Space out

a ‘friendlier’ way to meditate...

Meditation and mindfulness app with activities and interactions tailored for children between ages 8-15. The app will provide a range of content and activities to engage the children. Examples include sleep stories with breathing exercises or craft and game activities to promote mindfulness. Completion of activities and exercises will earn rewards in the app to provide incentives.

The Project :

UX/UI Design Group Case Study
**Collaborators:**
Gina Sung
Valerie Douleba
Vito M Scuderi
Alexandra Papertchik
Nasim kamgar
**Our Role:** UX Designer

Research

Design Challenge Overview

The Problem:

with so many great meditation apps designed for general audiences, our team felt compelled to research how to make it easier for younger users to access the benefits of meditating on their mobile phones.

The Solution:

A meditation and mindfulness activity app with a social media/phone contact integration feature that enables users to meditate with a friend and combat isolation together in addition to standard individual meditation features.

Through interview research, we have observed that users feel meditation might be boring and are apprehensive to try meditation on their own. How might we design the Spaced out app to help users develop healthy coping skills and mindful habits through meditation in a fun and engaging way?

research plan & methodology

Discover what teens and pre-teens know and think about meditating. Kids won’t meditate if it isn’t fun or share-worthy!
Uncover any barriers kids have to meditate. They usually (our target group, 8-15 years old) need more social incentives to meditate.
Better understand requirements that need to be fulfilled in order for them to want to meditate.

Definition

Meet Natasha!

Natasha is a 7th grader who loves reading ebooks and spending time talking with her friends on social media. She is smart, but she becomes easily overwhelmed by her thoughts and emotions at times. She has tried different ways to cope with stress and anxiety in the past and would like to try regular meditating to see if it ‘sticks’ for the long-term.

“I want to find an easy way to practice meditation without distancing myself from my friends and family”

Goals:

Find an easy way to quickly de-stress.
Maintain a positive self-help routine.
Remain close with friends and family.

Pain Points:

Other meditation apps are too advanced and isolating
Finding time to meditate
Doesn’t want to meditate alone.

Natasha, a young girl with occasional negative thoughts and emotions, needs a way to meditate and share her experience with friends or family because she doesn't feel comfortable trying it alone and feels the need for emotional support.

Ideation

Based on our user insight statement, we brainstormed app features with the “I like, I wish, What if” method and voted on which features we felt would be most helpful in solving the problem. We then ranked these features using a prioritization matrix.

space out will be the mobile app of choice for kids aged 8-13 who want to meditate quickly, virtually, and with their friends through syncing with their social media or mobile contact lists.