Shrunk a wellness coach to fit in your pocket, boosting daily check-ins by 35% 🧘🏼
An All-In-One Wellness app that simplifies Health Management
Started as an Intern and tookover the design of “hCare” app from 0-1, from researching the problems to designing for implementation till v4.042 of the app. I collaborated closely with the mobile engineering team, backend developers, project managers, and healthcare professionals.
Features such as Inclusive Signup flow and Food & Activity journal setup have already shipped to 15+ IHL clients and users, impacting a total of 1,500+ internal and external users.
Note: To comply with confidentiality, I have omitted and obfuscated sensitive information in this case study.
Problem
Many people face challenges accessing quality healthcare conveniently. Traditional clinics and hospitals often involve long waits, inconvenient locations, and impersonal experiences. This is especially true for those in remote areas without easy access to healthcare facilities.
Thus, IHL wanted to build IHLCare, an integrated digital health platform that combines health data, connected devices, and virtual care services to make healthcare more accessible, convenient and personalized.
Main Challenge was to empower users to take control of their health and fitness through an intuitive mobile app experience that seamlessly integrates data tracking, nutrition logging, and activity monitoring.
Approach
Feasibility Study
Conducted in-depth interviews with 25 users across different age groups, activity levels, and health conditions to assess demand for nutrition/fitness tracking capabilities within the IHLCare app. Used affinity mapping to analyze responses and identify common pain points and desires.
Focus Groups
Facilitated two focus group sessions with 6 nutritionists and dieticians each. Employed the double diamond approach - first diverging with open-ended discussions around ideal food logging flows and features. Then converging on crucial requirements like nutrient tracking, integrations, etc.
Mobile Ethnography
Performed a structured analysis of 8 popular nutrition/fitness apps like MyFitnessPal, Fitbit etc., and Conducted a two-week mobile ethnography study with 12 participants across varied demographics. Asked them to record videos of their daily nutrition and fitness routines through the MyApp mobile app. Observed how they currently track food intake, hydration levels, exercises etc. and the pain points they encounter.
The research findings were overwhelmingly positive, with 87% of participants supportive of implementing Food Journal and Activity Journal features within hCare.
User Needs Uncovered:
- Unified tracking for nutrition, fitness, and biometrics data.
- Ability to log meals, water intake, and workout activities.
- Personalized guidance from health experts.
- Insights and analytics on health/fitness trends.
Solution
Translating the research insights, I ideated and prototyped design concepts like an intuitive Food Journal with image recognition and nutrient tracking, a visual Water Tracker, personalized Calorie Coaching, wearable integration for Activity Logging, and data visualization analytics.
Working closely with mobile development team, I oversaw UI implementation, API integrations, custom databases, and usability testing.
Created crude Flutter prototypes mimicking desired nutrition logging flows. My manager played the "Wizard" role, manually performing actions that would be automated like adding foods to logs based on voice/text entries. Observed how users naturally interacted with the envisioned experience.
Impact
The Food Journal and related nutrition/fitness logging features have been successfully launched within the latest version of the IHLCare app. Key outcomes:
- 35% increase in app engagement metrics like daily active users and time spent
- 20% uplift in premium subscription conversions for advanced health analytics with journaling.
- Highly positive user feedback (4.7/5 rating) on the intuitive experience
Takeaways
Users a.k.a Humans are creatures of habit. To avoid confusion, changes need to be published slowly and with great care. Testing designs to evaluate the best-performing solution is essential to introduce changes which work—and not for the sake of the change itself.
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