Peace

REsearch

Research

REsearch

Research

To figure this out I asked few questions

what are the most Important Things that a meditation app must have ?

Guided
meditation

Meditation
Sounds

Anything else than this is just an engagement strategy which backfires most of the times and reduces user satisfaction

Average playstore rating for a average meditation app is higher then other category apps because of the positive sentiments connected to the category

Highest rated apps are mostly very simple and neatly designed along with they’re either free or they have a clear boundary between free and paid plans rather deceiving the user to buy paid plans

what do Users say about meditation apps ?

When I research, my favourite thing is to go on playstore and read user reviews about the other apps from same category

Here are few from hundreds I read

what do Users Hate about meditation apps ?

After going through hundreds of playstore reviews I found out the following problems in meditation apps

Problems

Problem 1

Aksing too many questions

Most of the meditation apps start with a long onboarding process along with other disturbing questions arise while starting a session, ending a meditation and so on.

Asking too many questions is a completely useless and waste of time because a person comes to a meditation app when he wants to avoid cognitive load and immerse himself into calming experience

In the following image you can see some of the shittiest onboarding processes
That will make give you depression

This must be taking to much to scroll now imagine how I must be feeling at the middle of that night

Problem 2

restrictive UI

Asking for too many confirmations for doing very simple things, from closing the meditation to changing the session and so on

This is not an atomic missile where you have to confirm things 1000 times before executing

So take a chill pill

Problem 3

Cluttered ui with Too many choices

The fundamental purpose of a meditation application is to provide a calming pleasant experience rather confusing with too many choices

Problem 4

Too many categories

Any meditation session can do the job irrespective of what category it belongs to

Meditation apps use this to show abundance of content which becomes a problem in itself

Problem 5

personalisation

Meditation apps are asking questions to create a personalised experience rather they should analyse data from tools like amplitude and mixpanel

User sometimes doesn’t know lot of things and end up answering whatever he/she can to get rid of the questionnaire

Problem 6

gong sound

No one likes gong sound at the end or start of the meditation rather just stop the music if it’s finished or give a button to auto play after the current meditation

This just ruins the experience

Problem 7

deceiving behaviour

Lying to users that the app is free is sure short way to disastrous experience

Problem 8

Meditation apps are asking for login/signup before even user start using the product which completely ruins everything

To summarise they were trying to solve problems; but ended up being a problem themselves

These apps are punishment for being depressed or having anxiety rather being a cure

Next time the person will be afraid of being sad or having any problem because he’ll have to go through the painful process of these meditation apps so rather he'll choose to take care of himself

Remember! what “don’t make me think” philosophy says, this is just opposite of that

so now let’s see

what do Users Love about meditation apps ?

I’m sorry for making it very anti climatic but they like just the opposite of what these meditation apps are doing

Clean & Intuitive UI

Users love clean and decluttered UI that let’s them control few things but not everything because control is an anxiety in itself.

Users don’t want an aircraft controlling interface to navigate through the singularity of a supernova black h😵le, they just want a simple & intuitive interface that can do the job

Free

Needless to say most of them want it for free, and there are many good freemium pricing models that they tends to like that has a clear boundary between free and paid plans along with ample access with free plan

straightforward adn upfront behaviour

No one likes to be deceived so tell them everything clearly upfront because as the say

“expectations are the thief of joy“

Solutions

Solution 1

Minimizing categories

I’ve simplified the categories to just few where every category will have around 10 sessions

This will reduce the choices which will result in better user experience

Solution 2

Recommended tag on a session

This tag will reduce the cognitive load of choosing a meditation session,
We can shift this tag everyday from one session to another to reduce monotony

Solution 3

One thing at a time

The first time user will see the following screens only

And as they move forward they can unlock other things
if they want* Nothing is Forceful

Solution 4

Change session

Swipe left right on the session thumbnail to play next and previous

Solution 5

Session Duration

Some people complained about choosing the session duration upfront because it was one more step in the way of playing the session

By default the highest duration will be selected and user

If a user likes any particular duration more often than we can make it selected by default

This approach is better than asking the user for a by default duration

Solution 6

Switch orders of sessions

User can change order of any session by long press on a session and drag to switch order

Solution 7

Clutter Free

Features are arranged in such a way that a person who doesn’t want advanced feature can enjoy the minimal design

Edge cases are also handled in such a way that they don’t come in a way of clean ui

Discarded Idea

Sections

Last played section has been discarded because what will be played next is more important

Flow
diagram

Color
System

Product

Splash screen

Meditation

There will be only limited categories to reduce clutter.

The play button and duration pills can be used to play a sound without browsing anything

Category sessions

1. After clicking on any category thumbnail this sessions page will open
2. Here user can play any session
3. One session from all session will be recommended everyday to reduce cognitive friction

Player

1. Cross icon can be used to close player
3. Heart icon can be used to save this session
3. Sound icon can be used to open sound controls
4. Down arrow button can be used to download session
5. Clock icon can be used to change duration
6. Swipe left-right to change session
7. Drag the bottom drawer to see session tabs

Last played sessions

1. Shuffle play will play all the sessions randomly
2. Play all will play them sequentially
3. Long press and drag on any session to rearrange

Downloaded sessions

Saved sessions

Background sound control

1. Use the slider to control volume of guide’s voice and background sound
2. Slide the the cards horizontally to select any background sound
3. Volume will be in middle by default
4. First no background music will be selected by default

session duration

If user doesn’t choose anything than the highest duration will be selected by default

User profile

User has to login or signup to come to this page
1. All saved and downloaded sessions can be excessed from here
2. User can get full access by clicking on “BECOME PREMIUM MEMBER”.

Dark Mode

Prototype video

Learnings

importance of simplicity

Meditation is a practice that requires focus and concentration, so it is important for a meditation app to be easy to use and not distract the user from the task at hand.

importance of data

By tracking user behaviour and preferences, a meditation app can gather data that can be used to improve the app's functionality and make it more effective for users.

importance of feedback

One of the key learnings from designing a meditation app is the need to listen to user feedback and incorporate it into the design process. This can help ensure that the app meets the needs and preferences of its users.

So what next

is it done ?

Get ready for something crazy

because I discarded this whole application because it was not serving the purpose the way I wanted

The next I created is something that will change the game completely

Insight

Guided meditations are covered by lot of mobile applications and people like them but meditation sounds is something that is not properly solved by someone and people are continuing to use Spotify and YouTube

So I decided to realign my focus point

Earlier I was solving two problems but not anymore

Guided
meditation

Meditation
Sounds

The new focus point is only meditation sounds

Meditation
Sounds

Keep in mind this new design is not restrictive at all

It can host guided meditations also but not for now

Product

FInal product

Player/Home

1. User will land on this screen, and this will be the home     screen
2. By default the sound will be paused
3. The background can be static wallpaper or a looped     animation
4. The bars at the bottom right will fluctuate according to     the sound amplitude
5. User can click on the sound level bars to go to the all     sessions page
6. If the user leave the app the and reopens, he/she can     resume from where he/she left

Sessions

1. All the available sessions will be here and users can play whatever they want
2. Some of the sessions will be part of the premium subscription
3. Checkbox represents downloaded sessions
4. Users can long press to download or delete a session
5. Cross button at the top left will go back to home screen

1. After clicking on any “Controls” button on the above pager the user will be asked to login or signup
2. Guest users can not go into controls section and further

Player

1. If the user is logged in he’ll be redirected to this screen after clicking on the “Controls” button
2. Cross button will go back to sessions page
3. “Settings” button will redirect them to next screen

Profile/
Settings

1. Background image will redirect the user to change the background of home screen
2. Logout will close the app while logging out

Background image/
animations

All the satisfactory static as well as animated backgrounds will be here but not too much

Now

When it comes to fulfilling the purpose and perfection I can discard anything or everything

Mediocracy is not allowed in my territory

Of course it takes tremendous amount of work but fulfilling the purpose matters more than anything

By the way before all this i already discarded one app

Which I almost finished building

The idea behind that is to make a self development app where user can do lot of things including meditation, exercise, live sessions, journaling, meal planning, stopwatch/timer

You can see it below

I discarded it because it would be far better to provide the best specialized experience rather a generalized mediocre experience

Product

Discarded product below

The product below is the very first iteration

Home screen

User can use this app for these six things

Meditation sessions

session filters

After clicking on filters button this slider will slide in

session chapters

All the chapters of any meditation session can be seen here

Chapter details

User can choose the duration and narrator(guide voice)

Chapter player

Sound customization

This slider will slider in after clicking on “Background sounds” button, here -
1. Volume of background sound can be controlled
2. User can choose which background sound to play from the given options

Exercises

This will open when user clicks “Exercises” button from the home screen

Exercise level

Exercise sessions

More section

Account details

Report