The Simplest Path to Mindfulness

Peach Mindfulness is a web application that coaches its users in the development of their mindfulness practice.

Peach was founded towards the end of 2019 by Quyen Balter. After working for corporate companies as a software engineer for many years, Quyen brought to life a dream to develop technology which supported people in the development of consistent meditation practice. 

Philosophy & Unique Value Offering

Peach’s philosophy consists of two core beliefs.

  • First, meditation is not a one size fits all deal. Everyone is unique, and the struggle and time it takes to find what works well for each of us is often a deterrent that gets in the way. Peach focuses on providing a tailored program for each individual.

  • Second, like all things natural in life, growing on the path to mindfulness requires patience, time and love.  Peach tends to the meditation practice of each user, guiding them through the stages of their growth, checking on their progress and needs along the way.

The Challenge

My Role: UX Designer/Researcher

Peach's launch was a strategic outreach offering users the chance to sign up and meditate for free for 30 days. It coincided with the worldwide pandemic, and Quyen found that in her first offering of the technology via Facebook ads, there was no shortage of sign-ups.  

June 2021 - Sept 2021

I met Quyen a year and a half later. Peach Mindfulness was up and running on the market and had several hundreds free subscribers. However, Quyen found that although there were no shortage of people willing to try the offer for free, there were not enough willing to pay for a subscription.

Quyen's goal was through user research, to understand where the shortfall of her offering was, and what her users most needed in order to find value in paying for a subscription.

Client’s Goal

  1. Improve the landing page by ensuring it spoke to the unique value proposition in a clear way.

  2. Discover any opportunities to improve the value so that users would be motivated to pay for subscription service.

  3. Identify any areas needing improvement.

  4. Get a better grasp of the target audience.

PHASE 1 - The Landing Page

Usability testing, User Interviews

Research Goal:

Understand what users thoughts of the current site, tease out painpoints and understand who the users were, and what they valued most about the experience.

To Discover:

  1. What are users’ overall impressions with the page; what are the values they saw that Peach brings from reading the page.

  2. How users are currently solving their challenges with meditation today?

  3. What do users think and understand from each section?

  4. Are users willing to take action?

  • Screeners sent to invite users 18 and over who have interest in meditation.

  • Five virtual interviews conducted over Zoom.

  • Each interview lasted approximately 30 minutes.

There were three parts covering separate areas in the interview:

A) The Overall Impression of the landing page.

B) How users currently solve their meditation challenges.

C) Users' willingness to take action

  • Users asked to scroll through as they normally would to check out the site, while they were silently observed.

  • Users asked to think out loud.

  • At the end of the process, users were guided through a carefully crafted discussion guide.

Setup:

User Quotes, Takeaways & Insights

Original Design for Landing Page

"Too many start free trial prompts. Anything that starts to come off too "salesly" makes me think …they just want my money"

"If I take out my credit card, I feel that credibility ... the security that comes with that is important to me"

“Who are the people behind Peach? Are they trustworthy?”

"I will pay if you can help me to create a ritual, a real lasting habit ... instead of being another goal I have to achieve"

When it comes to something as personal as meditation, trust is important.

User challenges and painpoints with meditation apps in general.

  • Greatest challenges: getting back on track, creating a consistent habit, negative self talk when they fall off.

  • What doesn't work is just another app offering many meditations.

  • "What is hardest is making something I know is important, a priority in my life, and understanding why I haven't"

  1. Lack of trust and confidence in Peach’s value prop.

  2. Fear of spending money on “band-aid” fix instead of lasting solution.

  3. Need for deeper self-awareness in order to have clarity on the deeper need for meditation.

The Problem

  1. To develop trust by efficiently communicating the unique value offering in the earliest steps of sign-up.

  2. To offer a tool for lasting change rather than a quick-fix.

  3. Discovering the source of what challenges their mental wellbeing is essential to be able to offer lasting solutions.

How Might We …

The Re-Designed Landing Page

CHANGES

  • A simplified primary nav with pages dedicated to Peach’s mission and philosophy upfront.

  • Warm, welcoming and heartfelt quote speaking to the state of mind that users were hoping to achieve.

  • A clear statement on Peach’s value proposition.

  • 4 key points describing HOW Peach worked to help users achieve their meditation goals.

  • An offering of 3 packages users could choose from.

Testing the ReDesign

Contextual Interviews

Research Goal:

Understand what users thoughts of the current site, tease out painpoints and understand who the users were, and what they valued most about the experience.

Takeaways:

  • Uplifting, calming, empowering, clear, delightful, clean, welcoming.

  • 4/5 could accurately state the unique value Peach offers after browsing.

  • What works well are the gentle prompts, low pressure, interesting mix of mindfulness practices.

  • Sampling meditations encouraged a sense of trust. Trust, in the sphere of wellness is crucial.

The Overall Impression of the landing page.

PHASE 2 - Enhancing Personalization in sign-up

As we discovered that developing a users trust was imperative in their decision to invest in Peach, we also learned that when signing users up, we wanted to get to the source of why they felt they needed meditation.

Peach was striving to show users that while many modern apps were offering meditation as a treatment for anxiety, depression and many other pschological pressures, Peach got to the source of the true sense of dis-ease. As a result, what Peach offered was opportunity for  lasting relief. The key to understanding why users were coming was to first try to differentiate their symptoms from the source of their discomfort. We began with a more personalized sign-up.

We achieved this by creating a brief survey for first-time users, which asked carefully thought out questions, prompting them to :-

  • Consider their greatest motivation for wanting to meditate.

  • Set smart, achievable goals for their practice

  • Provide a tool of discovery, interspersing bits of scientific data about the positive effects of meditation.

The Survey

Testing the new sign-up survey.

Usability Testing

Research Goal:

Test the functionality of the pathway, measuring by time and any direct or indirect clicks, and finally, the success rate (signing up), and rating.

  1. Discovering how users feel about the process.

  2. Understanding whether or not users consider sign-up time too long.

  3. Discovering whether users better grasp Peach’s unique value offering, based on the sign-up experience.

  4. Highlight any points of confusion for the user, whether it be language or direction.

Screeners sent to invite users 18 and over who have interest in meditation.

Five virtual interviews conducted over Zoom.

Each interview lasted approximately 30 minutes.

  • Users were given a task and asked to browse the site and sign up.

  • Users asked to think out loud.

  • At the end of the process, users were guided through a carefully crafted discussion guide.

Method:

The results of our testing were compelling.

  • The pathway proved 90% functional.

  • Users were all able to complete sign-up in under five minutes.

  • Users felt a sense of purpose about what they had committed to, and very importantly, the questions they were asked encouraged them to believe that what Peach was offering was an important tool, and that Peach had a heartfelt mission.

  • We had established a sense fo trust and now users were looking forward to their experience.

Usability Test Results

PHASE 3 - Defining the Target Audience

Marketing in a post-pandemic climate.

What we discovered, very quickly was that conditions in the post-pandemic marketing platforms had changed. When Peach originally launched, it was a pivotal moment. Early 2020, the pandemic was beginning, there was a general sense of panic. Most people were experiencing deep stress, and most were in lockdown - and working within the new constraints of the digital world. Peach's original ease into the market, gaining huge numbers of users signing up for free meditation is not surprising, when considered retrospectively.  People were looking for a way to stay calm.

Equipped with a re-designed homepage and an effective sign-up process, Peach launched it's second major marketing campaign on Facebook.

Almost two years later - the giants in advertising platforms, like Facebook where Peach had relied heavily had drastically increased their prices. To add to that, the wellness market had become a huge trend and the competition was spending way more than Peach could compete with at this level. 

Peach faced a rock and a hard place. Yet, we knew that we had loyal users that were committed to their subscriptions and were consistely using the technology Peach offered.

We decided to do a round of user interviews with Peach's most loyal users to understand what they found most valuable with Peach, and why of all available platforms on the market, they continued to choose this one.

Research Method: User Interviews

Reaching into the database - Peach's most loyal users

We discovered that those willing to test Peach, and those eager to talk about how useful it was to them all had a similarity. Age and job status seemed to be a common factor. We agreed to go back into the database and look at the most consistent, as well as longest standing users of the technology and do a deep dive into what they valued most.

Research Goal:

To better understand

  1. Who are these users? What are there lives like? Are there commonalities in their experiences?

  2. How have users' meditation practice changed since using Peach

  3. What is the most valuable thing that Peach offers to them?

  4. What are the greatest challenges with using Peach?

These interviews were a little more personable. Five existing users who had their accounts for the longest, and used their meditations most consistently were emailed. The email first thanked them for their continued support, acknowledged that they were deeply valued. We then explained that their feedback would be monumental in understanding how we could extend our reach to others who could benefit from a consistent mindfulness practice. We had no trouble in booking five virtual interviews.

Method:

User Interview Takeaways

1. All users were over 55 years old. Most were retired. Most valued a sense of consistency and discilpline in their lives, and knew the importance of maintaining good habits.

2. With Peach, they had been meditating consistently for at least six months. They considered this a healthy habit and were experiencing less and less difficulty in the actual practice of their meditation.

3. The most valuable thing that Peach offered was simplicity. They liked receiving a text message at thier chosen time, every day with the meditation sent so they didnt have to lose any time searching for something. All they had to do was show up, and plug in

4. The greatest challenges experienced was a sense of direction. Many felt like they were "hitting a ceiling" with their practice. They sensed they wanted to progress on their journey - and felt a need for understanding what direction the technology would take them next. The concern was that without progression they may lose interest.

User Persona

From our interviews, it was helpful to take the insight and create a Persona. We had identified the main user for Peach. It was imperative to create a caricature that captured some basic statistics as well as their wants, needs and goals. 

In Conclusion

There were many lessons along the way in this project. In retrospect, we asked ourselves if the step we took last perhaps we should have taken first? For me as a designer, the most pressing consideration is how to balance taking on the challenges that a stakeholder may believe are the biggest priority, versus going through the very strategic UX process to discover what the real problem is.

In this case, by the end of the contract, we were clear that our target market for Peach was a very specific niche. It targeted an older generation, who did not want fancy tech that iterated to improve with updates. This audience wanted simplicity and consistency. Quyen's next great challenge was to discover how to market her product to them.