HappierMe (UX)

Introduction The HappierMe app, created by Human Wisdom, is dedicated to nurturing the mental health and wellness of individuals between the ages of 17 and 44. It contains a variety of features, including journaling, speaking to coaches, or perusing a forum, and exploring topics of interest to better understand and improve one’s own mental health. To improve efficacy and ensure the application is sustaining its goal of improving and nurturing users’ mental health journeys, the team conducted five usability tests within the desired demographic. The team's interest was in examining how new users approached the core functions of the application. Additionally, observing how well the application encouraged habit-building and high retention. Methods The team selected participants based on their lack of experience with HappierMe and whether they fit the target demographic of ages 17-44, confirmed through pre-test questions. After the pilot test, the team reworded questions to be more direct regarding task parameters. The five tests were conducted and recorded via zoom with seven core tasks. The moderator and participant would be in the same room, and the participants actions were monitored via laptop camera facing them as well as their phone activity shared through zoom. If a user did not answer questions regarding returning to the application as a daily user, and overall ease of navigation during the task tests, the moderator would prompt them as part of the debrief. During testing, the rest of the team would take notes in a data-logging spreadsheet, with one team member in charge of the time. Task Creation My Daily Practice, Journal Entry, Adding A Forum, Change Pathway These tasks were created to test the core functionality of HappierMe, as an ideal user would engage with these practices to create habits. Users were tested on their ability to locate and walk through modules, successfully write and post entries, or view topics of their interest. Sign Up for a Virtual or In-Person Event & Contact A Coach Through conversations with the client, the team discerned these two actions as important to the functionality of HappierMe. Users were asked to find coaches and events and fill out the corresponding forms to test ease of locating these actions and accessibility.

Findings and Recommendations Summary Results In this usability assessment of the HappierMe app, key findings on the home page revealed user disorientation due to the app not defaulting to a clear Home screen, difficulties in navigating and selecting topics of interest, and a mismatch between user expectations and the actual function of the hamburger menu, indicating a need for improved initial navigation, clearer content organization, and a more intuitive menu design. Participants also encountered difficulty using the search bar, indicating an ineffective search engine algorithm. Challenges in locating buttons for key user flows, navigating the Events page, completing guided journal activities and posting in the forum under the appropriate thread category were also noted. Key Findings & Recommendations Home Screen 80% of the participants were confused by the prompts “continue where you left off” and “select a new topic” on launch of HappierMe, because they did not present a clear starting point for users, unlike the Home button, which participants preferred as it served as an anchor point for navigation. Participant 2 stated on opening of the application, "I really don't know what to press,” highlighting the sense of being stuck on an unclear screen. The team recommends that the HappierMe app be configured to default to the Home screen upon startup. Further enhancing user experience, the option to remain logged in could be provided to facilitate quicker and more efficient access to the app's main features. Users struggled to alter their 'Topic of Choice’ and used the search bar to locate topics such as "work and leadership," instead of locating the module. Positioning the Topics above "Feel Better Now" area could improve usability by directly drawing attention to the module. The severity of this issue is rooted in the restrictions it has on users' ability to uncover and customize content, which is critical to the HappierMe experience. The hamburger menu, a common element typically used for additional navigation options, led to misconceptions among the usability participants. All 5 participants clicked on this menu with the expectation of finding tools to help them navigate the app but instead encountered content such as events and testimonials, unrelated to direct navigation or personal settings, producing a moderate severity level because it impacts the overall efficiency of navigation. To reconcile user expectations, we recommend repurposing the hamburger menu to strictly contain settings and help

options within the user's profile to further streamline navigation. Search Bar All five participants attempted to utilize the search bar to find events and the happiness survey. However, the search bar did not function as expected, as users expected to be able to search the app entirely and not just topics. This discrepancy hindered users' ability to find the desired content efficiently. Addressing this issue is critical for HappierMe’s success, as highlighted by one of our participants who remarked, “usually when I don't know anything, I always go to the search bar." To address this issue we recommend the search function to search across the apps and not just within topics. Explore Page Participants encountered challenges in locating certain modules and buttons on the explore page, such as the “Events” button, primarily due to their small size. Larger buttons, such as "Find a Coach," were found to be more easily recognizable. Additionally, the “Events” page displays both past and upcoming events and one user out of five selected an event that had already passed, inadvertently attempting to register for it. While the discrepancy between larger and smaller buttons stands out as a critical issue, challenges with the “Events” page are comparatively less severe. Our recommendation is to increase the size of buttons for key user user pathways such as “Events” which will improve users’ ability to navigate and engage with the application. Forum & Journal On the Forum page, it was noted that none of the five participants clicked the dropdown and selected a topic when creating a new post. However, since all five participants successfully completed the task, this usability issue is deemed to be of low severity. Additionally, 2 out of 5 participants said the guided journal activity was lengthy. Participants expressed frustration over the number of steps involved in the process and expressed a desire to quit the process prematurely, signaling a moderate usability challenge that warrants further attention. To address the Forum issue, the team suggests making topic selection mandatory and implementing an alert when they attempt to submit the forum post without a topic selected. Regarding the Journal feature, the team’s recommendation is to decrease the number of prompts in the guided journal process to a number comparable to the Apple Journal, which is performing well amongst Apple users. Allowing users to retain their responses when revisiting guided questions would enhance the user engagement as well. By implementing these recommendations, the

application can better meet the needs of its user base and enhance the overall usability. Discussion Throughout the usability testing process, the team encountered several challenges, which affected some results. One significant challenge revolved around rapid iterations within the application. The continuous updates caused participants to engage with new features, which moderators had not observed while structuring tasks. This problem led to another challenge which was the team not having an established point of intervention. Since the application contained long pages of content, participants tended to spend extended amounts of time finding the task to complete, making it difficult for the team to identify an appropriate time to redirect participants onto the right path, thereby preventing extended time on a single task. The final limitation during this session was most participants were in the same age range. Due to a tight recruiting and testing deadline, the team was unable to find participants with a diverse demographic. For future tests, it is essential to discuss recruiting methods to ensure that everyone from the target audience is being represented, which will lead to obtaining more diverse insights. Conclusion The usability assessments for HappierMe enabled the team to identify several key insights such as unintuitive navigation, unclear direction for topic selection, disorientation on the home page, and lengthy modules to complete. Based on the insights, the team provided recommendations to address these challenges which will enhance the usability and customer satisfaction, such as reconfiguring the hamburger menu into settings and ensuring clear navigation. Further steps include delivering the recommendations to the client and explaining the insights from the usability tests categorizing them by severity level.