Getting a Little Headspace: A UX Case Study
UX Research
Work completed for my Masters degree program in User Experience Design at Maryland Institute College of Art.
The initial challenge for this project was to identify a digital experience and embark on a deep dive into the product’s users and what they may be lacking in their current user experience. I chose to explore Headspace, the popular and highly successful meditation and mindfulness app.
Founded in 2010 by Andy Puddicombe and Richard Pierson, Headspace was their attempt to help people find their inner zen and be able to learn meditation in a simple, sustainable way. Puddicombe, a former Buddist monk, wanted to “to make meditation accessible, relevant and beneficial to as many people as possible.” Puddicombe and Pierson met at a meditation clinic and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.
Creating a Research Plan
After choosing Headspace as my focus product, I began by making a research plan. Since I am still a newbie when it comes to UX research, I did some digging and found a Medium article by Margie Mateo Villanueva that I based my plan’s layout on.
The research plan was divided into three phases of study: foundational research, user and discovery research, and evaluative research. This covered the gamut from initial discovery of the product and it’s users to compiling a competitive analysis, preparing for and conducting user interviews, creating personas, and finally synthesizing that research into findings and next steps.
Checking Out the Competition
A key component of the research process was conducting a competitive analysis and SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) matrix. This allowed me to develop ideas about what Headspace might be missing from it’s user experience as well as confirm unique opportunities against what their competitors are already doing.
Of the three main competitors that I analyzed, there were commonalities as well as widely different value propositions that made each one stand out in the market. All three offer a meditation and mindfulness component, however their approaches and target audiences are different.
Calm is the most direct competitor to Headspace, with it’s focus being on traditional meditation and mindfulness, and using similar features like meditation streaks, total minutes meditated, and specified topic meditations like stress and anxiety.
Ten Percent Happier also offers guided meditation, but has a wider reach — it started as a book by Dan Harris and has evolved to the app as well as a podcast — and speaks to the skeptics of the world who can’t sit still and think meditation isn’t worthwhile (until they try Ten Percent Happier, apparently).
Shine’s focus is providing accessible mental health resources to a diverse audience, and doing so in a way that makes it easy and helpful for beginners who may have never looked into meditation. Shine is also one of the only competitor platforms to incorporate a community feature where users can share quotes and reflect on prompts together.
User Interviews & Findings
I started the interviews with a few general questions, and found that all participants felt the Headspace app is easy and pleasant to use, and has visually striking design elements. Each user found themselves interested in meditation for different reasons, and similarly most had different reasons for using the app and different features they liked most.
“I like the design of the app and think it’s pretty user friendly. And I love the voice of the Australian man who leads some of the meditations.” — User 3
“I like that they have topic-based things and not just general stuff…I mostly use the burnout ones and the stress and pain ones as well.” — User 1
Feature-Specific Questions about ‘Buddies’
In each interview, after collecting general thoughts and uses, I narrowed my questioning to ask more about the social/buddy features of the app to see how users felt and what their current usage was for this feature.
Process for adding a “buddy” on Headspace, sending them the link, and interaction options once they accept
Most users had never noticed this feature, and were initially skeptical...
“I guess my gut feels like it’s unnecessary…I just don’t see that as a motivator for me. If anything I think it has the potential to be kind of annoying.” — User 1
“It almost feels gimmicky, in an app that I actually find otherwise very function oriented. That feels strange and off-brand.” — User 6
…BUT, they didn’t hate the idea completely.
Overall the users felt like the current state of the Buddy feature wasn’t something they’d use as is, but four of the six expressed they’d be interested in using it differently. They mentioned:
Some mentioned being able to send recommendations of courses to others (User 1)
Others thought it would be cool to be able to do the workouts in the app with a friend (User 5)
Or even friend challenges or being able to comment on completed meditations (User 3)
The Ah-Ha Moment
After compiling all of the research data from the user interviews and initial research, I realized that the Buddy connection feature was the area that Headspace needed the most help with, and that simultaneously it was a niche enough concept in the meditation app realm that it could offer added value to the product.
Who Is this Even For?
After collecting all the data, the next step was to compile the research and create a persona for each of my user types — millennial users and company membership users.
Personas
Each person was created with the goal of improving the social/buddy feature, while also considering the previous research and data from the interviews I’d conducted. My personas, Ellie and James, existed to help me through the rest of the process.
User Stories
With personas in hand, I was next charged with beginning to create user epics and user stories. This was not something I’d ever done before, and I was excited to try my hand at writing them. Here are a few of the user stories I created:
EPIC: As a millennial user, I want to send and recommend meditations to my friends and family so that I can help them through challenging times and share meditations that I enjoy with them.
Acceptance Criteria: Given I am logged into my account, when I share meditations with family and friends, then they will receive them and know that I sent them.
— —
User Story: As a millennial user, I want to have a “share” button connected with each meditation so that I can easily send the meditation to family or friends.
Acceptance Criteria: Given I am a user and logged in to my account, when I view a meditation I can click the share button and then choose who I want to send it to.
Notes: Will it be feasible for the user to share a meditation with someone who does not have a Headspace account?
— —
User Story: As a millennial user, I want to have options to share in-app or via email or other avenues so that I can share meditations with friends and family who need them, even if they don’t subscribe to Headspace.
Acceptance Criteria: Given I am a user and logged into my account, when I select the “share” button in Headspace, I am given the option to send in the app, or via email or text message, and then I can send the meditation to the person I want to.
Notes: Again, this would be contingent on whether or not it is feasible/realistic to allow users to send specific meditations to non-users of the app. Would need to determine how this could/would work.