User Research and Strategy
Pedometer App
I used this personal project as a way to explore core research techniques and the product development process. I created and executed a research plan, organized the data, developed solutions, and built a landing page campaign.
Wearable fitness trackers have become extremely popular, and the market is valued in the billions. However, studies have found that after three months, up to 50% of consumers quit using their wearables regularly. After six months, the number increases to 75%.
For users, fitness wearables can provide a lot of data but without the context needed to permanently create healthy habits. there is an increased focused on walking 10,000 steps a day to be healthy. While experts say that while 10,000 steps a day is a good number to reach, any amount of activity beyond what you're currently doing will likely benefit your health.
I hypothesized that extremely small progress coupled with positive feedback will create permanent behavioral changes. My goal was to find the most effective and satisfying ways to motivate users daily.
I conducted interviews of new users of Fitbit, Jawbone, and pedometer apps. Some of the questions I looked to answer were:
Is it competition, social accountability, financial gain or loss, personal satisfaction, or positive reinforcement?
What are the most sedentary times that could potentially be more active, ie not sleeping or driving?
What are the biggest demotivators or obstacles that have impeded progress?
Afterwards, I took the information gathered and started to organize it. I looked for meaning and patterns in the data. By the end of this phase, I had a better understanding of who the users are, what their deeper needs are, and what problems I can solve for them. This helped define my problem statement.
This was a brainstorming exercise to show the user from the empathy map in context. I used this to generate potential solutions to the problem statements.
Creating point of view statement for the users to help generate ideas and potential solutions.
I took the information gathered about users and started to organize it, looking for meaning and patterns. I organized the data into an empathy map and recorded tensions, contradictions, and surprises that came up.
After working to understand the users’ behaviors and their problems, I aimed for solutions.
I revised the previous storyboards later to illustrate some potential solutions.
In this brainstorm exercise, I analyzed what assumptions I've made, what experiments can be conducted to test those assumptions, and what success looks like.
I created a validated learning canvas to quickly test any assumptions in an organized and methodical fashion. First I listed all assumptions trying to be detailed, specific, and measurable. Next I worked out what the best testing method would be and whether to do more quantitative or usability testing. I defined an acceptable pass rate for each experiment and categorized the results.
At this stage, it was time to create artifacts to test assumptions. I had volunteers respond to prototypes of landing pages.
I created an early landing page, focusing on the headline, value proposition, and main features. It shows a rough idea of the visual design but mostly I focused on making the concepts and features clear and easy to understand.
Features to emphasize:
Effective
Satisfying
Fun
Motivating
Simple
Blockers to avoid:
More technology
Too much tracking
Price - ( free )
The feedback I received from the first version was that it looks too general and is unclear in what was trying to be achieved.
People wanted to know more so they can get excited. It was suggested to include more details about what the app does or how it works and more screenshots.
I mocked up a screen, reorganized the information, and added more descriptive content. This version was better received. I continued to clean up the layout and content.
After this iteration, I felt the landing page worked well enough for the project. The next phase would be to start designing and building the app itself. I may explore that later but for now the project served its purpose for me.
This helped me gain a stronger understanding of the research process and its importance. I learned how to take an idea about a product, research about potential users and their needs, and synthesize data and insights to create possible solutions.