Timeline
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January - February 2025 (6 weeks)
Project Type
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Internship
Team
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2 UX Design Leads
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3 UX Designers
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CEO
My Role
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UI/UX Designer
Background/Company Context
UBYou is a mental health and wellness app for college students, offering self-care techniques, meditations, affirmations, and daily wellness check-ins. UBYou connects students to campus resources and provides tools to support their well-being and academic success. The app integrates mental health support with academic services to enhance the overall student experience.
Problem
The current home screen and Wellness Check-In feature of the UBYou wellness application are based on outdated designs, which may hinder user engagement and limit the overall user experience.
Solution
Redesign the home screen and enhance the functionality of the Wellness Check-In feature to create a more intuitive and engaging interface that encourages users to interact with the app more frequently.
Research and Discovery
Prior to redesigning the user interface, our team conducted competitor analysis and developed user stories to help guide our designs and identify pain points. Our group was also provided with previously conducted research to lay the foundation for our work.
Previous research provided from our client highlighted several important pain points of users:​
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Some users stated in reviews that the application felt disorganized and overwhelming
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Other users stated that the application was not aesthetically pleasing, and had outdated designs.
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Lastly, another important review stated that the application felt endless, and had too many options during important flows of the application.
Competitive analysis included applications such as Duolingo, Calm/Headspace, and You at College. Unique features we identified that could help us improve UBYou were:
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Gamification: Features that help improve engagement from users such as streaks, personalized flows, and activity recommendations were elements that we wanted to bring in to our re-design.
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Personalization: Taking inspiration from Calm and Headspace, we wanted to provide recommended activities for the user to complete and feel that the application is unique to them.
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Simple flows: Important feedback from previous users were that some user flows were overwhelming. We wanted to take a minimalistic approach as a result of this drawing inspiration from Calm and Headspace.
As a result of our research and feedback, we were able to develop several user stories to help shape the application.
Define
Based off of our research and client goals, we developed a site map and 2 important red routes to lay the foundation for an application design.
Sitemap
Red Routes
Design
Following solidifying the information architecture- we developed low fidelity wireframes to help further redesign the application.
Design System
As a group- we collectively decided on a cohesive design system to implement on the wireframes in preparation for hi-fidelity designs.
Hi-Fidelity Designs
Following application of the design system- we iterated several versions of each page until the design was solidified.
Challenges and Lessons Learned
There were several challenges that we faced collectively as a group throughout this project.
Due to time constraints, we were not able to conduct formal user testing. Instead, we based our iterations and designs on the client's feedback while adhering to best practices.
We also attempted to take on a larger portion of the application but quickly realized that we would not be able to finish within the given timeframe. As a result, we had to cut out two other user flows that were quite complex.
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These were valuable lessons to learn in a real-world project, given the nature of having deadlines to meet and delivering work that fits within specific project requirements.
Going forward, I've learned that it's extremely important to set realistic expectations for both the team and the client in order to produce quality work and fulfill project requirements.
Next Steps
The next steps for UBYou include pushing these designs into production on the software side, and conducting formal user testing to iterate on our designs for further improvements.
They will conduct A/B testing of our different versions to see which one yields improved user engagement before rolling out into final production.
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Thank you so much to UBYou for allowing us to help redesign your application.