For the past 8 years, I’ve been running a program that helps people develop positive character traits such as gratitude, humility, patience, and honesty.
The program reaches over 1000 people around the world via email and WhatsApp, and offers tips and insights into character development, as well as quick daily challenges.
I’ve received a lot of positive feedback on the program, and I wanted to consider developing an app that addresses the same problem domain.
To begin, users choose which area they want to improve in, identify their own goal, set up a plan for success, and set a target or deadline.
Users can set up reminders (optional) and choose if they want to be matched with an accountability partner to cheer them on and help keep them on track.
Every time the user completes their goal, they are rewarded with a celebratory screen to boost their self-esteem and sense of achievement.
Users can post questions or share their thoughts on the community forum to get advice, support, and celebrate their wins.
I interviewed 7 people about their experiences setting self-improvement goals and trying to stick with them.
(On a personal level, it was surprising and heartwarming to see how much people were willing to open up and share about their struggles. A few people even said they felt good after the conversation – they appreciated the opportunity to reflect and gain insight into their growth and challenges.)
The Core problem:
From my research, I found that the main reason why people don’t stick to their goals is a loss of motivation.
My original assumption:
People just need to set small, attainable goals, and get reminders.
Even with small, attainable goals and reminders, people quickly lose motivation. Reminders can become stale – even annoying.
With this new understanding of the user’s problem, I began to consider how we can make the process of working on goals more inherently enjoyable so that people will be more likely to continue working on their goals.
I wrote the following HMW question to kickstart the brainstorming process:
How might we help people develop more intrinsic motivation to follow through with their goals?
To figure out how to increase users’ motivation to stick to their goals, I started reading psychology articles about what contributes to intrinsic motivation.
I came across a fascinating concept called Self-Determination Theory (SDT).
My curiosity was piqued because I had once designed a Powerpoint presentation for a consultant who helps companies motivate their employees, utilizing SDT principles. This consultant is very successful in his work so I was curious to explore how SDT could help me in this context.
SDT proposes that all human beings have three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. According to SDT, people feel most motivated when these 3 basic psychological needs are fulfilled.
Armed with the knowledge that these 3 factors are key to maintaining internal motivation, I tried to think: Which app features will promote autonomy, competence, and relatedness?
I continued researching about SDT and I found a fascinating article about how a team of researchers analyzed 208 self-improvement apps and put together a list of common app features that promote autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
I analyzed this list of features and compared them with my own notes from the interviews, thinking about which features will actually help users reach their goals. Here’s what I came up with:
Letting users choose what they want to work on promotes autonomy. Similarly, letting people choose if they want reminders and a buddy gives them a sense of control.
Showing an exciting animation when users perform their tasks promotes a feeling of achievement. Allowing users to visualize their progress also boosts their sense of competence.
Users can be paired with a buddy or share support through the community forum – tapping into their innate desire for relatedness.
There were some features mentioned in the SDT app article which I chose not to include because they did not jive with my own research. For example:
One unique feature I included in my app (which I didn’t see in some other habit tracking apps) is to let people set a deadline or end total for their goal.
For example: “I will write in my gratitude journal every day for 30 days.”
After reaching their goal, the user can set a new goal (or repeat the same goal).
The reason why I chose to design it this way was because:
After preparing my list of features, I drew a site map for the app.
Next, I drew the task flows and user flows.
Diagramming the user flows helped me think about which actions users might want to take on each screen, and which actions they might want to skip. This guided my decisions about which elements to include on each screen and helped me make sure I had enough alternate paths available.
I presented these mid-fi wireframes to a group of my peers to get initial feedback. Here are some of the changes I made:
People said they don’t want to write their own answers to questions (eg. “Why is gratitude important to you?”), because they don’t want to have to think too hard.
So I added multiple choice options instead of leaving questions open-ended.
“This app offers an organized way to focus on a particular thing you want to work on, and really doing something about it.
It really breaks down the process for you – How are you going to do it? Where are you going to do it? And it connects you to someone who can remind you to do it. So it has all the different parts to help you stay focused and reach your goal.”
– Usability Test Participant
3/5 people found the “Set Your Target” screen confusing because they had trouble mentally calculating how many times they could realistically perform their habit within a specific timeframe.
To address this issue, I separated the two aspects of this question (frequency and duration) and put them on separate screens.
3/5 people were not sure who would see their comment if they clicked on “Share what you’ve learned” (My buddy? The community? My social media accounts?)
So I made the button text more explicit: “Share with the BetterU community.”
For the primary color, I chose a calming blue because I noticed a theme in the interviews that people were often motivated to take on self-improvement goals in order to achieve more calm, less worry and less stress.
For the secondary colors, I chose soft, bright pastel colors to keep the calming vibe. Also, people mentioned in the interviews that they maintain motivation best when they focus on their wins, not on their failures. So I wanted the UI to look bright and positive.
For the logo, I chose to use a lowercase b with an arrow pointing up – representing growth and movement in a positive direction.
Going through this process of doing research, empathizing with users, and getting feedback taught me a lot about internal motivation and how I might change my existing self-improvement program to better increase participants’ internal motivation.
It also helped me realize some things to keep in mind as I continue to develop my WhatsApp-based self-improvement program, as well as the app that I plan to develop in the future.
For example:
I wonder if I should show an animated prototype like this somewhere – but not all the way at the bottom of the case study obviously
User choose their own goal, identifies their motivation, sets up a plan for success, and sets a deadline/target
Optionally, they can set up reminders or get matched with an accountability partner.
Want to talk? Let’s connect and explore how I can help your business provide clear, easy, and delightful digital experiences for your customers.