HabitHero

I redeveloped the MVP of a health tracking app to improve the functionality of its activity tracking and encourage users to maintain activity levels.

Outline

This case study covers a scenario-based project completed during the Kings College London UX Design course.

Company: PrimeCare, a health insurance company.

Duration: 5 months

Role: Improve functionality of HabitHero, a health app focused on developing healthy habits, by redeveloping one area of the user journey. I chose to focus on the activity upload system and scheduling future activities.

Project summary:

I received a high-fidelity prototype of a health app produced by the fictional company PrimeCare. In the scenario, a health insurance company provided the app to their customers to help them develop healthy habits. The customers would receive points for interacting with the app and could use those points to redeem rewards.

The objective of the project was to update the app to improve user uptake and retention. On the basis of user interviews and testing that I conducted, I focused
on creating a new way of inputting activities. This allowed users to see the benefits of their exercise and schedule future activities based on the areas they were seeking to focus on.

Project challenge

The company wants to improve user uptake and retention. Key metric is the number of active users per month, based on number of users who record an activity or food entry at least one day in the previous month.

User interviews show little interest in the rewards function of the app. Instead, users wanted greater clarity on the value of the metrics provided and a clear way to input activities.

Research

User journey map

To prepare for the user interviews, I produced the following user journey map.

As PrimeCare's highest priority was the number of active monthly users, I decided to focus my subsequent research on the 'loyalty' section of the user journey.

User interviews

Although this project was built on a scenario, I undertook real user interviews to find the best way to improve HabitHero.

The main theme that emerged from these interviews was people in their late 30s and early 40s becoming more invested in their long-term health as a result of viewing the health changes experienced by their parent's generation. This group wanted to develop their knowledge about their health and find consistent ways to improve the likelihood of good health in their 60s and 70s.

From these discussions, I produced the following persona called 'the forward thinker'.

Persona

Development

Activity tracking

The early prototype of HabitHero had no mechanism for entering information about completed exercise. So, the first task was to create one.

The design of the activity entry screens was focused on:

  1. Making the process as simple as possible

  2. Allowing users to understand the benefit of the exercise they had done in order to encourage them to continue

  3. Giving them the opportunity to schedule their next activity as soon as possible in order make it more likely to happen

Low-fi sketches

Mid-fi protoypes

You can view the mid-fidelity prototype on Figma.

The prototype was well received and scored 86 in the system usability scale. In particular, it was considered easy to use and learn. The majority said that it was a system they would regularly use.

However, a minority of users found the process of working through the information provided was sufficiently long that they would not use this system and might abandon the app altogether.

High-fi prototype

The main areas of development from the mid-fidelity prototype are:

  1. Providing shortcuts to schedule the activity so that users who do not want to read the information can bypass it while keeping it available to those who do.

  2. Simplifying the information on screen. The information on the home screen and the 'Activity insight' screens was described as both too dense and as lacking clear value.

Elements of the style guide and some components are show below to provide a sample of the work as it stands.

Style guide

Next steps

The high-fidelity prototype for the activity input and scheduling process will be completed by mid July. I am happy to provide a link to the Figma file once that has been completed.