HEADSPACE, 2020
Connecting students through mindfulness during the pandemic
summary —
Social feature concepts for Headspace done while I was a consultant via DiversaTech, a student-run technology consulting organization at UC Berkeley. My team consisted of me, Dhaval Patel, Hana Sheikh, Hudson Bodourian, Sameen Shah, Sri Cherivirala, and was led by Mallika Chennupaty and Abhinav Jaddu.
my role —
ideated and prototyped new Headspace features based on my team’s user research
what i did —
market research
user research
product design
prototyping
timeline —
Fall 2020 Semester (4 months)
context —
Meeting the mental health and mindfulness needs of college students
Headspace is a mindfulness meditation app with millions of users in more than 190 countries and one mission: to improve the health and happiness of the world. Their goal with this consulting project is to increase college student usage and asked our team to understand the mindfulness practices of college students and brainstorm new features and business strategies.
market research —
77% of UC Berkeley students surveyed reported moderate to high stress.
General Mental Wellbeing Survey (UC Berkeley Students)
128 responses
Publicized in a variety of club Slacks, Major-specific FB Groups, Year-specific FB Groups, in various classes.
Headspace Case Study (Volunteers)
Checked in with 15 students for 4+ weeks on their Headspace usage and experiences
Note: can’t disclose case study findings in too much detail
key insights from the survey —
The pandemic is changing how people destress.
Because of the pandemic and also the wildfires in California (fall 2020), many students can no longer turn to the same outlets they did before, which were hanging out with friends, exercising, listening to music, and hobbies. However, people were still turning to outlets that they could do individually.
Student life has moved online and onto Zoom, taking away the common outlet of grabbing food or hanging out with friends and replacing it with Zoom fatigue. Below are some more key insights.
the problem, defined —
How do we encourage students to de-stress together so that they feel more connected and use Headspace more?
From our research, we found that users rarely fully integrated using Headspace into their routines for the following reasons:
inconsistent usage
overwhelming amount of content
lack of socialization features
difficulty navigating the app
Every consultant came up with different ideas for each pain point. My recommendation was the ability to share content / meditate together and the addition of an in-app chat.
solution overview —
Here’s the messaging and group meditation sessions flows shown by some key screens.
Messages and Buddies List
Send each other mediations and Direct Messages
Start Mediation Sessions with other people
See who’s in your session
full prototype: sender —
full prototype: receiving user —
reflections —
the mental toll of the pandemic
The results of our initial general well-being survey really spoke to how the pandemic has impacted student life. Mental health and stress were important topics at UC Berkeley before, but now that everything is online including school, studying, social interaction, students are living life tab to tab on their computers. Personally, throughout this semester and this project, I learned more about mindfulness and how being mindful of work-life balance is a form of stress management!
the intersection of consulting and design
I had a lot of fun understanding an existing product and the space it operated in and using the lens of “what can I recommend?” It was also fun getting creative with working within Headspace’s existing design system and trying to emulate their style.
Update: In 2021, I noticed there were group meditations in Headspace scheduled every hour that any user could join!
up next — Tous les Jours Mobile App