Calm enbles user's to feel at ease and relaxed. "Find Your Calm" is their slogan and the app's goal is to help users improve their health and happiness.
Calm has a lot of content, specifically meditation videos but there is actually much more to the app. They offer minimal mood tracking, sleep stories, music, reflections, breathing exercises and more. But how many users actually know these features exist and are they able to access and utilize them?
Sole Product Designer
User Research, Interaction, Visual design, Branding, Prototyping & Testing
Calm lumps everything that is not considered meditation into a bottom navigation button called "More". This is vague and unhelpful to the user. The meditation screen shows a wide range of content which is very overwhelming. It's a lot of great content shouting to be heard equally. Where does one begin?
How might we assist in making meditation easier and provide a strong sense of community and support for our users?
100 million people have downloaded Calm. What keeps users coming back? What are their pain points? How can we create a strong community around meditation and encourage people to meditate more, resulting in more downloads and upgrades?
Assumptions to validate or disprove:
Uncovering Insights + Identifying Needs
Conducting User Surveys
Results showed that:
When users were asked why they used Calm, they responded with:
Users were asked what they struggled with most during their meditations.
Here are the most common answers.
Users were asked what their dislikes and pain points with the Calm app.
Additional Statistics
of participants attend therapy.
of participants meditate
with others.
I was able to categorize the insights into these 3 categories
"The library is almost too large and I can use filters to really narrow in on the meditation I want for how I am feeling."
"Stopped using it because another app was more intuitive, user-friendly, and visually appealing."
"I would say, maybe provide more of an emotions tracker of some kind."
To gain a better understanding of a meditation app user and the tools they use, I looked at direct competitors and the features they offer. This helped me focus on product and business decisions and formulate the first iterations.
I want users to feel confident when they open the Calm app and well...not stressed and overwhelmed! There were non-negotiables such as adding "filter by", a search bar for finding certain topics quickly, and categories on the initial home screen creating a sense of hierarchy and flow.
Homescreen
Improvements:
· More white screen on the initial page
· Calm live sessions that are currently held at the very top
· Categories for quick access
· Personalized experience with recommendations
· Bottom navigation is less vague
Self-help Categories
Improvements:
· All self-help tools in one place called "Self"
· Your personalized progress
Track your moods with Self-Care Tools
Improvements:
· Colors not as loud with distracting background
· Option to close out to the previous screen
Journal Prompts
Improvements:
· A variety of journal prompts are provided
· Everyday has a different topic for your category selected
Paced Breathing
This screen was moved into the self-health section and gives the user breathing exercises to help moments of anxiety and panic. Paced breathing is known to calm the body and lower your heart rate.
Sleep Tracking
Since sleep is a big topic in meditation apps, and Calm specifically, a new feature was added for user's struggling with sleep. This helps them monitor and track their sleep and all their info is imported directly from their apple watch.
Track Your Progress
Improvements:
· ALL progress is posted to this screen
· User has the option to sort by days, weeks & months
· The timeline added shows exactly what meditation was done and when
Live Meditation
1. Less is more
The simpler, the better. The original Calm interface was very loud and the images clashed with the background. White space is your best friend!
2. Listen to your users
After the user interviews I learned a lot. Things I thought would be priorities weren't. Never go in blindly. Always design with your users in mind. Validate your designs with data, not assumptions.
3. Keep your branding in mind
Design lifts can be hard! You want your users to recognize their app WHILE giving it a nice makeover. Sometimes we have to start with hanging fruit and work our way up and that means making some sacrifices.
Don't be shy! Say hello and we'll get in touch.
irinisarlis@gmail.com
