Study Case: OASIS
WELLNES APP | FICTIONAL STUDY CASE | 2024
Have you ever thought that you could meditate without the need to sit still? Well, that’s what the next fictional case study is about, a project we worked on with a lot of love and respect.
Onboarding of our app
EARLY INSIGHTS
To start, the brief for this project was to work on a wellness app. Based on that, we had to choose the team ourselves, taking into account affinity or the theme we would address for the next 4 weeks. In my mind, I only thought about doing something unrelated to mental disorders because I really didn’t want to have a tough time developing the project. Fortunately, I crossed paths with Dragana, who had the same feeling of wanting to find a topic that we both enjoyed working on.
We agreed that we are lovers of the mountains and believe that walking in nature not only brings physical benefits but also has positive effects on mental health. So, we decided to develop something for those who, like us, love to be outdoors away from the city, but sometimes can’t get away as much as they would like due to the demands of daily life and routine.
Once the direction of our project was decided, we needed to ensure that our theory was correct. For this, we conducted a fairly extensive secondary research with a lot of data, focusing on the relationship between walking and meditation, their benefits, and why it happens.
There are several benefits to taking a walk on a daily basis, and they are not all physical. We found that walking and mental health are closely related. ¨By walking just 30 minutes every day, a person can significantly improve their mental well-being¨.
But we are also aware that not everyone has access to remote places or green spaces nearby to clear their minds. Especially, the routines and strict schedules of workdays often lead us to neglect certain needs related to taking time for oneself. That’s why we decided to conduct surveys with certain questions that kept swirling in our heads, the results of these were:
Once we analyzed the responses from our survey, we drafted a series of questions that allowed us to delve into details to learn more about our users, while we interviewed them.
I must clarify that, of all the projects I have undertaken, these interviews were where I felt most comfortable, and we obtained the most valuable information. I believe it was because we took the time to inquire about how the interviewees felt while walking in nature, how their senses were engaged, and, most importantly, what personal benefits they derived from it. It was beautiful to recognize personal values and how the sensations of living in the moment varied for each individual.
We discovered passions, fears, some phobias, therapeutic techniques, needs, and the fact that a single activity can generate such different outcomes for each individual.
What do they need
How do they feel
Benefits
With all the information we already had on the table, it was time to pause and organize it. We created an affinity diagram to have a more structured overview of the insights we obtained throughout this process, which we divided into:
Everyday life experiences
Walking preferences
Mental experiences
Health
Technology
Walking alone
Meditative benefits
Sensory experiences
Different experiences while walking
Fear of missing out
Afterthoughts
Affinity Diagram Titles
However, the tool we ended up using the most was our Empathy Map. Since we spoke extensively about personal sensations in our interviews, it proved to be more enriching when it came to fully understanding our potential users.
EARLY CONCLUSIONS
In the interviews, we aimed to discover the reasons why people feel the need to go for a walk, as well as what they experience during these walks — what captures their attention, what they observe, what they listen to, and, above all, what they feel.
The primary reason found was that many individuals need to escape the city, feeling confined by the routine of indoor spaces, work, people, and noise. ¨Simply by taking a walk in an area with some greenery brings about a change in their mood¨.
Thanks to using these tools, we built our user persona to continue our work became quite straightforward, as we had listed all the points we needed to consider.
This was when James was born: an urbanite who requires those moments of disconnection in his daily life but, above all, craves experiences of venturing into nature and connecting with it.
James, our user persona
BEHAVIORS
He needs to leave his apartment because he feels crushed spending so much time inside.
When he cannot leave the city, he prefers to walk by the sea.
FRUSTRATIONS
He feels overwhelmed living in the city.
He goes for a walk to clear his mind, for exercise, and to move a bit because his job is quite sedentary.
Needs to pause the hurry in which we live today.
GOALS
He goes for a walk in nature to feel fresh air, to improve his mood.
To feel grateful for those moments.
Disconnect from daily life.
Oxygenate thoughts, relax, focus on breathing.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
After getting to know James and integrating him into our project, our problem statement emerged:
IDEATION
So we were ready to move on to the ideation stage. We knew our problem, understood our potential user, and now it was time to propose possible solutions.
For this, we conducted a brainstorming session, thinking of anything that came to mind. We noted down even the most absurd ideas, and from there, we obtained:
We wanted to be a part of our users’ daily walks, guiding them to make the most of their journey, whether in nature or not.
We aimed to encourage them in a healthy way to go out as frequently as possible without creating obligations.
We wanted them to realize the mental benefits of taking a walk.
Once our objectives were defined, it was time to share ideas about our possible flows and how we wanted to communicate with our users.
On one hand, we created several sketches to showcase our ideas, and on the other hand, we developed separate moodboards depicting how we wanted to communicate and the attributes we wanted to associate with the project.
In doing so, we looked for words that resonated with our search: Aware, Explorative, Reflective, Reconnecting, Slow-paced. This yielded a color palette and also the tone and shapes for our communication, aiming for a friendly style with rounded forms, etc.
Moodboard: aware, exploraitve, reflective, reconecting, slow-paced
PROPOSING SOLUTIONS
Once the journey was defined after sharing our sketches and adjusting the steps, we set out to create low-fidelity wireframes. The goal was to conduct usability tests and evaluate whether what we were proposing made sense because, of course, it made perfect sense to us.
It turned out that our test showed the opposite:
the flow wasn’t clear, the app’s purpose wasn’t apparent, and
we lacked many screens to connect and input information.
It became evident that we needed to create some onboarding screens. Fortunately, we were fortunate enough that Dragana had studied visual arts and could create beautiful illustrations that brought life and color to our project.
And boom! It was time to iterate, rethink why, how, what… Until it worked.
Once we addressed the points we needed to correct so that our user could understand not only what the app did but also how to use it, it was time to bring life and color into it.
We transformed our low-fidelity into high-fidelity, and before prototyping, we questioned whether the color palette we were using was legible for everyone. Once again, we thought it would be best to subject it to a readability test.
It turned out that it didn’t meet several criteria. Aware of the limited time left until the project presentation and the importance of this issue, we focused on finding a color that conveyed our message and was accessible when applied to our wireframes.
Fortunately, the solution came quickly, and we could modify the components promptly.
Here you can see a resume of our main components
We also tested some icons we wanted to use but weren’t sure if users would associate these faces with the corresponding emotions.
So, we quickly created a list of emotions and another with the icons, testing them with our close contacts to dispel doubts. The good news were that this time it went well; most people correctly related each face to its emotion. I’ll tell you later why we used these icons.
OASIS
Once we had our prototype with each flow organized, including every transition screen (error messages, processes successfully completed, loadings, etc.).
We set out to bring Oasis to life: ¨you’ll be able to clear your mind while moving around and maintain mindfulness by recalling nature outings when you take a walk¨.
Imagine a weekday when you come home tired from work and just want to take a quiet walk in the forest. Each step brings you closer to your inner self, allowing you to reconnect with who you are and what truly matters in life.
Remembering and cherishing those moments might be just what you need to reach your moment of mindfulness.
FLOW
The main idea of Oasis is to provide our users with audio guides so that, when they go for a walk, they can take full advantage and get the maximum benefit from this activity. The concept behind these guides is that each individual, through filters, chooses what they want to achieve while walking.
For example, if you had a stressful day at work, you just need to open the app and apply the filters to receive guide recommendations. Through a background sound of your choice, these guides will help you recall a similar experience and lead you, through those memories, to reconnect with the present moment, while you´re walking.
You can remember sensations in your feet, the sound of your steps, the feeling of the sun on your face, the scent of humidity, or a burning fireplace.
Thus, with just moving your body and listening to these guides, you can break free from the routine of city life using only your imagination and the memories stored in your senses.
You can also use Oasis while in nature to enhance the effects of the environment. In these cases, only a voice will accompany you on your journeys, encouraging you to be more present in the moment you are living and fostering awareness on your path.
In addition to guiding you on your route with an audio guide, you can track your physical activity, obtaining information such as distance, elevation, calories, and a map of your route. After saving your complete activity to your profile, you just need to fill in some fields like the activity title and your feelings during it.
Walk with guidance
During your walk, you’ll have access to a notepad or a recorder where you can save your thoughts or ideas. If you choose to record them, you can later generate a transcription. You can access all your memories from your profile and, later on, share them.
Save your thoughts
In your daily life, you’ll also have access to a mood tracker, allowing you to record your daily emotions or the effects that walks have on you. You choose how to use it, and it’s designed as a game so that it’s not a burden but rather a moment for yourself. You can also receive statistics and some tips from it, but that’s for our next steps.
Mood tracker
Finally, as the purpose of our app is to motivate people to enjoy the benefits of outdoor walks, you can access the option in your settings to receive memories from the activities saved in your profile.
These memories can come in the form of images, notes, or sounds. You’ll receive them in the way you prefer and when you want, as you can manage the frequency and the time of day to receive them. Imagine the desire to venture into nature that memories of a beautiful place can evoke.
Receive memories
Leaving you a short video for you to see how it works:
RESPONSIVE DESIGN
In addition to our flow, we also needed to develop some screens that demonstrated how the responsive design would look.
We decided to adapt it to watch screens, which we believed would meet the requirements of our app in recording physical effort. We also considered that a watch is the device that best fits the nature of the activity itself — going outdoors and walking.
Responsive design
NEXT STEPS
For our next steps, we would love to further
develop the responsive design,
create a community for users to share their experiences with like-minded individuals,
continue refining the mood tracker to provide users with statistics, advice, and daily support.
Additionally, we consider exploring the use of the new Apple Vision Pro to achieve an even more immersive experience.
PERSONAL DISCOVERIES
From this project, I feel a renewed appreciation for the value of iteration and error correction.
I also value the importance of conducting insightful interviews with potential users who share similar needs with the project.
However, in this special case, what I cherish the most is having shared the project with someone with whom I not only worked but also exchanged feelings, experiences, and values. The beauty of spending time with someone and getting to know them is sometimes more rewarding than the work itself.
A special mention to Dragana, who not only shared this project with me but also brought it to life with her illustrations!
