Summary: HopStair is a B2B and B2C mental health platform to help people  build self-confidence and overcome mental barriers.

Industry: Health tech / Education

Platform: iOS , Android

My role: UX/UI Designer collaborating with cross-functional teams, including a team of designers, stakeholders, product owner, product manager, engineering team, and marketing team.

Overview

HopStair is a mobile app to help people build self-confidence through daily nudges, community, 1:1 coaching, and AI-generated personalized content.

HopStair was founded to fix how people approach mental health such as anxiety and depression.

Goals

  • Create a user-friendly mobile app that simplifies navigation and provides an engaging, seamless experience for first-time and regular users.

  • Develop features tailored to individual needs, such as customizable nudges, progress tracking, and AI-generated content.

  • Foster a sense of community and motivation by including interactive features like social connections, progress sharing, and rewards.

Challenges

  1. Ensuring the app is simple to navigate while offering comprehensive features like nudges, community interaction, and AI-generated content.

  1. Designing features that promote user safety and comfort, especially for those who may be hesitant to engage with mental health platforms.

  1. Differentiating HopStair from well-established competitors with unique features and a compelling user experience.

  1. Working around development constraints to implement features like mood tracking, progress updates, and AI-generated recommendations.

Design Process

Design Process

Discovery:

I conducted user research to get a deep understanding of users’ needs and pain points regarding coaching platforms that included 20+ user interviews, post questions on social media, and competitor analysis. The key takeaways included:

  • Users wanted encouraging messages and reminders to stay consistent with their progress.

  • Many sought ways to communicate and interact with others for support.

  • A feature for recording mood changes was considered valuable.

I analyzed similar coaching and mental health platforms to understand their strengths and weaknesses: 

Strengths: Personalization options, daily progress tracking, and motivational tips.

Weaknesses: Limited free trials, mandatory long-term payment plans, and inadequate customer support.

Discovery:

I conducted user research to get a deep understanding of users’ needs and pain points regarding coaching platforms that included 20+ user interviews, post questions on social media, and competitor analysis. The key takeaways included:

  • Users wanted encouraging messages and reminders to stay consistent with their progress.

  • Many sought ways to communicate and interact with others for support.

  • A feature for recording mood changes was considered valuable.

I analyzed similar coaching and mental health platforms to understand their strengths and weaknesses: 

Strengths: Personalization options, daily progress tracking, and motivational tips.

Weaknesses: Limited free trials, mandatory long-term payment plans, and inadequate customer support.

Ideation:

With the insights gathered during the discovery phase, I moved into ideation to address user pain points and align with HopStair's mission.

Using affinity mapping, I categorized and prioritized user feedback and competitor analysis findings. The key focus areas were:

I developed user personas to represent target users' goals and frustrations. One potential user persona:

To better understand how users would interact with HopStair, I created a user journey map. Key takeaways included:

Design & Test

I started the design process by creating a design system to maintain consistency based on colors and typography that were agreed upon.

As a source of inspiration, I created a moodboard of platforms that we found interesting.

As a source of inspiration, I created a moodboard of platforms that we found interesting.

While collaborating with other designers on the team, we designed the screens. We shared the designs with the stakeholders and product manager to continuously receive feedback and iterate the designs.

As a source of inspiration, I created a moodboard of platforms that we found interesting.

As a source of inspiration, I created a moodboard of platforms that we found interesting.

I conducted multiple rounds of usability testing to validate design decisions and refine the user experience:

As a source of inspiration, I created a moodboard of platforms that we found interesting.

As a source of inspiration, I created a moodboard of platforms that we found interesting.

Task Completion Tests: Users appreciated the intuitive navigation but requested more options to customize their nudge frequency.

As a source of inspiration, I created a moodboard of platforms that we found interesting.

As a source of inspiration, I created a moodboard of platforms that we found interesting.

A/B Testing: A visually engaging progress bar with daily milestones received higher user satisfaction scores.

As a source of inspiration, I created a moodboard of platforms that we found interesting.

As a source of inspiration, I created a moodboard of platforms that we found interesting.

Unmoderated Testing: Users loved the simplicity and focus on progress tracking. However, the open-ended questions in the onboarding felt repetitive, and they flagged for redesign.

As a source of inspiration, I created a moodboard of platforms that we found interesting.

As a source of inspiration, I created a moodboard of platforms that we found interesting.

Developer Handoff:

We Finalized and annotated designs for developer handoff. I Ccollaborated with developers to address constraints and ensure seamless implementation.

Launch & Test:

At the moment the app is pre-launched. It is being updated as the developers finish coding each section and design updates.