Headspace
Adding a sound queue feature to meditations
Headspace is an application to help those meditate. Teaching life-changing mindfulness skills with just a few minutes a day.
The Problem
Headspace needs a form to let its users know when a certain time has passed without looking at their phones
The Solution
By adding extra sections in the settings page for the media player, users can personalize their meditation experience.
Surveys
I began by filling out my survey canvas to get a clearer picture of who I was trying to target, what I was trying to get out of the survey, and what would be the best questions to ask to get the best results possible.
2 screener questions I asked to make sure that I was targeting the right audience were “Are you someone that practices some sort of meditation?” and “Have you used headspace?”
I focused on questions regarding users' preferences when meditating and validating whether the feature I was looking to implement would be a good option.
Interview
As a way to further understand why people meditate and if Headspace would be a good application to add a feature like the one I was tasked to implement, I interviewed Daniella Alzamora. She is currently completing her master's degree in meditation studies.
Competitive Analysis
Apart from learning about Headspace, its users, and their preferences, it was important to learn about existing applications that directly compete with the application. I filled out a Competitive Analysis Chart comparing the settings features I found on the competing applications.
Problem Statement
When using the Headspace application for meditations, users want to have the ability to personalize their experience with the help of a straightforward settings page to allow them to do so.
With my research and competitive analysis done, I began formulating “How Might We” statements, and stuck to one that I could keep in mind and stay true to when creating a solution.
How might we improve the settings page in the media player to let users personalize their meditation?
User Persona
Based on my research, I was able to create the primary user that highlighted the pain points and goals that we learned. My persona was used throughout the ideating process to create a product that solved their pain points and met their goals.
User Journey
In order to find the areas for opportunity, I created a user journey map where I observed Emily go through her meditation process with Headspace. Because of the workarounds she has to go through, she usually ends her meditations annoyed, less motivated for the next sessions, and not as clear in her mind as she’d like to be. The biggest pain point I observed during the Journey Map was actually during the meditation when she had to stop in order to turn off any sound queue she had turned on away from the application. Even further solidifying the need for the feature requested to be implemented.
User Flow
A user flow chart was ideal to start the visualization of the steps needed for the user to get the task of adding a sound queue completed.
Where it explains that the user would:
1. Open the Headspace application
2. Select the meditation section
3. Play Today’s Meditation
4. Either choose to press play or go to the settings section
5. If they took the direction of the settings, they would turn on the sound queues option
6. Close the settings tab
7. Press play and meditate
8. Once they were done, they would close the app and continue their day.
When drawing my ideas for the feature addition, it was important to still keep the entire user flow in mind, even if the only thing being changed was the settings. Being able to draw and visualize how Headspace designed the layout helped me keep the integrity of the brand with my redesign.
On the updated settings page, I added a "Sound Queue" section that could be turned off with a toggle. In this section, you are able to pick the frequency of the sound queue, the kind of sound you would like to be notified with, the sound volume, and if you wanted your phone to vibrate with the sound.
For the Mid-Fidelity, I decided to focus on the media player and the settings page. The media player page was not changed because the settings page is a drag-up page that would scroll over it.
I created the components that would be used for the buttons, sliders, and toggle switches.
The Mid-Fidelity was used to conduct a usability test to see how simple the process of changing the settings would be. Users of Headspace were asked to participate.
From the 7 users tested:
100% Completion of the task
The average time spent completing the task was 22.7 seconds
Users voiced that they liked the options, and how easy it was to set.
I created a design guide with all the elements used in the High-Fidelity to keep consistency throughout the process.
After finishing the style guide, I updated the previous wireframes to a high-fidelity prototype. I kept the interactions consistent with what Headspace offers to have it as close to the brand as possible. My update to the settings page was created to integrate easily with what already existed on the page and make it as seamless as possible.
If I were to keep working on this project, I would keep on working on the functionality of the feature by actually testing the settings with the audio being heard, learn which sounds would be best and explore other personalization options that could be utilized during other meditation types.
I believe I did exactly what I was asked to by the brief by adding the feature and not compromising the identity that Headspace already has.
Some takeaways and learnings that I got throughout this week were:
Do everything. I had to do all the research, conduct the interview, design, and present all on my own and practice these methods were all important for overall growth in this career.
The organization is key. Making all the components prior to starting the prototyping was huge in order to keep everything working properly and make the work process as easy and simple as possible.