when users opened the application. Particularly the pastel green-blue and lavender as calming neutral colors, and a bright yellow as the logo to instill an energizing and motivating feel to the application.
I intended to bring elements of nature into the design by incorporating curves and waves as that’s more pleasant and easier on the eye. Manmade structures tend to focus on straight lines and edges, whereas in nature you see curves, circles, and rounded elements more frequently. This played into my font choice of Comforta, a rounded geometric sans-serif type design.
