wellara
End-to-end design for a women's health app making health education more accessible.
Role
UX / UI Designer
Timeline
3 weeks
Background
Women's health education and resources are minimal and often focus only on aspects such as period tracking, allowing many other common issues fall to the side. Wellara was developed through a process of extensive research, testing, and analysis to expand the Femtech space to women of all ages and health concerns. We faced the challenges of making an inclusive product for women of all ages that not only helps them understand their health but also serves as a safe space to speak to and be thoroughly understood by doctors.
Problem
There is a clear gap in health education and frustration that women of all ages experience with not having the resources they want and need to understand their health.
Solution
Design an MVP for a mobile app to serve as a reliable resource for women of all ages to track their health, learn about their health from an extended library, and chat directly with a doctor specialized in women's health.
Conducting Research
User Interviews
It was vital to hear directly from women across a wide variety of ages to better understand their personal experiences navigating women's health. We interviewed 4 female participants ranging from 24-56 years old to better understand how their needs have varied and what common pain points can be found.
Affinity Map
Gathering the insights from the user interviews within an affinity map helped to not only organize different perspectives and responses, but also made it clear what the common pain points were that the user faced.
Key Insights
1
Participants' women's health education was observed to be minimal beyond puberty.
2
All participants noted being frustrated with the lack of health information that they have been provided throughout their general education and through conversations with their doctor.
3
When (2 out of 4) participants were struggling with their health they had to complete a lot of research on their own rather than being provided information or research by their doctors.
User Personas
Moving forward, I compiled the insights into two user personas to encapsulate women with different life stages and pain points based on what was observed within user interviews. This helped define the target audience we would be designing for and would reference throughout the rest of the products development.
Competitive Research
After understanding a range of frustrations that women experience with their health, we wanted to explore what type of solutions existed and how they performed.
Companies Reviewed
Flo
"Flo provides all-in-one tracking for period start date and length, fertile window, peak ovulation days, PMS symptoms, flow intensity, and birth control."
Clue
"Clue is the period tracker and fertility app that puts the power of science and the support of fertility experts in your own hands."
Natural Cycles
"Natural Cycles is a hormone-free method of contraception that learns your unique cycle. The app identifies ovulation by analyzing your basal body temperature which you should measure when you wake up."
Eli
“Eli puts together a unique longitudinal hormone dataset for women not just during their fertility years but throughout different life stages, from puberty, contraception to menopause.”
Key Insights
From analyzing our competitive research, we were able to identify a clear gap in many existing women’s health products.
75% of the companies reviewed are dedicated primarily to period tracking features
Only Eli provides access directly to a doctor. This indicates further need for users to connect with doctors online for education and better understanding of their own health
Flo and Clue provide educational aspects within their product, although both tend to fall behind their primary focus of the period tracking feature.
POV Statement & HMW Question
Wrapping up all of the vital insights and defining our target user, I then developed point of view statements and how might we questions to pinpoint the problem and begin ideating how we might address it.
Point of View Statement
I’d like to explore ways to help women of all ages learn and track their health because there is a clear gap in education and a lack of support women experience from their doctors.
How Might We… ?
How might we help women of all ages learn reliable information about their health to empower them with data and information to benefit their wellbeing?
With the how might we statement defining the problem, we then began to expand on potential solutions through iterating a potential feature list.
Feature List
Revisiting our research, goals, and user personas was occurring constantly while I began to develop key features that will be an important aspect of meeting the users needs. Prioritizing these features helped to identify what was important to include and what could be developed later on. This helped to maintain a design that first and foremost answered to the users key pain points without overwhelming them.
User Flows
Having a defined list of Key features allowed me to begin exploring the sites content organization. User Flows were developed to better understand the paths the user might take and what screens and actions need to be accounted for.
Branding
With the brand's audience, goals, features, and information architecture having been developed, we then developed the brand values for wellara. The value words playful, informative, and trustworthy encapsulated the brands goals of a new educational space for women that expanded beyond the overdone period tracker.
It was also key to have the app bring in bright colors to stand out from other brands that are either focused on being solely pink for women or are less playful if they are working directly in the medical field.
Low and Mid Fidelity Wireframes
LoFi Wireframes
The User Flows created helped us to best understand the key screens and actions that were important for the user to take. We began the process of designing these screens through a series of low fidelity designs. Low Fidelity sketches helped us to understand the layout of the screen and how we might incorporate our key features while keeping our target user in mind.
MidFi Wireframes & Usability Testing
As we began to move forward in the design process of upgrading our LoFi wireframes to Mid Fidelity, we wanted to ensure the features and layout we were designing was aligned with the user and their needs.
Usability Tests were ran with 3 users with the main testing goals to identify pain points, understand if more or less content may be needed, and if the designs were successful in addressing the users key problem.
Mid Fidelity Screens Tested
Key Takeaways
1
Participants' expressed confusion on content within Sign Up user flow. This allowed us to reflect back to our key personas on what content was essential and what might be unnecessary to the user.
2
All participants were able to move through flows successfully, with little friction or confusion.
3
Participants noted that they would enjoy if the product could choose the content or personal trackers based on their age, rather than having to manually select at the beginning of creating an account.
High Fidelity Wireframes
Incorporating Usability Test Findings + Branding
The mid fidelity usability testing sessions helped us to learn what was meeting the users needs and what might be creating pain points. As we began to develop our high fidelity designs, we were able to make these edits while constantly referencing our prior research and findings.
Our branding work was also added into our high fidelity wireframes which allowed us to refine our design further and understand how all of our work would interact together to create an overall successful user experience.
HiFi Usability Tests
With the high fidelity designs complete and prototyped, we began running another round of testing to discover if our product was successful and what would need to be improved before releasing the product. While running these tests, our main goal was to understand any pain points the user has while navigating the prototype, their overall impressions of the app, and where any tweaks could be made to improve the users experience and understanding of Wellara.
Usability Testing Insights + Prioritization
Once the usability tests were conducted, we began the process of prioritizing any pain points or comments noted by participants to capture the items that were of most impact to the user.
Iterating High Fidelity Designs
While incorporating the final edits based on our prioritized insights, we listed the iterations under each applicable screen to allow for seamless coordination within the team and developers.
UI Kit
Organization was key to record the components within the Wellara application. Developing this element created consistency along with helping streamline the handoff process to a developer. We developed and refined our UI Kit throughout the iterations and revisited after iterating the final designs to ensure the kit was up to date and organized as needed.
Validated Prototypes
After notating design changes and updating the UI kit, our validated Wellara prototypes are ready!
Conclusion and Next Steps
Developing the Wellara app helped me to refine my skills in every step of the UX process. The research helped me understand that oftentimes a common product can have too narrow of a target audience and cause many users to feel frustrated and not considered. This was a key finding within my research that drove me to create a successful product that provided impactful resources for women of all ages. For my future work, I will definitely take this finding with me and consider whether an existing solution is leaving a population in need behind rather than ideating on solutions to a niche target audience.
If I were to conduct this project again, I would've liked to include extra time to research professionals within the health industry and potential solutions they have to promote women's health and education. This could possibly expand our potential solutions and features for the user.
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