Glimpse
Glimpse is an app designed to help users monitor their stress levels and general well-being to avoid burnout. It enables users to track their moods and visualize where they are balancing their time, learn various coping strategies, and build resiliency to chaotic environments.
Project Overview
As a part of the full-time UX Design Bootcamp with BrainStation, I completed a 2 week case study. This is a case study of my process to create Glimpse.
- How Glimpse Works
- How I Discovered The Problem to Solve For
- Ideating A Solution
- Making Sure it Works With User Testing
- Reflecting On What I Learned
Type
Timeline
Individually Guided Case Study
2 weeks
1-Week Sprints
Tools
Platform
Figma, InVision, Photoshop, Indesign
IOS
Roles
Research, UX|UI Designer
Design Methodology
Empathize
Define
Ideate
Prototype
Test
Why design thinking?
Design Thinking is a human-centered, iterative design approach used to solve problems. Using this methodology allowed me to...
• Empathize with the primary user of my problem space
• Define their needs and problems
• Challenge my assumptions and create ideas
• Create solutions
• Test the solutions out
How Glimpse Works
Visualize
your wellness balance
Recognize
how you feel and document your moods
Take a Break
make time for your
well-being
Practice
to be the best you
Complete & Repeat
feel your best
a Glimpse into wellness
Creating Glimpse
Empathizing
Understanding the Problem Space
The American Institute of Stress reports 120,000 people die every year as a direct result of work-related stress. According to Rajita Sinh, PhD and director of Yale Medicines Interdisciplinary Stress Center, "People experiencing chronic stress might feel incapable of changing their situations."
What is stress?
Stress is a normal human reaction that helps the body adjust to new situations. It is how the body reacts when it feels under pressure or threatened. Stress can be positive, keeping us alert, motivated, and ready to avoid danger.
Stress usually happens when there is a situation that we feel we cannot manage or control. If stress lingers and becomes more of a chronic situation it can wreak havoc on the body.
Emotionally, stress is a feeling of being overwhelmed or unable to cope with mental or emotional pressure.
Stress affects all of the systems within the body: musculoskeletal, respiratory, cardiovascular, endocrine, gastrointestinal, nervous, and reproductive systems
Is this the same thing as Burnout?
Burnout is a special type of stress typically work-related: a state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity. Burnout falls under chronic stress and the symptoms align, affecting physical and mental health.
Why introduce burnout to the problem space?
Well, that's a great question! Stress takes a toll on our personal selves physical and mental but it also projects into our lives in an external way like our job and relationships. When researching stress, such a large issue, I knew I needed to pinpoint a specific area to ensure I could make a positive and impactful solution.
Moving forward with Chronic Stress/Burnout I was able to narrow down my key user to interview, the busy professional.
User Interviews
I interviewed past and present professionals who had experienced high levels of stress and burnout. I created a script and performed person-to-person interviews.
I found that young professionals will ignore their stress symptoms until those symptoms take over their well-being. The professionals I interviewed wanted to do great jobs and build their careers however, they began to feel frustrated when they lost control of their sense of self as their stress started to disrupt their lives at work and outside of it.
" I was getting really overwhelmed and I was constantly stressed. I started crying ever day so that's when I noticed something was wrong.
" I'm usually a person that cares a lot about my work and the things I do. I make sure everything's great. There was a time when I just stopped caring so much.
" I feel like it doesn't get any better. I take two days off and I come back to work and it's like five minutes into the job, I'm already back to where I left before I took the break.
Loss of Self
Professionals experiencing stress feel as if they have lost their sense of self. They often feel overwhelmed and out of control, losing interest and excitement in their daily roles.
Empathizing with my key users revealed the problem I needed to solve for.
Synthesizing Interview Data
Affinity Mapping
Post empathizing with my target users, I used the affinity mapping method to sort the collected data. The affinity mapping process lead me to define a theme and insight to create my user persona.
Each interviewee had 4 art boards. The first art board held the raw interview notes and quotes. I created stickies directly from these responses to identify pain points, motivations, and behaviors.
View the Glimpse Affinity Map Here
Themes & Insights
I took the 3 most prominent themes and created insights. After analyzing the themes and insights, the most compelling theme stood out: Loss of Self
Theme 1
Insight
Planned & Predictable
Disrupted and unpredictable schedules with unrealistic expectations deplete the mental health of many professionals.
High levels of constant, untreated stress lead to burnout resulting in employees feeling resentful towards their work and work environment.
Theme 2
Insight
Nurturing & Supportive
Professionals struggling with high stress recognize the negative impact on their mental and physical health but are unsure how navigate the negative space alone. They look to friends and family for support.
Theme 3
Insight
Loss of Self
(chosen theme)
Professionals experiencing stress feel as if they have lost their sense of self. They often feel overwhelmed and out of control, losing interest and excitement in their daily roles.
Adding Value
How might we help professionals experiencing high stress and burnout navigate their symptoms to regain control in their everyday lives and build resiliency to chaotic environments?
User Centered Design
Meet Marty
A young Architect dedicated to making an impact at his firm. Lately he has been experiencing a heavier work load and has been unable to fully disconnect and to the things he loves to recharge. He spends his days in a fog and is frustrated with his mood and energy levels. He is unsure how to find his way back to wellness.
After empathizing with the key users and analyzing the data, I began to Define. I created a user persona based on my key findings and insights above. This persona lead my design intentions.
More on Marty
Pain Points
Behaviors
Motivations / Goals
• Unable to sleep well, constantly feels exhausted
• Unsure how to navigate his feelings of stress
• Frustrated with unsuccessful attempts of healing
• Aware something has to change
• Eats well to fuel his body healthily
• Spends time with family to feel better
• Exercises to take his mind off busy days
• Puts others first
• Wants to heal his mental state
• Wants to feel like himself again
• Wants to gain resiliency over chaotic stressors in his environments
• Wants to recognize early signs of stress to act on them
Creating a Solution
Brainstorming with Epics & User Stories
Creating epics and user stories to define the most impactful task flow was the first step in defining my solution. My task flow revealed the pages I needed to include and design to bring my solution to life.
The chosen epic, Manage Stress was the strongest epic with the most value. Based on this epic and it's user stories, I pursued the task of mood tracking to enable the user to better understand their feelings and overall wellness to manage their stress and learn coping mechanisms.
Chosen Epic
User Story
Manage Stress
As a busy professional I want to track my moods so that I can practice coping mechanisms.
How to Manage Stress?
The Task Flow
I created a task flow that allows users to filter their connection needs to communicate and connect with direct individuals or resources. This way artists who are looking for mentors can find mentors. Artists looking for studio space, can find studio space. The flow allows users to filter and view potential connections profiles, message to communicate, and add to their network for connection.
Sketching Out Those Big Ideas
From Mind to Paper
Sketching is an iterative process to get my ideas down on paper. Sketching my ideas big or small helps harness what can come to reality. I sketched 3 different solutions and combined the best components of each into a final solution sketch prior to wire-framing a low fidelity prototype in Figma.
The Sketches
How Usable is it?
Iterative Validation
Utilizing my wireframes for user testing I found...
• My participants were unsure how to submit a mood entry
• They would like to see more descriptive text
• Most were unsure if the task was completed at the last screen
• Thought that the profile image was too dominant on the pages that were not the dashboard
As one does, I took a step back to refine my design based on my testing feedback.
Prototyping a Lo-Fi for User Testing
Screen 1
Screen 2
Screen 3
Screen 4
Screen 5
Screen 6
Dashboard
Track Mood
Cope Prompt & Calendar
Coping Selection
Coping Practice
Completed Screen
Addressing User Feedback
Below shows my synthesis of 3 rounds of user testings. Using a sessions output diagram I was able to keep track of the passed and failed tasks. I then organized suggested changes from my user into a prioritization matrix to stay realistic in my time frame.
Key Screens
Helping users to manage their stress through mood tracking, visualization, and coping mechanisms to enable them to regain control in their everyday lives and build resiliency to chaotic environments.
Reflecting
What could I have done better?
Being wellness focused, I would like to consider the integration of apple health data and the utilization of smart technology like the apple watch. I think it would be a great asset to the Glimpse app to use notifications based on heart rate or lack of movement taken by the watch (long days at the desk) to prompt the user to take a break and consider a coping mechanism. I would also like to engage more with the logged health data. I think the UX of that aspect is crucial to the help the user to make more impactful changes to their lifestyles.
My key take-aways
Something I would’ve liked to improve on in this project would be further defining the scope of the product in which a user seeks to search coping mechanisms. There are many negative health repercussions from stress and it is important to pinpoint the areas users are suffering in to better provide and design coping mechanisms for users’ specific needs in healing and wellness.
