Shine Redesign
A mental wellness app for the BIPOC community
Project Details
The problem
The Shine app provides a cluttered and confusing experience while not addressing the needs of the BIPOC community. Shine has a barrier to membership, lacks interactive & curated content, and does not center the BIPOC community and experience.
The solution
Redesign of Shine app to offer more accessible, interactive, clear, and curated content that centers the non-white experience and addresses the mental wellness needs of the BIPOC community.
Role & Team
UX Researcher & Designer, mentored by Anna Brenner
Why care?
Mental wellness isn’t accessible to marginalized BIPOC communities.
Mental health has diversity and inclusion issues that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. BIPOC people are underrepresented and underserved in the wellness industry.
I chose to redesign the Shine app to improve accessibility to mental wellness for marginalized identities and communities, which are often excluded from such initiatives. Regular mental wellness apps alienate BIPOC folks by ignoring their needs and not representing their identities. Shine, redesigned—chooses to center the non-white experience by listening to and addressing BIPOC needs, frustrations and goals when seeking mental wellness support, especially around stress & anxiety.
“Because systems of oppression and systemic racism are making us emotionally and physically ill, we have to make these resources easily accessible to Black and Brown communities. It’s for our survival.”
— McCarty, Exhale app
The Mental Wellness Ecosystem
UX audit
Hypothesis on challenges
Analytical findings reveals some pressing challenges. The Shine UX experience is punctuated by:
lack of accessibility
Shine’s first impression upon finishing the onboarding is a homepage full of locked content.
poor product fit
Clutter and a lack of hierarchy create a confusing and anxiety inducing experience for users who need calm.
Generic Design
Shine seems like any other wellness app and looses on the opportunity to differentiate itself by actually reflecting and serving the BIPOC community.
UX audit
Usability Heuristics
I wanted to go a little deeper and further analyze Shine through the lens of Usability Heuristics. These are the main heuristics Shine didn’t meet:
#1 Visibility of system status
Shine fails to offer feedback and let users where they are in the process.
#2 Match OF system & real world
Shine’s use of language doesn’t match the real world. It’s language is at times confusing.
#3 user control & freedom
It’s not always easy to find one’s way out of the system or navigate.
#4 consistency & standards
For instance, some content seems free without the lock icon when in fact it is locked upon further exploration.
#6 recognition OVER recall
Users are burdened with cognitive overload trying to recall information.
#8 aesthetic & minimalist design
The design of the app is cluttered, overwhelming, and leads to a sense of confusion.
MARKET RESEARCH
Understanding the Mental Wellness problem space
Insights on patterns and trends
These are a few of the most notable findings on market growth, audience, trends, and opportunities. Most of these insights come from McKinsey.
Anxiety in BIPOC
The Pandemic
In a recent poll from the Pew Research Center, 73% of Americans reported feeling more anxious since the onset of the pandemic, with anti-anxiety prescriptions going up 34 percent.
Systemic oppression
Mental health is also a diversity & inclusion issue. Studies find that Black and Latinx experience more symptoms of disrupted mental health due to racism and oppression at work.
Underserved BIPOC
Only 33% Of Latinx and Black adults who need mental health care will receive it. Mental Wellness is not accessible to marginalized communities in the US today.
Market Growth
Underrepresented
In 2015, 86% of psychologists in the U.S. were white, while only 5% Asian, 5% Hispanic, 4% Black, and 1% multiracial, leaving BIPOC communities, underrepresented.
Mindfulness as Growth driver
According to McKinsey & Company, consumers want to prioritize mindfulness more after the COVID-19 crisis using more products & services, indicating opportunities.
5-10% Market Growth Rate
The global wellness market is estimated at more than $1.5 trillion, with an annual growth of 5 to 10% with mindfulness expected to grow at the rate of 8.73 % during 2022-2027
Current Trends
Prioritizing Personalization
In the United States, more than 88 percent of Consumers report prioritizing personalization, same or more than they did before.
Increased Engagement
Competitors are using a holistic online strategy to build app-enabled features that keep users engaged throughout the entire ecosystem.
agency & control
Consumers are yearning for a sense of agency and control as they embark on their mental wellness journey.
LANDSCAPE analysis
What’s missing in the competitive landscape?
Looking for missed opportunities in competitor features.
Shine is not being competitive and missing opportunities by failing to provide:
Flexible membership
Clean onboarding
Calming design
Some opportunities (few competitors offer these):
Community interaction
Progress tracking
Accessible content
Qualitative User Research
user interviews + usability testing
Problems with Shine. What works and what doesn’t?
I interviewed BIPOC who appreciate mental wellness to test Shine.
Conducted 6 user interviews/usability tests to discover the possible joys, pains, and struggles in using the Shine App.
What user needs is the Shine app ignoring?
What are the main pain points in the user experience?
How can the experience of the shine app be improved?
What are the most common roadblocks to purchasing a membership?
analyzing data
Emerging patterns
Usability & Functionality
These are the main patterns from data that I gathered when I tested for the usability and functionality of the app.
synthesizing data
Validation of UX Audit Findings
Insights on main issues and HMWs
These insights validated my original hypothesis of Shine’s main problems. These insights and HMWs have informed design decisions throughout the life of Shine’s redesign.
synthesizing data
Shine Redesign Principles
Data informed Principles
These principles come from data insights and reflect essential values that helped guide the design process to keep Shine aligned.
Information Architecture
good for users + business
High level goals
A more attuned brand and UX experience can lead to better product fit, increased use, and membership.
sitemap
Clearer Information architecture
A more robust Reflect and Community experience & subtle language changes
These are some of the language changes that took place to have more clarity in a system whose language more closely refers to real life.
discuss —> community
library —> discover
Exploratory Wireframing
Content & Storytelling
I reworked the hierarchy and restructured content in order to be more engaging.
There were multiple wireframe iterations, paying attention to creating a sense of cohesion and consistency in wireframes that play with hierarchy, structured content, and real copy.
High Fidelity Responsive Design
branding + visual language
Calming & Grounding
I redesigned Shine’s brand to be a more emotive Shine brand that truly serves BIPOC folks who experience stress and anxiety.
soothing color palette
The color palette has neutral tones with accents of slate and fucscia, together they create a calming effect.
graceful typography pairing
Editorial New, a precise and refined narrow serif contrasts nicely with Graphik, a simple yet elegant sans serif.
Natural photography
Photographic assets were carefully curated to better represent, appeal to, and uplift the BIPOC community.
ui design
UI Redesign Strategy
I transformed the UI to increase ease of use and learnability.
I transformed Shine’s cluttered and confusing UI as well as increased ease of use and learnability through hierarchy, visual structure, alignment, repetition, spacing and scale.
DESIGN challenge
Design for various types of content
Through trial and error
The goal was to create an engaging experience with consistency within variety. I came up with different card designs for different content.
how data informs design
Meeting Shine User Needs
With heuristics in mind, I fine tuned design solutions to increase resonance, interaction, and engagement.
centering bipoc
Shine redesign supports the BIPOC experience.
accessibility
In an effort to make mental wellness more accessible to the BIPOC community, Shine now supports members to pay what they can and determine the amount.
GENUINE interaction
People want less robotic and more human interactions. Shine is now interactive and engaging.
safe & real community
Shine now creates a real community where people can feel safe to share and express themselves.
flow #1
A validating experience
Transforming Shine’s Onboarding experience
With research insights in mind, I designed a thorough onboarding process to get users ready for a well-curated and personalized experience.
from inaccessible to pay what you can
Because everyone deserves access to mental wellness tools, we offered a pay what you can membership.
better Questions for curation
Shine can deliver a curated experience with better formulated and more thorough onboarding questions.
Centering the BIPOC experience
Shine is here to support the non-white, BIPOC experience with content tailored to their needs.
flow #2
Generosity upon arrival
Transforming Shine’s Home experience
Users wanted a more welcoming first home experience. These are all part of the strategy to better guide the first Shine experience upon onboarding:
from hidden to visible BIPOC messaging
To provide an experience of consistency and to let users know they arrived in the right place, there is the BIPOC message about the app upon landing on the homepage.
from paywalling to generous free tier
It became important to unlock content for non-members so they can experience the full extent of Shine’s functionality.
from generic to curated
The content on the homepage has been curated to deliver on what the onboarding promised.
Shine’s returning Homepage experience
Users who have been using Shine consistently can see recently completed meditations, favorites, and more curated content.
flow #3
Unearthing Treasures
Transforming Shine’s Discover experience
These were some strategic considerations to heal pain points revealed during research:
exposure
The content that users want to see is no longer hidden but exposed and accessible.
searchability
Each classified experience (such as meditation or live event) is easily found due to use of meta data tags that are visible to the user. Meta data tags include words and emojis.
more intentional language
More subtle language changes like changing Quick Hitters to Quick Resets.
flow #4
Growing in Awareness
Transforming Shine’s Reflect 2 Main experiences
Both of these flows are now accessible to all. Users can see categories for each experience—check-in or track progress— under meta data tags.
Check-in & Interaction
robust journaling tool
To increase self awareness, Shine now offers the ability to journal by using prompt questions users can answer with the keyboard or audio feature.
before and after journaling
As part of the wellness journey, Shine now asks users how they are feeling after journaling, as a way to help recognize the value of this practice.
Track Progress
from paywalling to accessibility
Track Progress is now available to non-members since this is a key experience in the Shine app.
Meaningful data + insights
Users can now see insights from their daily check-in experience including emotion of the day and recurring emotion of the month as well as what is helping on their journey.
flow #5
Community & Belonging
Transforming Shine’s Community experience
I integrated essential needs from research to make sure I create not only a safe, but also an authentic community.
from fake to real
The community page went from lack of interaction to an engaging and dynamic community with a variety of groups. Users can now engage each others thoughts, and offer kindness and support.
from unsafe to safe
Shine now provides AI monitoring of comments scanning for abusive comments and the ability to report a comment or post.
flow #6
Information that matters
Transforming Shine’s Profile experience
Users who struggled with a stingy profile experience that didn’t offer much information before were very appreciative of having access to useful information on their profile.
Usability Testing
usability testing
How has the Shine App user experience improved?
Insights on what’s working
Participants had originally been part of user research at the beginning of the project. The method was individual moderated remote study sessions with 4 participants who shared their screen via zoom.
100% of participants would like to use Shine after the redesign and completed tasks with 100% success rate.
What stood out as positive improvements:
centering bipoc
Users appreciated how membership is a non-intrusive option as they explored the functionality of the app.
calming and grounding design
Unlike their previous generic experience of Shine, users felt connected to the brand and found the design unique.
curated content
Now content feels curated, which helps users feel that Shine cares about their needs.
accessibility
Users can now can enjoy exploring free content and enjoy membership at a sliding scale.
“Now, Shine helps BIPOC people find their happy place. Compared to the original, it is a lot more intuitive. The pictures make me feel relaxed. I like how content is curated & organized, and the design is clean. I would trust it ”
— Usability Test Participant
priority
Revision insights
Insights on what can improve
Most areas of improvement focused on highlighting the positive features of Shine’s redesign. Based on user insights, these are the changes that will be prioritized to yield better user experience results.
Highlight redesign improvements
Participants thought I should emphasize Shine’s Redesign improvements that set it apart—the sliding scale and pay what you can membership tier as well as the interactive community features.
language tweaks
In the screens that list options, I already changed the term “other” to “not listed” to “something else” in an effort to reduce anxiety through more encompassing language. “Other” felt alienating. “Not listed” felt that it focused on absence. And “Something else” felt about right with users.
Discover’s main page
Users want to see the broad selection of content within each category without so many clicks. Not being able to see the full breadth of content induced some stress & anxiety.
Reflections
food for thought
Valuable lessons with layers of complexity
Earn trust
Trust is not a given, it is earned with integrity, generosity, and consistency. Communicating that our user’s wellness matters to us is the beginning. Following through on promises is key.
Inspire calm
I became hyper aware from conversation with participants that there are design processes and micro interactions that can induce anxiety. Shine’s redesign pays attention to the smallest things that could potentially trigger people and tries to avoid them.
Language matters
I learned that language can alienate or foster inclusion. Even a subtle change can have a profound effect. I used the term BIPOC to encompass non-white marginalized identities and center their non-white experience. This term is originally used by the Shine app and although helpful, it has its limitations. Even though this acronym attempts to express solidarity between communities of color, sometimes this can be problematic as it erases differences within those communities, all of which experience in their own way, the effects of colonial, oppressive systems in place still today.
Design for harmony
acknowledge friction
Designing for harmony requires the acknowledgment of potential sources of friction between these various identity communities within the umbrella of BIPOC. I would have liked to focus on avoiding such potential conflict within Shine’s community experience, but this was outside the scope.
celebrate differences
Given more time, I would have liked to celebrate differences in a non-homogenized experience of multiplicity that addressed different and sometimes conflicting needs with BIPOC.