BLISSkids
SECTOR: Health + Wellness GOAL: Mobile app ROLE: UX/UI/UXR/Strategy in team of 2
Meditation is a practice where an individual uses a technique—such as mindfulness,or focusing their mind on a particular object, thought or activity—to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state. BLISSkids is an app which makes it easy for Moms and teachers to book meditation sessions for kids. The sessions offered can be live or recorded.
mindfulness during a pandemic
There has been a tremendous amount of stress on students today—especially since the pandemic—and there has never been a greater need for students to have a place they can go to feel safe and grounded, a place where their minds can rest.
Jack Shonkoff, M.D.,
is a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education, Director of Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child and one of the world's leading experts on child development.
Biologically, the brain is prepared to be shaped by experience.
If a child is preoccupied with fears or anxiety or is dealing with considerable stress—no matter how intellectually gifted that child might be—his or her learning is going to be impaired.
—Jack Shonkoff, M.D.
benefits of meditation
Even with ALL the data supporting meditation for kids, we were surprised to find there were NO dedicated apps that offered LIVE, DAILY meditation sessions for them.
• Improves concentration and focus
• Lowers stress levels
• Improves self-esteem
• Better resilience
• Improves social skills
• Greater empathy and compassion
• Improves memory
• Metacognition
• Improves sleep quality
• Relieves anxiety
• Helps alleviate depression
• Improves retention
• Higher GPA among college students
• Improves performance with learning disabilities
the problem​
.
Grade school Teachers and Daycare staff need an app to help with booking meditation sessions for the kids.
.
let's start with a few questions
In order to gain INSIGHTS on meditation apps, we conducted a quick survey—with questions such as: WHICH meditation apps they used, HOW OFTEN, and whether they preferred the desktop site or mobile app.
findings
-
ALL of the respondents preferred a Mobile App to website, citing convenience,
ease of use, portability -
All agreed with the benefits of meditation, but a few admitted they don't really
do it unless it's regularly guided -
Headspace was the most popular of the meditation apps
It’s very helpful and since you have someone guiding you, you’re able to keep your focus.
I think it’s important that people know why meditating is important & how it can be beneficial. Might make them do it more often.
Headspace
is great, I like
that it teaches
you knowledge
or benefits on meditation.
sorting it all out
In order to gain Identify the most desired content and features, we asked 10 Users
to perform a card sort.
This gave us our Must Haves and Nice to Haves.
MUST HAVE
-
Meditation/Mindfulness
-
Yoga
-
Relaxation/Breathwork
-
Music/Nature sounds
-
Staying positive
-
Therapy/Emotional support
-
Mental Focus
-
Physical activity (“Move”)
-
Energy boost
-
Inner peace
-
Personal growth
-
Stress Reduction
NICE TO HAVE
-
Healing
-
Love & Relationships
-
Cognitive Behavioral therapy
-
Coaching
-
Spirituality
-
Anger Management
we must help her!
I Statement:
“I desperately need an
easy-to-use app to book
and facilitate daily meditation sessions for my class of
26 screaming kids. Halp!”
Judy
Teacher 3rd grade
PS 93 NYC
Judy has been meditating for years and recently started incorporating meditation into her classes since in-person learning returned tothe classroom.
She finds it difficult to lead the class and monitor the students at the same time.
Needs and Goals:
Needs an app to book and facilitate daily meditation sessions for her class.
Duration can be as short as 5 minutes for breathing exercises and stillness, and up
to 20-30 minutes for activities such as soundbaths or matwork.
competitive analysis
A deep dive into the top 3 Meditation sites—Headspace, Calm and Aura—was critical. We performed a Feature Inventory, noting which were easiest to use, since that would translate into keeping the User calm. Headspace's simple, approachable interface made it a clear winner.
We then studied the Session Selection pages for both Calm and Aura. Calm used cards with long descriptors—sometimes
6 words long— while
Aura used more simplistic copy, such as "Sleep" or "Nature Sounds."
​
Calm
Aura also employed a scrolling selection feature, for both Session Categories and Coaches/Therapists
Aura
comparative analysis
A Task Analysis of
the 5 most popular gym websites was performed to hone in on the process of scheduling a class/session.
While these sites had similar setups for scheduling, the easiest process belonged to CRUNCH Fitness. We deconstructed the flow
to inform our design.
CRUNCH Fitness
Chelsea Piers
Equinox
SoulCycle
Problem statEment
ideation station!
Users need a better app to find and book
a coworking space so they can focus
while they work.
With our Research Findings, we started the design phase! The team got to work on User flows and Feature pages. Shown is the winning flow—our starting point for creating the LoFi prototype! This initial user flow mainly define the steps of booking a meditation session.
let the prototyping begin!
For our LoFi prototype, we focused on 7 pages, including landing, meditation types, meditation live video, browse activities, scheduling, instructor profile and confirmation of booking.
For our Landing Page, we welcomed Users with a personalized friendly greeting.
We also wanted to present our yogis their most-used categories front and center to make rebooking easier.
We modeled our scheduling page after that of CRUNCH, for it's clarity and ease of use.
Live Meditation is a main feature of this app, so we expanded the dedicated page, with hero image, description, rating, and instructor.
Testing of the LoFi went very smoothly, and our participants got through
the booking process with ease.
keeping it simple for mobile
Now it was time to add in some features in the MidFi prototype, while maintaining the smooth and easy process! It was also at this point, we moved to creating a mobile app, since that was the preferred format.
Select frame!
Home screen
was intentionally
kept simple, with personalized greeting and 4 cards of the registered User's most-booked activities.
The selected activity card darkens and grows larger on hover.
​
​
Activity Page
Users could view the upcoming classes, select the date, filter, click to view the instructor profile, and book a session.
Instructor Profile
A brief intro to the instructor, their
rating and also a button to view their available classes.
Filters Many users wanted to filter by subcategories such as meditation type, age group, class duration, and instructor.
These filters
would be saved into the User's profile for future ease of booking.
Stephen Hargett
Founder of Wrkspace
Confirmation Page
A confirmation with details about the booking was a top request by Users.
time for a test!
Usability testing revealed a major flaw!
Users were confused by the icon style and general look—even though the UI was clean and the app was easy to use, we kept hearing "Is this for KIDS?"!
Even though the app was intended for use by adults, it was obvious we needed to change up the style accordingly!
We had a few more rounds of testing and iteration, until our Users were relaxed, calm and sighing with contentment.
finally, a state of
BLISS
In developing our HiFi prototype and User Interface, I wanted
to ensure that it would be clear to Judy—and all of the other Teachers, Daycare Staff and Moms—that the sessions were for kids. The use of color and illustration style was key in ensuring this clarity.
​
Users also liked the
personalized greeting, and this time we replaced the lotus symbol with an illustrated representation of the user.
Our testers responded well to
the hover interaction feature when a category was selected. The card would grow 15% and the background color would become slightly darker.
Time to book the class! this screen has a fair amount of content, I wanted to keep it easy on the eyes, with soft colors and light, breezy copy.
The CTA color is the strongest color on the screen, so it would pop against all of the content.
Users can opt to set their filters, as shown on the screens below. They also view the classes as
a scrolling list, or click on the arrow to get a week-at-a-glance.
The individual pages for each instructor have their rating,
a brief summary, and a nice, bright CTA so that Users can view all of their classes—
a feature that came up during our User Testing. Ideally, the instructor's photo would be
the pose which is their
most requested.
The most requested feature
by Users was a detailed confirmation page—we included session name, date, duration, and instructor. We included an Add to Calendar feature, so that no one would miss a session!
​
We hope you have reached Nirvana viewing this app!
NEXT STEPs and refelecti0n
As a practicing yogi myself, as well as a friend to many teachers and Moms, I have a passion for spreading calm and centeredness, especially since the world is experiencing a pandemic with
no real end date. Children ARE literally our future, so I have a vested interest in this, as well. Our culture has become a bit reactionary, and getting kids in the habit of practicing mindfulness will help with that on so many levels.
​
I plan to develop this app further, building out the sections for each type of activity, in hopes that everyone could achieve a state of BLISS.
​
Thank you for joining me on this journey. :)