RESILIEN

Providing user insights to guide an app startup’s first year product roadmap

“RESILIEN is a confidential wellness app for finding and connecting with relevant, local mental health services and peer support. ”

Summary

Resilien was a Calgary-based startup focused on providing users with carefully curated mental health information and resources via a mobile application. Resilien wanted to identify features, functionality and content by understanding where gaps of information existed in the current mental health services ecosystem in Calgary.

Leading with user research, personas and borrowing elements of the Jobs to be Done framework, I helped define the first years’ product roadmap that would have better predictability of success in the marketplace

Client
Resilien

Methodology
Generative and Evaluative Research

My Role
User Research, Product Design

Activities
User Interviews, Personas, Usability Testing, App User Flows, Wireframes

Getting Started…

I started with desk research to get a baseline foundation and understanding of the marketplace and available services using publicly available data and statistics within the city of Calgary. Additionally I conducted a discovery and requirements gathering session with key senior stakeholders and selected health care providers. This would give us an overarching understanding of goals, objectives and challenges.

Questions that kept us up at night

  • How might we design an app that caters to multiple conditions and their unique needs given that mental health is a broad field, encompassing a multitude of conditions and issues.

  • How do we go about providing reliable and evidence-based information and ensure that content is accurate, up-to-date, and reviewed by mental health professionals

  • How do we build a system optimized for privacy and data security

Research Methodologies:

Digging into a myriad of unique user needs and different contexts of use

Using elements of Jobs to be Done to enhance our research

The Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) framework is a theory that suggests customers "hire" products or services to get specific jobs done in their lives. It focuses on understanding the functional and emotional needs of customers and helps businesses design solutions that better align with these needs, leading to better success and predictability in the market

  • I integrated specific questions in our user interviews to get more granularity and specifics around needs, unmet needs and over served needs.

  • Through my interviews I was able to come up with a variety of helpful “job statements”

  • I integrated elements of the job statements into our two user personas

Sample job statments

  • I want to discover effective coping strategies for managing my anxiety and stress when I'm feeling overwhelmed or stressed at work, so that I can regain control of my emotions and reduce my anxiety without resorting to harmful habits like overeating.

  • I want to find a supportive community and personalized guidance for overcoming substance abuse and addiction when I'm facing triggers or temptations, so that I can stay on track with my recovery journey without feeling isolated or powerless.

  • I want to receive daily motivation and progress tracking tools for addressing my substance abuse and addiction issues when I'm feeling unmotivated or struggling with cravings, so that I can stay committed to my recovery goals without relapsing.

  • I want to connect with a licensed therapist or counselor for one-on-one support in managing my anxiety and stress when I'm going through a particularly tough time, so that I can receive professional guidance and support without the hassle of scheduling and traveling to in-person appointments.

Emerging Patterns, Needs & Unmet Needs

Through our research efforts we found two emerging persona types which would in turn be the initial focus of our MVP:

  • Individuals seeking coping strategies for dealing with anxiety and stress disorders

  • Individuals seeking to overcome substance abuse and addiction issues.

Personas

I wanted our personas to prioritize attributes that would provide insights and feature prioritization in the design phase of our MVP. Specifically I wanted to highlight attributes that considered:

  • Understanding key content needs and gaps

  • Features that would be valuable, engaging and provide the best outcomes

Using elements of the Jobs to be Done framework, we identified a number of user needs (including unmet and over served needs) as well as adjacent market opportunities that may be explored for future considerations. Additionally, our personas focused on the importance of understanding: context of use and use case scenarios.

Persona #1

I wanted to avoid the “fluff” and inconsequential things (eg. social media habits, devices etc..) often contained in Personas and focus on practical attributes that would truly provide better direction for product design

Getting from A to Z and beyond

Before starting wireframes it was important to map out the user flows including all conditional logic questions

Working with developers, systems architects and the product owner, we worked on developing the initial flow of the app. Because the original idea of the app was based on a certain level of complexity that would include real time recommendations and conditional logic, we took 2-3 weeks of drafting the flows and consistently iterating. Most of the iterations were in response to either technology constraints and complexity or privacy of data concerns

Uh oh…back to the drawing board

After establishing our user flows, I started on wireframes focusing on only a few key screens that were considered the “meat” of the app. These wireframes prioritized content and resources identified from our personas. We then when into usability testing where we uncovered a number of issues and user frustrations. Some of these issues included the following….

  • Users quickly felt frustrated and impatient with the amount of “user in-take questions” they needed to answer before they could access content and resources

  • Our category filters initially used “audience-based” classification where users needed to self-identify. I had already strongly advised against this approach knowing the inherent usability issues. This clearly slowed down task completion with our users

  • Users were reluctant and didn’t like that they had to sign up for a user account in order to view content and resources

  • Users often felt the category topics provided on certain screens were either too limiting or didn’t actually match the information they were looking for

Back on track!

(or 3 times the charm)

It took us three rounds of usability testing and iterations to finally arrive at wireframes that increased success vs. error rates and overall satisfaction. Some changes we implemented included:

  • Prioritizing topics and subject matter, and removing all audience-based filters and categorization as a potential barrier

  • Removed the need for signing up to view content; instead using sign up as a way to save resources and manage preferences and user profiles

  • Added a predictive search input field option on selected screens to allow users to expand their search criteria in the event on-screen topics didn’t fit their criteria

Design Concepts

With wireframes completed and approved I came up with design concepts for both the mobile app and marketing website. I tried to strike a nice balance between a professional clean look, with a design that was less austere and more approachable, inviting and welcoming.

Business Outcomes

Opportunities Found

Using the jobs to be done framework highlighted users with Neuro injuries as a potential adjacent market that was under served. This would be added to a potential future state of the app

Value Created

Using our research findings, the product manager was able to create a product roadmap aligned to the specific needs of users. Additionally the marketing team used our personas to tailor messaging and outreach by “needs” rather than traditional demographics

Let’s work together

I would love to discuss more details about this project; feel free to get in touch to schedule a call or meeting. Email me at: dotsandloopsdigital@gmail.com or send me a message using the form.