Today we live fast and focused on being as productive as possible at work and in other areas of our lives. Multitasking and immediacy are the main causes of the alteration of the nervous system and anxiety, stress, insomnia, among others...
So how could we help people to achieve a better mental and pshysical life?
Observe/Desk research
Mental health becomes especially relevant after COVID 19. Problems such as anxiety, stress and depression are the new pandemic of the 21 century and the side effects of this new pandemic are beginning to become visible within society: irritability, tiredness, isolation, aging, cardiovascular problems, digestive problems, memory loss, etc.
Mental health assumes a prominent role in the concerns of the common citizen and is beginning to be discussed openly.
Mindfulness, yoga or Pilates are on the rise for training the body and mind. There is no healthy mind without a healthy body and vice versa, which is why everyone signs up for “mindfulness”.
The OMS predicts that by 2030 mental disorders will be the main cause of disability, so PREVENTION may be considered the key to this problem.
Desk research about mental health.
Observe/Netnography
In this context, it is important to search for what is being said about the applications on the market related to mental well-being. Generally those apps offer little free material. Therefore, access to premium content is reserved for a certain type of economic profile of users… The user experience remains "incomplete" since they cannot assume additional paid features.
Users are also concerned about the lack of control when suspending the premium subscription and the difficulty in viewing the offline content available for download.
In general, users would like to have the chance of making some type of personal review that improves their experience.
Saturation is another aspect to take into account since some apps have a wide range of features which make it difficult to the inexperienced user.
Netnography. An approach to mindfulness and yoga apps.
Observe/Research Questions
Through the research questions, I found 4 fundamental pillars about user needs:
PREVENTION. Prevention and education to identify and recognize states of anxiety and depression.
TIME. Time to take care of ourselves. Tune out!
PRICE. No budget for investing in well-being.
TOOLS. The lack of tools to improve mental and physical health.
Research Questions. Possible user needs.
Observe/Benchmarking
The following step would be the research of existing apps on the market and compare their main features. I identified the following points as those which could make my app remarkable:
Specific guide dedicated to pranayama or control of energy and mind through breathing.
Personal notes about the practice.
Weekly balance: time spent and progress results.
Personalized recommendations according to emotional state.
Reminder to stop and disconnect.
Benchmarking. Main remarkable features about the project in comparison with apps on the market.
Observe/SWOT Analysis
With the SWOT analysis, I could see that in a market saturated with similar applications, the strengths of this new app could be the following ones:
Short and accessible content...
Affordable price that allows users to have a complete experience (all in one).
Quality of content (developed by experts).
Personalization and a few content cathegories.
Therefore, one of the most outstanding opportunities would be to develop a very specific app focused ONLY on two aspects: breathing and meditation.
Observe/Surveys 50 pax.
They were asked about how often they felt anxious or nervous and depending on what they have answered in the first question they had to answer a list of different questions. Here are some of the results.
Predominant profile: Women between 36-50 years old with dependent children (almost 37%). More than 60% of the total (m/f) have children.
60% recognized suffer from anxiety or nervousness very often.
The were mostly concern about:
future
and family and burn out (more than 50%)
The main tools to deal with anxiety and stress:
43% deep breath until they calm down
23% physical exercise
The half of them take care of theirselves with healthy food, sport and sleeping well. They try to spend between 30 minutes and 1 hour doing something they like and that makes them feel good.
Almost none of the surveyed people used relaxation apps to enhance their health.
The use of mindfulness apps were linked to a very specific way of understanding life, such as yoguis, vegans…
Almost everyone (80%) believe that it is possible to improve their physical and/or mental state, even though they saved less than the 10% of their budget in mental or physical health.
Synthesize
The next step would be to define two user profiles and their respective empathy maps. After that the customer journey of each one revealed these pain points:
No free time.
Screen saturation, both at work and at home. Less energy and concentration.
Empathy maps.
User profiles.
Customer journey.
Ideate: Findings and insights
The urgent need to disconnect from the future and the “pre-problem” concern.
The need to feel free, without objectives or goals to connect with their essence, "who they really are without their family or work rol".
The have no resources to achieve that relax and sense of freedom.
These insights were organized into the following clusters:
*My notes. Mood tracking: Personal notes before and after the practice.
*DETOX alarm: STOP and DISCONNECT reminders.
In order to develop an useful and simple app, “breathing and meditation” should be the main axes (MUST).
It should also have a “detox alarm” feature and it could include the possibility of making “personal notes” before and after the practice to track mood changes.
Viability-utility.
In-out.
MoSCoW.
Business Model Canvas.
Design: Prototype
The final result is the app "Prana", from the Sanskrit word for 'breath' or 'inspired air', energy or vital flow.
Breathing or prana, understood as the bridge between our physical body and our mind, allows us to regulate both the body's energy and our nervous system and the fluctuations of our mind and emotions, granting vitality, dissolving energetic blockages and stimulating memory, concentration and intellectual performance as well as disease prevention.
Along with breathing, the other main axis of the app would be meditation, with short and affordable practices.
Desk research about mental health.
Netnography. An approach to mindfulness and yoga apps.
Research Questions. Possible user needs.
Benchmarking. Main remarkable features about the project in comparison with apps on the market.
