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balance: self compassion & digital health products | market research, evaluation, concept evaluation | Fall 2019 - 3.5 week sprint  &. Spring 2021

balance

integrating self-compassion into health products

Stepping on a scale can be a complicated, emotional experience. Weighing yourself is actually not all about the numbers; psychology, body image, and mental health play a big role as well. Furthermore, while there has been innovation in connected scales, there has not been much change in the way that weight information has been presented.

I led 2 projects (2019, 2021) to test and validate a market opportunity exploring how to introduce self-compassion into health technology products.

chapter 1

chapter 2

the team

Evan Fowler

Emily Hays

the team

Emily Hays (lead)

Stephanie Baione (UXR)

Katherine Crosby (MBA)

Katy Mullet (MBA)

Megan Shagott (MBA)

our approach

user & market research

our approach

market validation

expanded user research

prototyping

concept evaluation

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the journey isn't linear,

let's not record it that way.

our process

outcome

what did I learn?

RESEARCH

MARKET EVALUATION

LITERATURE REVIEW

USER SURVEYS / INTERVIEWS

TEST

CONCEPT GENERATION

PROTOTYPING

USER FEEDBACK

EVALUATE

ANALYZE RESULTS

MARKET VALIDATION

A thorough design brief validating opportunities to communicate weight status differently.

 

The initial work for this project was a 3 week reserach sprint that I later picked up again to further evaluate in Spring 2021. In both of these projects, I led the team where we prototype & validated the market opportunity.

Learning Point #1

This space is not only a viable market opportunity, it's also one that has a lot more viability than I initially realized. It's exciting to design in spaces that can really empower consumers.  

 

Learning Point #2

I wanted to grow my design research skills in a health context for an interactive product. This project showed me how much information you can extract in a short period of time. While evaluating concepts in a survey is sub-optimal, this method produced a deep consumer insights that are useful before investing too much time developing a prototype that could have been misguided.

opportunity

How can we integrate self-compassion into digital health products, such as a self-weighing tool, to make this behavior more positive and accessible?

Our approach towards the problem space

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defining health

HEALTH

It’s easy to initially conceptualize health as how are bodies are doing physically--are we fit? Illness free? However, physical wellbeing is only one facet of health. Mental and emotional wellbeing are equally as impactful to a person’s overall health as their physical wellbeing; something that has often been overlooked in the American health system.

 

WEIGHT STIGMA

Stigma, psychological wellbeing, and physical wellbeing are all at play during self-weighing, but this is not addressed by traditional scales.

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This model shows how the complicated relationship between weight, psychological factors, and health.

from research into

design insights

Key Insight: Self-Compassion as a Moderator

Self-compassion is an emotion regulation strategy that involves taking a kind, nonjudgmental attitude toward oneself, particularly around challenges.

One review article, across 28 studies, found significant support for self-compassion's protective role against a negative body image & eating pathology.

 

​These studies are a key insight because it presents a design opportunity for compassionate wellness tools. A more holistic weighing tool may be able to accommodate populations that struggle with weight-focused self-compassion, decreasing the stress of the self-weighing process and leading to positive outcomes based on an individuals’ needs and goals.

Role of Self Compassion

competitive

analysis

There is a space for a weight-monitoring tool that gives users information that is useful to them without a level of granularity that can be stressful or negative.

Connected wellness products at large raked in $8 billion in 2018, up from $3.3 billion in 2013. Consumer spending on connected digital scales has almost quadrupled since 2013, with around 9 million units sold in 2018.  

Weight Scales 

  •  Shapa - numberless scale, weight loss and behavior change focus

  •  FitTrack - includes Metabolic Age and other measures, focus on weight loss

Health Tracking Tools 

  •  Noom - exacting, focus on behavior change and weight loss

  •  My Fitness Pal - reductionist, exacting approach

Wearables 

  • Apple Watch, FitBit - have an omni-present effect, competitive nature 

2019

user research

In 2019, Evan and I evaluated a few concepts using a survey. Our total project duration was 3.5 weeks, so we were moving quickly and assert that concept testing is not done optimally in a survey. 

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Balance Scale Storyboard

We selected two of our most different-from-each-other concepts and evaluated them using a survey we distributed throughout our social networks.​

 

The 33-question survey assessed:

  • current scale ownership

  • behaviors and emotions related to self-weighing

  • Concept 1 and 2 evaluation. Both concepts asked the same questions regarding perceived user experience and satisfaction. 

We collected 210 responses and over 130 comments on how to improve our initial concepts.

 

The survey validated some of our initial assumptions, while proving others were unfounded. Our sample skewed heavily female and we can assume most respondents were highly-educated, due to convenience sampling. We used open source coding to identify key themes, shown below.

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There is a space for a weight-monitoring tool that gives users the information that is useful to them without a level of granularity that can be stressful or negative.

 

KEY FINDINGS

  • Self-Weighing Frequency: many people do not weigh themselves more than once a week.

  • Emotional: Over 50% of people said that they always feel some sort of emotion when weighing themselves, and:

  • Negative Emotions: While some of the time people felt positive emotions, like pride, there was a significant portion of people who consistently experienced negative emotions such as self-consciousness or anxiety.

  • Communication: There were many disparate opinions about the best type and frequency of communication from the scale, so making those features customizable would be important going forward

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2021

user research

We conducted a survey and dug deep with semi-structured interviews.​

The survey asked 5 questions about weight monitoring behavior and 4 demographic questions, wherein we received 227 responses. 

Semi-structured interviews allowed us to dive deeper with suspected groups of our core users.

  • 20-30 minute interviews

  • 17 questions

  • 18 interviews completed

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INSIGHTS FROM USER NEEDS

  1. Interviewees define their health as broader than just the physical aspects, but when monitoring really focus on the physical because it’s most measurable. 

  2. Interviewees put boundaries in place for how and what they monitor when using health tools, stemming from complicated or unhealthy usage patterns of tools in the past

  3. Future health goal for interviewees was really focused on quality of life throughout their lifetime and to not be physically encumbered as they age. They were more likely to monitor their health by how they felt -- physically, mentally, emotionally.

  4. Numbers make the products feel complicated and overwhelming, and not realistic for everyday life. Not being able to “keep up” can lead to negative feelings and destructive habits or beliefs.

  5. Motivating to know you’re doing something healthy and get positive feedback for it. Conversely, “trustworthy” source becomes demotivating when no tangible results can be measured.

  6. Filling in calories, exercise, etc. consumes time and mental energy.

  7. Sleep and heart rate were really important metrics to interviewees

  8. Mental and physical wellbeing are equally important to our users when assessing their health.

  9. While our users are not immune to social pressures, their ideal health experience does not require competition with anyone other than oneself.

  10. Intuition was a ”tool” most people relied on to assess their health.

A representative Day-In-The-Life of our key users, derived from data collected during interviews.

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2021

concepting

2021

prototyping

Drawing from the research, we developed 3 concepts with key considerations, features, and assumptions to test with each concept. 

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A design colleague's thesis was actively exploring how to make rigid materials bendable and flexible in early prototyping. As a win-win, we participated in his study to use his technique to build our prototype. 

The concept we explored with prototyping was IRIS, in which the scale would project a different color based on the weight range (in this prototype, force applied).

 

We used chipboard and applied conductive substrates to it to create the sensor. Akash's thesis examined different cutting techniques and application of the substrates, so the pattern selection on the prototype allowed us to apply force but also allowed him to test the efficacy of his technique across different prototyping applications. From the abstract: "Kirisense is a simple design technique that adds deformability and interactive capability to thick and rigid prototyping materials such as plywood and chipboard...augmenting rigid materials by combining them with a conductive substrate (carbon- or nickel- paint or spray) and applying a custom cutting pattern using the editor."

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We tested the physical prototype with 8 people and preliminary results were positively received. 

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2021

conclusion

Moving through the end-to-end design process from pain point identification to concepting, testing, and prototyping to validate a real market opportunity was a highlight for me at Georgia Tech. Not only was it a subject area I am incredibly passionate about, but I had the privilege of forming and leading a team through the design process that had never done it before. 

To me, it further reinforced my unique ability to be a bridge between different types of functional teams that don't always speak the same language. 

This was a project I intended to pursue and eventually commercialize. However, life ended up taking me in a different direction as priorities in my life shifted.

 

The next steps for the scale: 

Full body tests with a weight scale prototype

UX research into setting weight ranges and the use of other integrations

Explore Other possible applications:

  • Design for elderly 

  • Alzheimer's/Dementia

  • Clinical applications

  • Food scales

© 2021 by Emily Hays.  

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