Insight Timer

Add A Feature

Client

Insight Timer (spec)

Role

UX/UI Designer, UX Researcher

Tools

Figma, Miro, and Whimsical.

Timeline

80 Hours - October/November 2021

View Prototype

Background

Insight Timer is the #1 free app for alleviating anxiety, stress, and sleep difficulties with yoga classes and meditations.

Insight Timer is focused on helping people have a consistent meditation practice. While Insight Timer users have spent the most minutes meditating there vs. other apps, Insight Timer needs to attract more consistent users.

Challenge

Insight Timer needs a way to motivate people to meditate consistently.

Solution

Through user research, I determined the solution was sending custom push notifications to users.

EMPATHIZE

Research Goals

We want to know what brings people back to a meditation app consistently (or, alternatively, what stops people from doing that.)

Research Objectives

Understand what brings people to meditation. What problem are they trying to solve?
Can meditation solve the problems people want it to solve?
Understand what competitors do in the market space.

Research Methodologies

Competitive Analysis
User Interviews

Affinity Map

I created an affinity map to organize the insights from my interviews. Check out a full version here.

Research Results

I interviewed 6 people over Zoom about their experiences with yoga and meditation. Habit formation came up a lot. Several participants had meditation practices and stopped for various reasons.

Life changes (like getting a pet) threw off the meditation routines of 2/6 participants.

All participants didn't want to feel guilty if they didn't meditate.

All participants thought notifications could be motivating with a different tone.

Meet Anna

I created a persona to guide my design process. I incorporated the information I learned from my interviews.

DEFINE

POV & How Might We...

Using the experiences from my user interviews, I brainstormed possible solutions to increase the amount of people meditating consistently.

I decided to implement a feature to send customizable push notifications because it would help address several point of view statements. Currently, Insight Timer gives users the ability to write their own notifications for a particular time. Though, there isn't the option to receive pre-written notifications or adjust the frequency.

View the full spreadsheet here.

Site Map

I created a site map to determine where the feature would exist in the app.

Task Flow

I created a task flow to determine how a user would complete a task.

IDEATE

Initial Sketches

I sketched out different ways to present the push notifications.

UI Design

From my sketches and my determination of how the feature would fit within the existing app, I made a series of screens to go through the flow of setting notifications. Then, I connected those screens together to make a prototype.

Since I was using the already existing UI of Insight Timer, I did not make lo-fi wireframes and I went straight to hi-fi. Specifically, I modeled my designs after the onboarding survey that Insight Timer has.

View all the screens here.

Notification content

I wrote a series of push notifications based on the descriptions in the survey, including encouraging, funny, and no pressure.

TEST

Usability Testing

With a prototype ready, I embarked on usability testing. I conducted moderated usability tests with 5 people.

The goal was to see if users would able to set notifications. Additionally, I asked users what they thought of the push notifications and if they would be motivating.

After conducting usability testing with 5 people, my big takeaways were:

It's not clear what you're setting up.
The language of "Time Before" is confusing.
Setting notifications should be more prominent on the home screen.
Having a description of what the notification is for in bold (i.e. the class name) is helpful vs. just "Insight Timer."

I created an affinity map to group the results of my usability test and prioritize revisions. Check it out here.

Priority Revisions

Notification Screens

I revised the push notifications based on my usability testing. I added what the reminder was for. Check them all out here.

Updated App Walkthrough

View Prototype

NEXT STEPS

I would continue to iterate on the design and test new revisions. Additionally, I would work with developers to help realize any changes.

While participants said that the push notifications were different than other push notifications they've received in the past, it would be important to track how people actually respond to the notifications. Would it change their meditation habits or would they ignore it? If they select "Strict" notifications, would they actually be turned off by it?

‍What I Learned

Anxiety can play a huge role in my process. It can slow me down tremendously. All the same, it's powerful to just put something on the page.
‍
Ironically, even though I put "practice meditation regularly" in the project timeline, toward the end of when I completed this project, I didn't have that consistent practice. Was it 'cause I didn't have the notifications?