CAlm

Disconnecting to connect

Role: Interaction Designer

Team: Christine Lee

Timeline: 11 Weeks

Scope:

  • Customer Journey Mapping

  • Prototyping

  • User Research

  • UX Design

As part of my capstone project for the UCLA Extension UX IV course, I focused on conversational interaction design to support user wellbeing while also aligning with the mission of the Calm app. I redesigned key features to enable more intuitive and seamless daily check-ins, addressing common pain points around screen fatigue and promoting a more mindful user experience.

Overview

Calm currently dominates the market as the most downloaded meditation app with 2x the downloads as its top competitor Headspace.

Calm saw a surge in usage during the pandemic, as users turned to the app to manage heightened anxiety and stress during lockdown.

Marketed as “The #1 App for Meditation and Sleep,” Calm highlights its focus on sleep health, offering features such as audio sleep stories, music remixes designed for relaxation, and lullabies for children.

Context

We began our research with the 2022 Harvard Business School Case Study, which provided a comprehensive overview of Calm and its primary competitor, Headspace. This resource helped establish context around each brand’s growth strategies and positioning within the wellness and meditation app industry.

Before jumping into design, I believe it's crucial to build a strong foundation by truly understanding the problem space. For this project, that meant slowing down and intentionally immersing myself in the research.

One unique part of my process is reading through case studies aloud and recording myself. Listening back allows me to catch details I might otherwise skim over and helps me stay focused without distractions. Taking this extra time upfront ensures I'm not missing critical context and ultimately sets the project up for more thoughtful, informed design decisions.

Summarizing

To better understand the scope of Calm’s brand, I used FigJam to create a series of maps and diagrams. These visual tools helped me make sense of complex information by organizing key concepts, facts, and relationships in a way that was easy to reference and build upon.

This map summarizes the various initiatives along with the external stakeholders and partnerships.Mapping out the brand ecosystem allowed me to see patterns and connections that might have been missed in a more linear research approach.

The case study highlighted Calm’s strong focus on content, referred to as “Calmtainment.” This includes a wide range of offerings; from sleep music remixes and guided narrations to themed “collections” curated around specific user needs.

I created a content-focused map to visualize and categorize these offerings, which helped me better understand how Calm structures its content strategy and how users might navigate or discover different types of experiences within the app.

Desk Research

I conducted preliminary desk research to gain a more current and well-rounded understanding of the product landscape. Exploring a variety of sources allowed me to validate and expand on the case study insights, while also identifying emerging trends and shifts in user behavior.

This step helped me better contextualize Calm within the competitive market and informed the direction of my design strategy.

Wunderman Thompson 2020

Users are changing their mindset when it comes to integrating technology into their lives for relaxation and mental balance

Wunderman Thompson

More wellness minded users want a luxury experience and tailored health services.

Statistica is a source that I used for quantitative data.

Desk Research Takeaways

Research Takeaway:

Younger users are increasingly open to using meditation as part of their self-care routines. Many already incorporate digital devices into their daily lives, making them receptive to app-based wellness tools.

They commonly experience stress, anxiety, and physical discomfort. They tend to view mental and physical wellbeing as deeply interconnected.

Design Insight: There is an opportunity to extend meditation experiences across a variety of emerging interfaces and devices. Users are seeking relief from physical pain, anxiety, and stress—and view meditation as a tool that can support both their mental and physical wellbeing when integrated seamlessly into their everyday environments.

Opportunity Exploration: While reviewing the Partnership Map, I identified potential opportunities for Calm to expand into new interfaces, such as Samsung’s smart fridges. This could open up unique ways to integrate mindfulness into daily routines like eating.

For example, Calm could offer prompts to support mindful and intuitive eating, helping users cultivate healthier habits through ambient, non-intrusive interactions embedded in everyday devices.

Visual Design Trends

One of Calm’s differentiating traits is its use of natural photography paired with customizable themes, which supports a soothing and personal user experience.

My desk research validated that current design trends such as gradients, motion, and clean, minimal layouts align well with Calm’s aesthetic. Keeping the visual design fresh and on-trend not only reinforces Calm’s brand identity but also helps maintain user engagement by making the app feel relevant, inspiring, and emotionally resonant.

Autoethnography

To better understand Calm’s user experience, I downloaded the app and signed up for the seven-day free trial. This allowed me to explore the brand experience from the perspective of a new user.

I analyzed how a first-time user would navigate the different types of content, whether the purpose of each experience was clear, and if the content delivered value in terms of enjoyment and wellbeing. This first hand experience helped me identify both strengths and potential areas for improvement in onboarding and content clarity.

I accidentally missed the deadline to cancel my seven-day free trial, but instead of chargeing me for an annual plan, Calm extended my access with an additional 14 days at no cost. This was a positive experience and reassured the user, creating trust. It highlighted Calm’s user-centered philosophy, as the brand respected user agency and acknowleged typical user behaviors.

Heuristic Analysis

To identify usability issues within the current Calm app, I conducted a heuristic analysis using Nielsen Norman’s 10 Usability Heuristics as a framework.

Some key areas for improvement include:

  • Content Discovery & Filtering
    Users may want more control over the type of content they engage with, such as filtering by format (e.g., audio vs. video) or mood. Currently, there’s a lack of filtering options within the “All” content or music sections creating more cluttered navigation flows.

  • Nomenclature
    The term collection is used throughout the app, but its meaning and functionality are unclear. Is it similar to a playlist? If so, does it behave like one? Using more familiar words can give users more insight and context.

  • Design Consistency
    The visibility of the search bar is inconsistent. It appears and disappears in different contexts, which can make navigation unpredictable and hinder task flow.

This analysis helped uncover friction points that could be addressed to create a more intuitive, consistent, and user-friendly experience.

When users are prompted to select how they’re feeling, they’re limited to choosing only one option. This constraint feels restrictive since emotions are often complex and layered.

Additionally, the flow to complete this task includes unnecessary taps. Users need to manually confirm their selection before proceeding, even though they can only choose a single option. This extra interaction increases time on this page and allows users to pause to choose an emotion. Giving users a pause will be less of an innate choice, possibly skewing the results.

Streamlining this interaction and allowing for multi-emotion choices could create a more empathetic and intuitive experience that more accurately reflects users' emotional states.

Secondary Research

I created a survey questionnaire and targeted various online social communities. I searched for mindfulness and meditation groups on Facebook and posted them there.

I also attempted to use Reddit, but ran into an unexpected problem. I did not want to use my personal account so I created a new reddit account for this case study. Since the account was new, I did not have enough Post Karma points and it caused my posts to be automatically removed.

Moving forward, I’ll keep one account for user research and actively try to engage with the site to build credibility. Although I ran into some roadblocks, I was able to collect responses from six participants.

When users are asked to select a feeling, they can only choose 1. Starting this task incorporated unnecessary taps. It was not seamless and required users to push buttons to move forward, this made the fact that they could only choose 1 feeling redundant.

Research Synthesis

I used affinity mapping to cluster responses. In my clusters, I grouped like answers together, this allowed me to gather quantitative data that was also rich in nuances.

This allowed me to see patterns and understand users thoughts and feelings towards meditation apps.

In structuring the survey multiple types of questions created a pleasant experience for participants. Although mostly comprised of long form text entry questions, additional formats such as checkboxes or Likert scales were included to make the form less tedious for participants.

Research Key insights

The research produced 3 main insights:

  1. Users rely on guided practice and prompts

  2. Users can get content for free on other platforms and seek authenticity

  3. Users don’t want to spend too much time interacting with interfaces while meditating

Users rely on guided practice and prompts

Observations

4/6 participants mentioned using guided meditation content to help them practice


Guided Meditation was the second most used content type after Music.

“I got into guided meditation because it was hard for my own self to facilitate those grounded thoughts”

Recommendations

In order to remind users to practice mindfulness, create simple guides that don’t take much time to complete
Make it easier for users to customize prompts to suit their needs

Users can get content for free on other platforms and seek authenticity

Observations

One user tried Calm, but ultimately did not adopt mindfulness practice into her constant routine because “it charged a subscription before I could fully understand the benefits of using it”

The same user prefers Youtube for guided meditation content: “I use the search in the YouTube app or go through my previously saved playlists in the YouTube app”

Recommendations

In order to justify payments and the value of a subscription, the product must provide a distinct and useful service without appearing to “Commodify” the practice  

Users don’t want to spend too much time interacting with interfaces while meditating

Observations

“I would not use apps because in order for me to meditate, I need to disconnect”

“What I really need is to step away from the computer because it’s my day job and I need to step away from technology because they are an attention economy”

“There’s ads that come and go which really disrupts the flow of the meditation”

Recommendations

Remove the interactivity of the app so that the user can meditate without spending too much time deciding on content or navigating an app. Remove any unnecessary app interface navigation.

Ideation

I used the following ideation methods to generate ideas

I chose to use the 5 whys ideation exercise to explore the root cause of why users found apps to be mentally draining and how they contradict the idea of mindfulness itself.

I ultimately settled on the idea that apps rely on content and user engagement to keep them relevant and new.

The 5 Whys exercise helped me form the following HMW statements:

How might we decrease screen time while allowing users to meditate successfully?

How might we decrease scrolling and clicking to create a more seamless and responsive experience?

How might we introduce new interfaces and devices to solve user needs?

After I was able to grasp the problem space through research and the 5 Whys exercise. I used the SCAMPER method to generate new ideas and creative solutions.rease screen time while allowing users to meditate successfully

How might we decrease scrolling and clicking to create a more seamless? After I was able to grasp the problem space through research and the 5 Whys exercise. I used the SCAMPER method to generate new ideas and creative solutions.

From the SCAMPER ideation exercise came new ideas for design & features:

  • Voice activation/dictation

  • Alarm clock & reminders 

  • More prompt based design 

  • Remove tags 

  • Emphasize discovery and recommendations

Ideation

I sketched the current flow to visualize the types of interactions required. The red overlay reflects typing, the blue overlay reflects tapping, while the eye icon shows how much visual interaction is needed.

Afterwards, I created a new solution that decreased the amount of visual interaction and longform typing.

I further iterated on my initial idea by creating an in depth flow chart.

Usability Testing

I recruited 3 participants for usability testing of the app’s current flows. These were new users.

Methods

  • Think Aloud Testing

  • Usability Testing

Tasks

  • Create a recurring Mood Check-In reminder

  • Set it as a morning alarm

  • After the alarm is created, make a change

Results

  • Average Total Time: 4 min 5 sec

  • Average Time making a change: 7 seconds

Overall, we found that creating a notification was not intuitive and the feature was hidden hierarchically. Although, once the user had found it, it dramatically decreased the time required.

The settings button was not intuitive for participants, they looked at other places and checked the settings last.

  • 1/3 participants used Discover to search for check ins

  • 2/3 participants looked at the Check Ins Tab under Profile

  • 1/3 participants went to the profile and looked for checkins, but could only find the past checkins, not schedule a new one.

  • 1 participant scheduled a recurring check in at 7:30am for 5 days of the week

After I created additional access points, I will conduct additional usability tests to validate that this increases speed and ease of use.

Revisiting Hueristic Analysis

Users said that they needed to build habits.

I looked at tools that the app already had in regards to this. Users could create Check In Reminders, this was hidden and not presented in onboarding.

In order to get users to see the full potential of the product and increase subscriptions.

Setting up a Check-In notification was hidden under the settings button. This is a problem with hierarchy but also design. The settings button is small and in the upper left hand corner which is far for a one handed user to reach.

Solutions

Solution #1: A Quicker Check-In

Insight

Users don’t want to spend too much time interacting with interfaces while meditating

Problem

The current app flow incorporates many tap and typing tasks which require users to stay glued to screens. Users who meditate want the opposite experience.

Solution

  • Remove the Add tags feature because it does not make sense logically. Users are asked to add tags to describe their current mood. Assigning tags is not intuitive. Our mental models don’t assign tags to our moods.

  • Add tags is replaced by a series of recommended guided meditation content to build habits through practice.  

  • Add a Note is replaces typed notes with a voice recording to make it more reflective with less interface interaction.

Solution #2: Creating Easy Access to Customization

Insight

Users rely on guided practice and prompts.

Problem

If we want to give users an easy way to manage their meditation routine, we should make it easy to find and adjust the settings to suit their needs. 


The first solution would be to offer users easier access to their scheduled sessions. Currently it is hierarchically two pages away from the main menu. Making changes is more tedious and requires more comprehension of the entire app’s settings. 

Solution

  • Add their scheduled sessions to their profile dashboard instead of having it hidden under the settings menu to make it more accessible.

  • Place it before “My Stats” to show users how it makes an impact with data and metrics

Next Steps

I was able to find out more about my users’ mental models. Testing revealed information architecture and nomenclature strategies that could be further addressed.

I focused primarily on creating access points, but it was not until near completion of this sprint that I realized the next topic to address, the settings button.

Future design improvements will address

  • Design placement of the settings button

  • Visual design of the settings button

  • Consistency and information architecture of the profile page

I would conduct additional usability tests with new settings button designs which would allow me to understand how changing the design of the settings button could increase user engagement.