Objective:

To understand the target users, and design a tool that helps high achievers alleviate performance-related anxiety and burnout.

Challenge:

Wellness Startup looking to develop mental wellness products for creative professionals, but were struggling to understand their end user.

The Approach

The project is based on an endless cycle of iterations. Iterations on thought, assumptions, processes, tasks, etc, informed our design decisions.

This allowed us to thoroughly examine the user, and bring it from a general idea to a specific product for a specific end user.

Survey

In our survey with a 73-participant focus group, one major problem obstructed people from starting creative activities: fear of failure.

People find respite in creative activities because it provides a sense of flow and mindfulness. However, most people struggle to start, let alone practice it consistently.

• Burnout
• Respite
• Roadblock

In-depth Interviews

Our first survey revealed a spectrum of personas that had similar pain points and all had one thing in common - they were all high achievers. During our in-depth follow-up interviews, we decided to focus on how they maintained their current habits, and how it related to stress.

• How they destress
  
• What is a good and bad workday
  
• Attitude towards technology
  
• Goals, actions, pain points
  
• what success looks like

Design Decisions

In the design phase, the team and I engaged in brainstorming sessions to envisage how each screen could best serve the user's journey, what they learn, feel and what do on each screen. Through this iterative and holistic approach, we were able to hone in on intuitive behaviors that would allow frictionless interaction. It also provided us with valuable information to make informed design decisions.

Ebb’s design is based off of research insights, user engagement, and multiple design iterations. Ebb realizes the importance of rituals for our target users by prioritizing features that establish rituals through combining micro habits and multi-sensory engagement, thus fostering consistent participation

A tool that helps high-achievers alleviate stress and anxiety at work.

Ebb uses the SEA method to help over-achieving individuals avoid feeling “lobotomized” at work. The app is seamlessly woven into their everyday work life.

Using our SEA method users can alleviate stress and overcome their anxiety surrounding self-care and time commitment.

S – Sense (~2 mins): Engage your senses in a quick session that is easy to fit into a busy work day.

SE – Environment (~5 – 10mins): Move around and explore your environment

SEA – Action (~30 mins – 1hr): Combining with the previous two, act on your intuition through a series of loosely guided prompts.

Incremental Creative Habits

Building on incremental habits, ebb provides creative prompts that loosely guide people to engage and be delighted with their senses and environment. It is meant to be a low threshold for people to start, and continue to participate consistently. Each creative activity allows for whimsical interpretation. The activity structure allows for people to follow without feeling overwhelmed, and loose enough for people to have agency and creative freedom. You can recenter yourself and escape the workday through a 2-minute activity. A tangible accountability buddy, ebbé, can be paired with your device to remind you to be more mindful.

Multi-sensory Rituals

ebb uses micro-creative habits as an exercise for strengthening mental well-being. ebb helps build and sustain creative habits incrementally by engaging multisensory experiences and activating awareness. In our survey, we found that people unknowingly incorporate rituals that involve physical and mental separation around their practiced habits to signify a conscious change in the boundary between activities. ebb integrates built-in rituals in the different prompts that loosely guide users to engage with their senses and environments. It does so by engaging different levels of commitment and experience.