Ritualise

A planning app to cultivate your personal habit goals.

Concept UX/UI Design

Overview

Duration

October 2023

Skills

User Research
User Testing
Prototyping
UI Design

Tools

Sketching
Wireframing
Figma

Introduction

“In the wake of the pandemic, the link between nurturing healthier habits and flourishing mental health is clear.”

Problem Space

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
surveyed 18 to 24 years olds with 63% reporting symptoms of anxiety, mood disorders and depression.

A quarter of those surveyed reported turning to substance abuse and a similar number contemplating suicide. These figures underscore the pandemic’s lingering toll on our collective mental health.

In this evolving landscape, young people have the opportunity to understand and create intentional habit systems that last a lifetime, improving their well-being and overall quality of life.

Goals

Develop a product design that enables young users to sustainably build long-term habits while understanding barriers to consistent
habit completion.

Research

Approach

Discover and understand hypothesised users and their habit development attitudes and behaviours through user research.
Define and ideate solutions with user-flows, wireframes, and lo-fi prototypes.
Validate design direction with usability testing and higher fidelity prototypes.

Research Methodology

To begin, semi-structured interviews and a questionnaires were conducted to gain insights into the problem space, target audience, and their habitual behavioural patterns.

The aim was to gain an understanding of how people develop habits, what drives them, how they anticipate obstacles and what motivated them to stay consistent

Discover and Understand

Key points of enquiry:

How intentional are people with habit formation, methods of setting and goal tracking?
Do people track progress? If so, do they do so with intention?
What are key pain points along the habit formation journey?
How do people decide what to prioritise?
What motivates them to identify the need for new habits?
What deters people from being consistent?
What demographic and lifestyle factors affect people’s habit formation process?
What process do users follow to measure efficacy of habit development and tracking?

User Research

Landscape Review

Evaluating several aspects of habit-tracking apps, notably ‘Routinery’ and ‘Habit Tracker’, has provided valuable insights into their strengths and areas for improvement:

App Interface Usability: 93% of users expressed that complex and unclear interfaces hamper their consistent use of these apps for habit tracking and development.
Design & Progress Tracking Limitations: 78% of users identified missing features in apps like ‘Routinery’ and ‘Tiimo’ through ‘A & B Testing.’ Additionally, they highlighted accessibility challenges, including issues with button sizing and intuitive navigation.
Support and Engagement Factors: 98% emphasized the importance of personal touchpoints in the apps. They revealed that enhanced personalization, consistent positive feedback, and a sense of community would significantly boost their motivation and frequency of app usage.

Qualitative User Interviews

User Interviews: Capturing participants’ experiences, challenges, and preferences related to habit execution and development.

Affinity Mapping: Analysing data presented within user interviews,
five core themes consistently re-emerged:

Overwhelming Stress & Anxiety
Gentle reminders using language with ‘ACT Principles’ of self compassion may alleviate a sense of pressure for perfection.
Lack of Time & Energy
Cognitive Overload & ideating their own routine overwhelms users who don’t have the capacity to design their routines  from scratch.
Difficulty in Prioritisation
Users struggle with what to prioritise  if their habits don’t have intentionality. Ideation for Gradual Pace vs. Multiple Habits at once depending on user preferences.
Lack of Motivation
People want positive reinforcement &  a sense of community when interacting with a platform to maintain consistency.
Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
People want positive reinforcement &  a sense of community when interacting with a platform to maintain consistency.

Figure 1.0 Affinity Mapping ‘Key Themes’

Define & Ideate

Neuroscience and psychological studies on habit development yield compelling statistics which informed the define and ideate stage including:

Engaging in new positive habits consistently over a 3 week period leads to lower stress levels, improved mental well-being, and increased feelings of self-efficacy.
Habit tracking progress significantly impacts habit consistency; individuals who consistently track their progress are 3 times more likely to stick with their habits.
Environmental cues trigger habits approximately 40% of the time, underlining the importance of situational context.
Incremental improvements of 1% daily in habits could lead to an astonishing 37 times improvement over 1 year.

Figure 2.0 ‘User Research Analysis – Key Findings’

Research Findings: User Needs and Pain Points

User research revealed pivotal insights that guided the ‘Define and Ideate’ stage, including the following prevalent challenges in habit development and consistency

Cognitive Overload: People are often emotionally overwhelmed and constrained by time, impeding their ability to prioritise and establish attainable habit goals. Without defined plans and objectives, these individuals frequently abandon their efforts, discouraged by the lack of clarity.
Failure to Address Barriers & Obstacles Challenges & obstacles are inevitable when trying to establish new habits, therefore it’s crucial to anticipate & plan for potential barriers & develop strategies to overcome them.
Mindset Expectations & Overall Approach Habit formation is gradual, demanding persistent effort. A mindset built on the foundation of self-compassion is crucial for maintaining consistency amid life’s daily pressures.

Figure 3.0 ‘Ideation – Lo Fidelity’ Prototyping

Figure 4.0 ‘Ideation – Mid Fidelity’ Feature Exploration

Figure 5.0 ‘User Testing -A & B’ Testing

Figure 6.0 ‘Ideation – How Might We’ Exploration

Pivot

Re-examining the “How might we” statements and ideation data led to identifying key features that align with the goal of helping young users build and maintain long-term habits:

Discover Screen: Simplifies habit selection and reduces overload by browsing popular categories.
Ritual Routine Screen: Daily habit overview with progress tracking and colour-coded identification.
Weekly Habit Progress Screen: Visual monitoring of habits with feedback on streaks.
Yearly Habit Progress Screen: Personalised graphs to analyse productive periods and habit success factors.
Habit in Progress Screen: Live activity tracking, visual timer, and progress marking.
Completed Habit Screen: Affirmation and progress overview upon habit completion.

These features are designed to foster sustainable habit formation and understanding of habit completion barriers for young users.

Figure 7.0 ‘Pivot Features’

Integration

Furthermore, as the target demographic is 18-24 year olds, user research indicated that gamification elements and subtle visual reminders were most effective during user testing.

The introduction of ‘Live Activity’ Islands, leveraging iPhone capabilities, with a design that visually displays a countdown to habit completion, strongly appealed to users who often forget their routine maintenance. Below is a user flow diagram illustrating how a user interacts with a “Live Activity Notification.”

Figure 8.0 ‘User Flow – Live Activity Notification’ Diagram

Figure 9.0 ‘Live Activity Notification’ Diagram Analysis

Results

Discovery Screen

The Discover screen, targeting the decision
phase of habit formation, lets users browse ‘Popular’ categories to simplify their routine customisation and reduce cognitive overload.

Personalised Daily Routine Screen

The customised ‘Ritual Routine’ screen offers a daily snapshot of users’ scheduled habits. A progress bar encourages check-ins, while color-coding streamlines habit identification.

Weekly Habit Progress Screen

Users can visually monitor their habit consistency through color-coded progress circles, which also provide positive feedback for maintained streaks.

Yearly Habit Progress Screen

Users can view yearly personalised graphs to identify and correlate productive months, helping pinpoint factors that influence habit completion success.

Habit in Progress Screen

Users can opt to receive the ‘Live Activity’ notification, which directs them to the ‘Habit in Progress’ screen. This displays their progress, scheduled time, and includes a ‘Visual Timer’ for accountability. Users can see the habit’s duration and have an option to mark it complete.

Completed Habit Screen

Once users complete their selected habit, they’re presented with a written affirmation and a visual overview showing their progress.

Recommendations & Next Steps

Conduct Larger Scale Testing: Assess habit completion rates and consistency on a larger user base, habit formation takes on average 66 days to determine habit consistency so a longitudinal study of user habit development would provide accuracy in terms of app efficacy.
Iterative Design: Refine the design based on usability testing insights.
Continuous Refinement: Maintain an ongoing cycle of testing, feedback, and design enhancement.

Key Takeaways

This project highlighted the significance of user-centered research and responsive design in creating effective apps. It emphasised addressing complexity for a user-friendly experience. Developing habits incrementally, even by 1% daily, can result in a remarkable 37x improvement over 1 year. Further development of this project would involve refining the design through usability testing and iteration to ensure user needs are met optimally with a focus on accessibility.