OVERVIEW
To improve habit formation and engagement in a mental health tracking app, I joined the company at the start of its public beta to lead UX research efforts that would shape the product’s evolution and ensure a successful launch. My research directly led to a 2x increase in onboarding conversion and a 210% increase in engagement from beta to launch.
We surpassed our launch benchmarks, achieving 10k organic app downloads and a 4.7 App Store Rating within the first 2 months.
Role: Lead UX Researcher
Time Frame: 5 months
Methods: Beta Testing, User Interviews, In-App Feedback, Unmoderated User Tests, Analytics Tracking
PROBLEM STATEMENT
The core challenge was evident: How can we transform a science-backed concept into a sustainable daily habit? While users were intrigued by the app's neuroscience foundation, they struggled with daily motivation and lacked the clear, personalized guidance needed for meaningful engagement.
Key Challenges Identified During Beta Testing
Low Onboarding Conversion
Users did not upload their first memory during onboarding, primarily due to unclear value propositions and a lack of immediate perceived benefit.
Inconsistent Engagement
Although users valued the scientific credibility of the app, they lacked sustained motivation for continued use, resulting in inconsistent engagement patterns.
These insights shaped our research and design approach during the beta testing phase, driving targeted interventions aimed at improving onboarding flow, daily motivation, and habit formation strategies.
RESEARCH GOALS
With the target persona defined and the public beta underway, our next step was to uncover why users weren’t engaging as expected. Our research aimed to bridge the gap between user curiosity about the science and the formation of daily mental health habits.
The research was driven by four primary goals:
Identify the Root Causes of Low Onboarding Conversion
Determine why users were dropping off early, particularly during the first memory upload, and how to improve initial engagement.
Understand User Motivations and Barriers
Explore what drives sustained engagement and habit formation in a mental health context, focusing on how users integrate the app into their daily routines.
Iteratively Refine Core Features
Ensure that updates and new features align with user needs, increasing the likelihood of long-term usage and habit formation.
Continuously Gather and Apply User Feedback
Maintain a robust feedback loop through in-app feedback, interviews, and usability testing to inform rapid iterations and address pain points promptly.
These goals informed a structured, multi-phase research plan designed to:
Uncover actionable insights that drive meaningful product improvements.
Validate key hypotheses related to user engagement and habit formation.
Refine Matter into a habit-forming mental health tool that seamlessly integrates into users' daily lives.
RESEARCH METHODS
I led a comprehensive five-month research program using a multi-method approach that integrated foundational, generative, and evaluative research. The goal was to capture both qualitative and quantitative insights across the user journey, ensuring product decisions were deeply informed by user needs.
User Interviews
Details: Conducted 12 in-depth interviews to explore users' value perception of the app and daily motivation triggers for engaging with memory uploads.
Purpose & Rationale:
User interviews were chosen to gain deep, contextual insights into emotional drivers, unmet needs, and daily behaviors that quantitative data could not capture. Interviews provided rich narratives and motivational context, enabling the team to design features like tailored daily reminders and the Matter Score, which resonated with users' intrinsic motivations.Key Insight:
Users desired more personalized guidance and clear daily goals, leading directly to the introduction of tailored daily reminders and the Matter Score feature.
Moderated & Unmoderated Usability Testing
Details:
Scope: Focused on key user flows, including onboarding and core features.
Moderated Testing: Allowed for real-time observation of user challenges and deep probing into usability issues.
Unmoderated Testing: Offered scalable, cost-effective insights into broader user interaction patterns.
Purpose & Rationale:
Usability testing was selected to identify interaction pain points and usability barriers through direct observation. The combination of moderated and unmoderated methods balanced depth of insight with scalability, providing actionable feedback that informed a streamlined onboarding redesign and simplified interaction patterns, ultimately doubling onboarding conversion rates.
Public Beta & Diary Study and In-App Feedback (Ongoing Throughout the Project)
Details:
Duration: 5 months (ongoing from project inception)
Participants: For the beta, 500 users were recruited via LinkedIn, social media, and direct outreach. A subset of 30 users participated in a structured diary study.
Approach: Agile development in 3-week sprint cycles, incorporating iterative testing and feedback loops for rapid feature refinement.
In-App Feedback: Continuous real-time collection on new features, satisfaction levels, and pain points, directly influencing sprint planning and prioritization.
Purpose & Rationale:
The public beta and diary study provided broad behavioral insights in a real-world setting allowing us to uncover longitudinal insights into daily app integration, habit formation, and emotional triggers over time. In-app feedback enabled a responsive development process by allowing rapid pivots based on evolving user needs. This combination ensured that iterative releases remained aligned with user expectations and business goals throughout the development cycle.
Analytics Tracking
Details: Tracked onboarding conversion, engagement patterns, and key drop-off points across the user journey.
Purpose & Rationale:
Analytics tracking was essential for establishing a quantitative baseline and identifying critical friction points in the user experience. This method provided objective, scalable insights that guided data-driven prioritization of improvements, such as optimizing the onboarding flow and refining the emotion rating screens for better engagement.Impact:
Insights from analytics prioritized friction point resolution, driving higher onboarding completion rates and improving early-stage engagement.
Summary:
This multi-method research strategy provided a robust foundation for iterative product development, combining quantitative data (via analytics) with qualitative insights (from interviews and usability tests). Each product decision was user-centered and impact-driven, ensuring that key features evolved in direct response to validated user needs, ultimately supporting a successful product launch aligned with business objectives.
KEY FINDINGS & IMPACT
Persona Evolution: A Key Insight
Through the research process, our understanding of the target persona evolved significantly. While the initial persona reflected users interested in neuroscience-backed mental health approaches and digital well-being tools, research revealed:
Less Exploratory, More Goal-Oriented: Users had less of an exploratory approach to neuroscience for well-being. Instead, they sought goal-tracking methodologies (e.g., daily ring features) that fostered regular habit-building.
Importance of Habit Formation: This shift was crucial because consistent daily engagement is essential for meaningful mental health outcomes. Users wanted tangible daily progress indicators, emphasizing structured engagement over exploratory learning.
This key insight directly influenced the prioritization of habit-forming features such as the Ring Goal, ensuring the app fostered regular usage patterns essential for improving mental health.
Key Differences from Initial Persona:
Shifted from exploration-focused to achievement-focused
Prioritizes habit formation over scientific understanding
Values structured daily goals over flexible exploration
Seeks tangible progress metrics rather than theoretical knowledge
Responds better to gamification elements than scientific content
Onboarding Experience & Activation
Research Methods: Analytics, User Interviews, Moderated Usability Testing
Key Insights:
Users perceived the onboarding animation as too long and unclear, leading to early drop-offs.
Concerns over privacy emerged due to the app requesting broad photo permissions, creating hesitation in completing onboarding.
Feature Changes:
Streamlined Onboarding Flow: Introduced a shortened, skippable animation that clearly communicated key value propositions within the first few seconds to maintain user interest.
Privacy-Focused Photo Uploads: Replaced broad photo access requests with selective uploads using the native iOS photo picker, significantly reducing privacy concerns and friction.
Impact:
Onboarding conversion doubled following the redesign, demonstrating improved trust and reduced friction during the first user interaction.
Notifications
Research Methods: User Interviews, In-App Feedback, Unmoderated Usability Testing
Key Insights:
The default evening reminder at 8 PM did not align with the diverse routines and preferences of users.
Users perceived the reminders as generic and uninspiring (e.g., “Time to upload a memory!”), lacking context and personal relevance to motivate meaningful action.
There was a strong demand for customizable reminder times to better fit individual schedules and lifestyles.
Feature Changes:
Flexible Notification Times: Implemented customizable reminder options, enabling users to select between morning and evening notifications for better alignment with daily habits and personal routines.
Science-Backed Messaging: Enhanced notification content by incorporating neuroscience-backed context and emotion-specific prompts, making reminders more engaging and relevant to users' emotional states.
Impact:
Improved Retention: Achieved a 30-day retention rate of 18%, demonstrating sustained user engagement driven by personalized reminder schedules and contextually meaningful content.
Emotion Rating
Research Methods: Analytics, Interviews, Unmoderated Usability Testing
Key Insights:
Analytics revealed the emotion rating screen as a major drop-off point in the user journey.
Users found the sliding scale for rating emotions confusing and time-consuming, particularly without clear contextual guidance.
The need to click on the “i” icon for each emotion to access descriptions disrupted the reflection flow, making the process cumbersome.
Users expressed a desire for a more intuitive, quick, and meaningful way to reflect on their daily emotions.
Feature Changes:
Simplified Selection: Replaced the scale-based rating with a tap-to-select emotion system, significantly reducing friction and making the reflection process more intuitive.
Contextual Understanding: Embedded brief, inline explanations of each emotion along with its neuroscience connection, enabling users to better understand and relate to their emotional patterns without disrupting the flow.
Impact:
Improved Engagement: Enhanced user connection to the purpose of emotion rating.
Faster Interactions: Streamlined the interaction design, reducing average rating time by 20%.
Higher Completion Rates: The simplified design and contextual clarity boosted daily reflection completion rates, contributing to sustained user engagement.
FINAL RESULTS & BUSINESS OUTCOMES
Comprehensive user research efforts instilled confidence in the product launch, ensuring its success by aligning user needs with business objectives.
Key Metrics (2 Months Post-Launch):
App Downloads: 10k
App Store Rating: 4.7
Onboarding Conversion: Increased by 2x to 62% (Benchmark: 40-60%)
DAU/WAU: 31% (Benchmark: 30-50%)
7-Day Retention: 30% (Benchmark: 25-45%)
30-Day Retention: 18% (Benchmark: 15-35%)
Positive Qualitative Feedback (App Store):
"I love seeing how different events in my life are firing different parts of my brain, and how I can do more of certain things to increase my happiness."
"I have been using this app since Beta, and I genuinely feel happier. It's not a magic bullet, but by tracking my activities, I'm more cognizant of what makes me happy. Now I purposefully include those things in my day."
IMPACT OF UXR ON POST-LAUNCH ROADMAP
Expanding Memory Input Options:
User interviews showed strong reception for photo memories but highlighted demand for alternative formats (e.g., text, voice notes). Despite initial executive hesitation—since photos were the main input tested in clinical trials—I demonstrated the significance of user feedback, leading to text memories being added to the roadmap.Boosting Long-Term Engagement with Gamification:
While the ring goal drove daily engagement, users also desired deeper, long-term goals. . Recommendations for progress tracking, badges, and challenges were recommended to sustain motivation and reinforce habit formation.Advancing Personalization with AI:
Tailored Action Cards and personalized goals resonated with users. Although v1 lacked AI-based personalization due to engineering constraints, user feedback spurred discussions on leveraging AI for more targeted personalization in future updates.
CHALLENGES & LEARNINGS
Balancing Scientific Rigor with UX Simplicity:
Challenge: Users found the original 1-8 emotion rating scale restrictive and unintuitive.
Solution: Introduced flexible, tap-to-select rating options paired with brief contextual explanations, enhancing user comprehension and interaction.
Resource Constraints:
Challenge: Limited time and resources restricted extensive testing across all features.
Solution: Prioritized high-impact features through rapid iterative testing and leveraged agile sprints for quick feedback loops.
Sustaining Long-Term Engagement:
Challenge: While the Ring Goal feature significantly boosted short-term engagement, long-term retention required deeper personalization and motivation strategies.
Future Improvement: Plan to introduce gamification elements (e.g., badges, streaks) and AI-driven automation for emotion detection, enhancing user commitment and long-term satisfaction.
FINAL TAKEAWAYS
Personalization Matters: Users showed the strongest engagement when presented with tailored insights and daily goals that resonated with their emotional states and progress.
Flexibility Enhances Engagement: Customizable features, such as notification settings, proved critical in boosting daily engagement by aligning with diverse user routines.
Simplicity Drives Usability: Breaking down complex scientific concepts into digestible, user-friendly designs was essential for ensuring sustained user retention and satisfaction.
Closing Thought:
This project demonstrated the transformative value of feature-driven UX research. By grounding each product feature in actionable user insights and rigorous data analysis, we not only elevated key engagement metrics but also delivered a product experience deeply aligned with user needs.
CONTEXT
The Matter app is designed on a neuroscience-backed concept: reflecting on positive memories strengthens neural pathways associated with happiness and emotional resilience. While users were intrigued by the concept, sustaining daily engagement proved challenging.
Core Concept & Science
The app concept centered on three key pillars:
Reflecting on Positive Moments: Strengthens neural pathways associated with happiness.
Science-Based Credibility: Neuroscience-backed insights build user trust.
Trackable Progress: The Matter Score provides a tangible way to monitor emotional well-being.
TARGET PERSONA
Our initial target persona was defined by two key characteristics:
Interest in Digital Well-Being Solutions:
Users who preferred an app-based approach to improving mental well-being over traditional methods like paper journaling.
Preference for Neuroscience-Backed Approaches:
Users intrigued by scientific research and neuroscience as credible tools for enhancing emotional resilience and mental health.
Ring Goal for Daily Motivation
Research Methods: Analytics, In-App Feedback, Unmoderated Usability Testing
Key Insights:
Users lacked clear daily motivational cues, making it difficult to stay engaged consistently.
There was confusion around what constituted a “good” daily score for well-being, which led to low daily memory uploads and hindered habit formation.
Feature Changes:
Science-Backed Daily Goal: Implemented a daily target of 10 Matter Score points, providing a tangible benchmark for users to achieve a positive day.
Personalized Milestones: Introduced the “Best Day Ever” milestones, offering personalized encouragement to motivate users to surpass minimum daily goals and form consistent habits.
Impact:
Daily engagement increased significantly, with DAU/WAU reaching 31%, reflecting improved user motivation and habit formation.
Personalized Recommended Actions
Research Methods: In-App Feedback, Unmoderated Usability Testing
Key Insights:
Users desired actionable, personalized suggestions that aligned with their emotional state and daily progress.
They sought clear ways to boost specific neurotransmitters based on their previous day’s activities and well-being status.
Feature Changes:
Dynamic Daily Recommendations: Introduced personalized daily action suggestions targeting neurotransmitters identified as lacking from the previous day’s data.
Customizable Action Cards: Allowed users to refresh recommended action cards up to three times, providing flexibility and ensuring the relevance of suggestions.
Impact:
Enhanced user relevance and engagement, resulting in a 7-day retention rate of 30%, reflecting improved personalization and sustained user interest.
