Case study: Neuro-inclusive design in wellbeing app
We can all agree that wellbeing is one of our own priorities when it comes to find happiness and stability in our lives. This week, my team and I were challenged to create something innovative for The Daily Health Conference, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting health and wellness through impactful public talks, participatory workshops, and professional training all over the world.
The Daily Health Conference began in 1983 in San Francisco as a conference where Medicine, Health, and Wellness converged, and it now covers nearly all health-related topics — from nutrition to sleep to addiction — in over 100 languages.
They offer an online membership on their website. Even though The Daily Health Conference has numerous years of experience in the field, its program has been slow to catch up with technology. They have seen a substantial drop in memberships.
The project
Our goal was to create a prototype for an app focused on wellbeing, translating the concept of wellness into a digital product. The area to cover was free of choice, as long as it was centered in improving the life quality of their users.
Non-technical Requirements
- The app can address any aspect of personal well-being, including (but not limited to): medicine, fitness, nutrition, meditation, time management, and so on
- The app should monitors the users’ progress and encourages them to adopt a healthier lifestyle
- Users must retain control over their personal data (GDPR Compliance)
- The user interface should reflect a new, fresh, updated image aligned with the Daily Health Conference values
Technical requirements
- Users need to be able to set up their profile to include important information relevant to their goals
- Users need to be able to set goals and track their progress
- Users need to be able to edit, share or delete their personal data
- Users need to be informed about the usage of their personal data (This is an opportunity to practice UX writing)
- Users need to receive feedback from the system (empty states, errors…)
- Educational component: find a way for users to stay informed throughout the process and understand how a health routine can benefit their well-being
Team
We all took part of the whole process of designing, from emphatization to high-fidelity prototyping, and also took turns to lead the project.
First steps: finding our core path
After sharing the project scope, requirements and the rest of the information about the project, our team decided to focus on one area that is trending but also poorly attended: create a neuro-inclusive app to help remote workers and neurodivergent people to improve their life quality.
After several interviews and a survey with 60 replies, we decided to focus on people with ADHD and remote workers.
During our research, we learned that ADHD awareness varies among individuals. Some of the key results we found were that 42,5% of the people either have ADHD or suspect to have it, and 66% of the users said they noticed wellbeing apps aren’t tailored for adhd people
Learning about ADHD
It was basic for us to dig down into what is ADHD and what difficulties does people with ADHD face everyday, in order to create something useful to them, which would make their life easier.
Neurodiversity refers to the natural diversity of human minds. It is a spectrum of operational modes and nervous system development stages. Neuroatypical people show strengths and struggles that are different from those with typically functioning brains. According to National Cancer Institute, about 20% of the global population is neuroatypical.
The environment can significantly affect the way they feel and behave. According to the neuroaesthetic triad, there are three large-scale systems that affects their experiences:
- sensory-motor,
- knowledge-meaning,
- and emotion-valuation systems.
With this awareness, we can consciously shape spaces that help them, their behavior and their emotions.
On the other hand, the National Institute of Mental Health states the following information about ADHD in adults:
ADHD is a developmental disorder associated with an ongoing pattern of inattention, hyperactivity, and/or impulsivity. The symptoms of ADHD can interfere significantly with an individual’s daily activities and relationships. ADHD begins in childhood and can continue into the teen years and adulthood.
People with ADHD experience an ongoing pattern of the following types of symptoms:
Inattention–having difficulty paying attention
Hyperactivity–having too much energy or moving and talking too much
Impulsivity–acting without thinking or having difficulty with self-control
Some people with ADHD mainly have symptoms of inattention. Others mostly have symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity. Some people have both types of symptoms.
Signs of inattention may include challenges with:
- Paying close attention to details or making seemingly careless mistakes at work or during other activities
- Sustaining attention for long tasks, such as preparing reports, completing forms, or reviewing lengthy papers
- Listening closely when spoken to directly
- Following instructions and finishing duties in the workplace
- Organizing tasks and activities and managing time
- Engaging in tasks that require sustained attention
- Losing things such as keys, wallets, and phones
- Being easily distracted by unrelated thoughts or stimuli
- Being forgetful in daily activities, such as paying bills, keeping appointments, or returning calls
All these things affect people with ADHD in a way that can cause them other disorders such as depression or anxiety.
Some adults who have ADHD don’t know they have it. These adults may feel it is impossible to get organized, stick to a job, or remember to keep appointments. Daily tasks such as getting up in the morning, preparing to leave the house for work, arriving at work on time, and being productive can be especially challenging for adults with undiagnosed ADHD.
These adults may have a history of problems with school, work, and relationships. Adults with ADHD may seem restless and may try to do several things at the same time — most of them unsuccessfully. They sometimes prefer quick fixes rather than taking the steps needed to gain greater rewards.
On our research, we found out that remote workers, with or without ADHD, had challenges that we might need to address too:
Meet Dana, our user persona
Hello, I’m Dana. I lead a busy life, juggling work and personal commitments, just like many of you. But I’ll admit, it’s not always easy, right? Well add ADHD to the mix… which makes it even more challenging to manage time and being focused, arggg it is very frustrating!
Millions of people struggle with this condition, but luckily there is more awareness about it . I am not a messy person just because, there is a reason why i am like this.I wish there was a tool that would help me with my daily life.
Let’s help Dana.
Ideation: What does people need in an app?
One of the main results of our survey, later confirmed on the personal interviews, was that people wanted and needed a daily routine planner. They asked for specific tools, like a task tracker.
The main features
We wanted an easy experience for the people who would use the app, but also provide them useful tools to manage their daily challenges.
Problem 1: Loneliness and feeling alone when using a health app
We created the figure of a buddy, a digital friend who will help people to use the app, manage their tasks, track their time and listen to their problems. This AI will give also information and support in form of chat.
Problem 2: Going to bed stress and waking up to an disorganized day can make the start of your day a challenge.
Users can sync their meetings with google calendar, create tasks and choose their priority so that the app will automatically organize them.
Problem 3: getting overwhelmed with never ending task list, getting distracted often.
If people need to have some focus time, the app will help them!
Choosing how long they want their focus session to be, and turn on the “task at hand” feature, it will allow them to keep centered on that 1 task before moving to the next one.
Problem 4: goes to bed stressed and frustrated for not finishing everything planned, people have with a lot in their mind
That is why we have also added wind-down sessions, to create a perfect end of the day routine.
Clearing the mind with a journaling feature and recording any thoughts, comments or just unload any frustrations to Pato, our buddy AI!
He is always there to listen!
Designing solutions: from idea to product
We started by defining the user journey and flows for the login and registration, since it was the most difficult part of the project.
We wanted to gather the maximum amount of data from our users to give them a custom experience, but we also didn’t want to overwhelm them with a lot of questions. Therefore, we decided to ask for their basic personal info (name, gender, age), the buddy they would like to have, if they have any developmental disorder and the goals they want to reach.
After confirming this section, the rest of the app was easy peasy:
From our research, we learned that colours were a very important factor when it comes to attention and cognitive load: people with ADHD tend to be more sensible to cognitive loads, being hard for them to keep attention on interfaces with saturated colours and a lot of information on screen.
To help them, we created a fun-but-simple colour palette, which evokes joy, comfort and inclusivity.
Creating & Testing High-Fidelity Prototypes
This project required of constant feedback from people with ADHD. For this reason, we gathered some volunteers to try and give us opinions on the app, and some of the screens.
Time was gold, so we went for a classic A/B test, where we showed our volunteers 3 options for the same screen, and they had to tell us what they thought about them and which one they felt more comfortable with. Thanks to this test, we had a strong lead on what to do in terms of designing the final prototype.
Final Design
Here you can check the prototype.
1. Onboarding
When someone logs in into this app for the first time, we will ask for some personal info to give them a custom experience: pronouns, name, gender, goals, and buddy choice. Each buddy has a preset, from no notifications of the app to daily push ups and constant interaction with the user.
2. Mainpage
The main screen, or Home, as most people call them, is a section where people will see their tasks for the day, the progress they have made and some other useful tools, such as stories (see point 5), mood tracker and AI chat (see point 4) and meditation (as part of the personal tasks’ section).
They will also have the option to add more tasks and start focus sessions where the phone gets locked and in silence for the amount of time they want, in order to minimize the inputs around and be able to focus on the tasks to do.
3. Subsections: Work tasks, personal tasks and personal diary
In this sections, people will be able to set up their work-related tasks, and their personal to do list. They will also be able to start focus time for only one of the lists, opposite to the focus time on the main screen, where both lists got mixed.
4. AI Chat
ChatGPT is known worldwide, and artificial inteligence machines are widely used in a lot of apps and software. From Netflix to medical apps, this machine learning algorithms help users from all over the planet to get the most of their apps. We wanted to implement this in a chat form, which gives closeness and a comforting feeling to people, as they feel like they are talking to someone, and they can vent or talk about their issues knowing it will be private and confidential.
This tool will keep track of the mood, behavioural tendencies and will provide advice but also state when it is important to seek medical help. If the second situation occurs, Pato (our AI buddy) will use the location of our user to tell them which hospital can they visit or the phone number for ER or medical services.
5. Educational component: Stories
One of the things we mentioned before is that we wanted to get information from our user in order to give them a custom experience. This feature, which was originally out of scope, made it out into the project and is the reflection of that idea: provide people information they may find relevant in a fun and interactive format. Nowadays, stories are one of the most common ways to show information on social media. Why not have them here too?
6. Profile settings
We talked about the importance of the cognitive load on people with developmental disorders. For this reason, we added the option to customise the interface into more colorful or monochromatic styles: doing this, people with more sensibility to colours will have the choice to change it into other style that helps them better.
Key learnings
- We gained more insight and learned to think from the perspective of those who face challenges with ADHD.
- Neuro-inclusive design is not as used as it should be.
- Iterations are key to success.
References
- https://neuroinclusive.design/en/
- https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/adhd-what-you-need-to-know#:~:text=People%20with%20ADHD%20experience%20an,having%20difficulty%20with%20self%2Dcontrol
- https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/application-development/neuro-inclusive-software-design-will-become-synonymous-with-good-design
