I’d like to talk about digital products striving to create good habits, precisely: meditation, lifestyle and well-being applications. As a psychologist starting out in UX design, I find products connected to mental health especially curious and challenging to build, because of the elusiveness of problems they are meant to solve. You don’t just recommend a meditation app to your friend…right?
As an alternative to blunt advising, I’ve just decided to be thankful a little bit more loudly than usual. I am happy (albeit a little bit cautious, see conclusion) that digital products for mental health are finally in abundance. Why? Here are some things I value about the good products out there:
They are easy to learn and use on a regular basis.
It took me a while to come round to meditating, and I am sure I would have stayed in denial if the instructions were confusing and required too much effort. Still, upon waking up I am not particularly attentive, so knowing where to click makes a difference.
They have limited number of features.
It’s a small thing that goes a long way! I get exactly what I expect from an app that teaches mindful breathing: pleasant unobtrusive instructions, or a plain dynamic circle with a nice background sound. Nothing more, nothing less.
They are reliable.
I know that I can create and save my own collection of exercises to use whenever I need them, on various devices. So there’s comfort in that.
One thing that makes them truly great: they recognise and acknowledge the need without waving it in your face. And all that we perceive as details (the gentle wording of instructions, the voices, the colours) are at the product’s core to make sure the users feel safe in this respect.
I wouldn’t write this without saying that beyond all I value responsibility with which these applications are built. While attracting more users keeps well-being apps afloat, I hope against hope this is being done wisely.
Photo by Cristian Newman on Unsplash
