Designing a mobile app to encourage healthy rest habits

In a society that values “the hustle” and rewards people for pushing themselves in their professional and personal life, it can be challenging to carve out time for meaningful and intentional rest. People fundamentally understand that rest is important to their physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing, so why do we have so much trouble prioritizing rest?

Guided Rest provides a solution to prioritizing rest by incorporating a diverse range of tools and techniques to appeal to a wide range of users. From Guided Breathwork to Guided Meditation and Guided Art, users will be able to learn new techniques to rest and reset from everyday stress, which can lead to overall improved quality of everyday life, sleep, health, and relationships.

Overview

This mobile app concept was created as part of my Capstone Project of the Interaction Design Specialization hosted by University of California, San Diego.

Needfinding

My research focused on people’s attitudes and behaviors around the role of rest and relaxation in their everyday lives. I interviewed three participants and visually observed them in a space where they would usually spend time resting or relaxing.

Key Insights

1. Users need a way to make intentional rest a daily habit, because it is difficult to have the discipline or motivation to do it on their own.

2. Users need a way to improve the quality of their resting time because they feel that sometimes it is not worth their time.

3. Users need a way to make rest feel rewarding and worthwhile so that they will continue to regularly do it.

Storyboarding

I began by exploring two possible scenarios where user needs could be addressed: 1) User needs to take a break during work to alleviate stress, and 2) User wants to relax in a meaningful and intentional way after work.

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Paper Prototyping

To test a potential user flow, I designed a paper prototype where the user gets a reminder notification to do their daily Guided Breathwork, and they follow through the prompts to complete the task. This paper prototype was tested with a colleague to ensure the user flow was smooth.

Wireframe

I translated the paper prototype into basic wireframes and iterated on the design with the help of weekly peer reviews from my design cohort.

User Testing

After developing a high-fidelity prototype, I tested user flows with two in-person participants and three online participants through UserTesting.com.

Each participant was prompted to explore options for Guided Rest and click through two different types of Guided Rest sessions of their choice. In-person participants were also given time to explore the prototype at their leisure.

In-person Testing Takeways:

- Users mentioned the desire for the addition of relaxing sounds as well as strong realistic imagery to accompany a guided rest session.

- Users had a strong desire for control when it comes to app settings — they want to know exactly what is going to happen when they turn something on and off.

“When am I getting a reminder? Can I choose?”

Online Testing Takeaways:

- Users clicked through faster to the activity and were less likely to read the “Benefits” page when the “Start” button was higher up on the application page. I realized, however, that on a mobile phone, having the button lower on the page would actually be closer to a user’s thumb range, so if it were tested on a mobile device there may have been a different result.

- All three users were intrigued by the educational aspect of the app and were open to trying new rest techniques that they previously did not know about.

High Fidelity Prototype

My high fidelity prototype was created using Adobe XD.

Reflection

1. In online user testing, I did not specify for my users to test the prototype on a mobile device, so all users tested it on a mobile simulation on a desktop computer. I think insights could have revealed more issues and errors if the prototype was realistically tested on a phone. For future projects, I will make sure to test my prototypes only on device types that they are meant to ship on.

2. Though I received positive feedback from users saying “I would use this app,” I was not able to test whether the app would actually help them sustain the habit of rest. I did not have a developer to work with in order to have full functionality of the app, including audio and transcript for each rest option. If I were to have full app functionality, I could ask users to participate in a diary study over the course of 1 month to track habit building progress.