Play the video to see me walk you through this case study!
OVERVIEW
Project type:
My role:
Duration:
Software:
Career Foundry project
Strategy/Research/Design
July ‘22 - February ‘23
Figma, Optimal Workshop
According to Forbes, life coaching is a $2-billion industry with a 5.5% yearly growth. And yet, not many people are aware of how life coaching can help their mental well-being.
Project impetus
How might we make life coaching more accessible to the general public so that good mental health hygiene becomes a common practice?
The assigned premise was an app that supported video calls with an expert...
...but how should the design be particularly mindful for the typical user?
Research helped to explore this question.
RESEARCH
Competitive research on a range of different coaching businesses drew my attention to 2 key observations:
1. Much of the marketing efforts center around selling personalities, interpersonal connection, and empathy.
2. A potential weakness of a typical coaching business was the requirement of paid subscriptions.
The Life Coach School
is built around the coaching philosophy of a single coach figure (Brooke Castillo), which is typical of many coaching businesses.
BetterUp
provides coaching services primarily marketed to enterprises. It has a range of offerings including individual and group coaching.
MentorCam
is a platform for “mentees” and “mentors” (including life coaches) to connect via 3 min. video recordings or 20 min. live video calls.
User interviews with participants who sought professional help for personal struggles revealed a common pain point: it is critical to hire someone who feels like a good fit but the result can be “hit or miss.”
“It was very
frustrating finding
a therapist.”
“I would have loved a
more personal relationship with my therapist.”
PROBLEM
With a broad spectrum of life coaches and coaching products available today, the process of researching and selecting a coach that is the right fit can be discouraging, detering many from pursuing this option. How might we make the experience of selecting a coach a process that people can feel confident about?
If the Hi Coach app maximizes people’s confidence when searching for life coaches, then it would increase their chance to reap the benefits of life coaching. To achieve this, the platform could incorporate a Coach Matching Survey and easy-to-compare coach profiles aim to minimize the obstacles in finding the right coach.
The problem:
Hypothesis:
STRATEGY
Personas were created to represent the range of typical users: women 25-50, who tend to be working professionals. Below is the primary persona, Kate, a 29 year old medical resident who wants hire a coach to work through her anxiety about next steps in her career.
Primary persona: Kate, medical resident, age 29
“I wish I could interview
life coaches before
committing to one.”
Pain points
-
Overwhelming/logistical nightmare to find the “right” coach
-
Mentors/coaches that provide advice that she doesn’t agree with
-
Wasting time over-thinking without action
Thoughts
-
Self-development requires diligent - practice
-
It’s easy to get in one’s own way
Goals
-
To practice other perspectives
-
To gain a sense of control
Journey maps were laid out to identify key tasks and the accompanying emotional states of the user for each.
Thoughts
Emotions
Tasks
Opportunities
-
A welcome guide/character
-
Option to skip questions
-
Links to further reading
-
Visualize onboarding progress
-
Option to record initial “brain dump” (text/video)
-
Coach video intros
-
Robust search filter
-
Means to bookmark coaches
-
Means to compare coaches
-
Testimonials of prior customers
-
Video of example session
-
Easy to compare different coaches schedules
-
Clear summary of cost and quick links to terms/return and cancellation policies
ONBOARD
>
SHOP COACHES
>
SCHEDULE A SESSION
-
Learn about Hi Coach
-
Take Coach Matching Survey
-
Sign-up for an account
-
Read coach profiles
-
Compare between coaches
-
Bookmark preferred coaches
-
Browse coach’s availability
-
Select preferred date/times
-
A life coach could be able to help me get unstuck.
-
I want to choose a person who is right for me.
-
The coach seems to be a good match.
-
Curious
-
Indecision
-
Excited
User flow diagrams were created for the core tasks to understand screen sequencing. It was evident that the task “Choosing a coach” was going to be a complex flow that consisted of several sub-tasks, and therefore high priority.
Key:
Action
Screen
End
Start
Decision
Onboarding + coach selection
“I’m eager to find the right coach for me that can help me get unstuck.”
Open app
Coaching
method
Survey
question
Submit
answer
Further
reading
Sign
into
account
Home
page
Suggested
coaches
Indv. coach
profiles
Compare
coaches
Coaches
saved
Sign-up
for new
account
Sign-in
or
sign-up
Select
favorite
coaches
ONBOARDING
CREATE ACCOUNT
BROWSE / SELECT COACHES
Wireframes were quickly sketched out to test flows as well as screen layouts that aimed to make the life coaching world feel accessible and reliable. For example, the first pass at creating a welcoming + informative onboarding process relied on too much guidance, which was scaled down to give users back a sense of control.
TESTING
Usability testing mid-fidelity prototypes on 6 participants honed in on these tasks
1) Onboard 2) Select coaches 3) Book a call 4) Join a call
Below is an instances where we discovered interruptions during tasks, which jeopardized building user trust as well as an experience of easy access to coaches.
While onboarding, users are irritated when asked to create an account before they get to see results from the survey.
Issue #3
“If I skip creating an account, will I have to take the survey again?”
LEARNINGS + NEXT STEPS
The biggest lesson from this project was to be aware of how research and given parameters (ie: assignment was to make video conferencing a main feature) may not necessarily be neatly aligned. In this project, I kept the video feature but my research led me to invest more design efforts on the experience of discovering and browsing coaches.
Next steps would be to do another round of user testing using the high-fidelity prototype, validating the latest updates. I would hone in further on the onboarding and coach selection process. Another area to do additional testing is the Whiteboard feature during a coaching session, validating that all forms of communication (verbal, written, and body language) are supported without compromising one for the other.