Duration
2.5 months
Tools
Figma, Miro
Individual Project
Problem
Many students struggle to stay on track with their health goals because university support is limited and existing reward apps don’t adapt to their individual needs or support a well-rounded lifestyle
The Solution
Adapt to each student’s needs with personalised wellness challenges, paired with meaningful rewards that motivate lasting healthy habits
Machine Learning (AI) for Personalisation
Allows for adjusted habit challenges based on individual struggles, keeping students motivated with realistic goals
Begin with a rule-based system for structure, then use machine learning to enable smarter personalisation over time
Easy Way to Log Progress
Allowing users to log in their progress through notifications making it quicker and more convenient
Syncing with fitness apps for automatic progress log for some challenges
Community-Driven Rewards
Partner with local businesses to offer challenge rewards that boost their sales and promote their services
These rewards are easy for students to use, fit seamlessly into their daily lives, and can even encourage socialising through shared experiences
Well-being often takes a backseat in student life
Physically inactive students have been shown to exhibit low intrinsic motivation, difficulty in emotion regulation, and alterations in certain dimensions of health-related quality of life.
It has been widely reported that insomnia may significantly reduce academic achievement
Eating habits during the university period undergo significant variations, decreasing the quality of the diet
Learning from users
5 interviews with Kingston University students were conducted to learn about their struggles and goals and to understand how the university might be able to help it's students
User
Parent
"…I stopped using it after like two or three weeks, because I had to manually sit and enter everything every day…"
User
Parent
"It gets very complex for me to, you know, manage my studies, my job and then my health…"
User
Parent
"I'm trying to build a healthier lifestyle, because I feel like that's going to help me mentally and physically, especially when I start working"
Existing solutions
Students dislike habit apps that need manual logins and end up not using habits apps because of this
Struggles
Students feel that the university provides little to no support in helping them build and maintain a healthy lifestyle
Workload and studies get in the way to achieving healthy goals
They struggle to follow a routine and follow their planned strategy
Student goals
Students have the desire to build healthier lifestyles
Physical activity is something all users either wanted to incorporate into their lifestyles
Existing solutions…
User generic challenges and manual logging, making them tedious and ineffective. University rewards apps focus only on physical activity ignoring other critical habits like sleep and nutrition. The rewards offered lack long-term appeal and are often in the form of points, cash or university merch.
Merge EDU
Osmo Pizza Co
Quiver Vision
Quiver Vision
Key Gaps:
No personalisation: One size fits all designs
Weak rewards: Cash/Uni merch lack real-life value and impact
Lean UX Methodology
The Lean UX methodology was used to quickly test and validate key assumptions about users, AI personalisation, and reward effectiveness. This approach allowed to deliver a quick and effective solution.
Problem & Assumptions
User and business assumptions were generated and prioritised based on the level of risk they posed to the project’s success.
Those assumptions with the highest risk, if proven false, would significantly impact the project's proposition.
Proto-personas & User journey map
Protopersonas were developed based on primary research insights to maintain a user centric focus throughout the design process. The user journey map helped identify key pain points and opportunities to improve the overall experience.
Ideation & Priorisation
Solutions were generated using the "How Might We" technique and used a bull's eye chart to prioritise features and focus on essentials.
This prioritisation allowed to focus on the highest impact features for the MVP that would address core pain points.
Essential Features
Hypotheses & Prioritisation
Hypotheses were generated and plotted by perceived value vs risk. The hypothesis on the top cuadrants were prioritised for MPV testing, ensuring the most critical assumptions were validated first
Service Blueprint
MVP
The MVP was developed and tested the hypotheses
Testing core hypotheses:
1
I believe that I will achieve market differentiation if university students with a poor healthy lifestyle can improve their well being and productivity with AI smart suggested challenges
2
I believe that I will achieve user base growth if university students looking to incorporate healthier habits can Improve their well being and productivity with a code redemption rewards system
3
I believe that I will improve user satisfaction and retention if university students who are inconsistent with their goals and habits can track progress in a low-effort way with mobile notifications showing user progress and log in progress feature
4
I believe that I will achieve increased user engagement if university students who are inconsistent with their goals and habits can achieve a motivating experience with a visual progress tracker
Testing
Kingston University students participated in usability testing, completing tasks while the time on task, errors, assists, and success rates were tracked. All hypotheses passed, providing clear evidence that the core assumptions and product functionality were correct
Usability testing insights
Positive Feedback
Users found the product easy to use and intuitive
Users stated they would be happy to reuse the app
Users liked the simple flow of the app as it lead to few misunderstandings
Areas of improvement
25% of users had difficulties claiming points when completing a challenge
Confirmation notifications could be added to provide clear system feedback
Thank you!
Looking forward to working together
