Automating Wellness Wearable Device
Apollo is a wearable device that calms the nervous system, most commonly used for sleep, stress, and anxiety. To activate Apollo, the wearer must manually select a mode and turn it on within the app.
My team was tasked with building a feature that would automate this process.
Client
Apollo Neuro
Date
2022
Services
Strategy, UX, UI
Team
Jonathan Carson (Director of Design)
Erin Keefe (Product Design Lead)
01 Context
What is Apollo?
The Apollo is a wearable device founded by Dr. Dave, a neuroscientist and clinical psychiatrist who specializes in the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Depression, Anxiety Disorders and Substance Use Disorders.
He worked with therapy-resistant PTSD patients and sought ways to help them gain control of their stress response. Through research conducted with the University of Pittsburgh, he discovered he could leverage our body’s natural response to touch to restore balance to the nervous system.
He did this by creating a novel wearable device, the Apollo. Apollo uses vibrations to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, calming the body down passively, giving similar effects to deep breathing or meditation. Apollo is advertised as "a hug for your nervous system".
How does it work and what do people use Apollo for?
Apollo calms down the nervous system by improving heart rate variability (HRV). HRV is the variability of time between consecutive heartbeats. This variability is a positive indicator. It means the body is more adaptable to stressors.
People with high HRV rates tend to be less stressed, happier, and at lower risk of conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety, depression, heart arrhythmia, and asthma.
People use Apollo to improve sleep, focus, stress, and recovery by increasing their HRV rates. Apollo serves a wide range of users from retirees who have trouble sleeping, children with ADHD who need help focusing, professionals handling stress during important presentations, to athletes looking to improve their recovery time.
Clinical research shows that users receive best results when using Apollo for 3 or more hours a day, 5 or more days a week. Therefore it's important for people to use Apollo often and consistently.
Apollo and sleep
Sleep is the most common use case for Apollo, which is expected because the largest age group of Apollo users are people 50 and up. As you age, you are more likely to have sleep issues due to hormonal changes.
Additionally, marketing started a campaign with a focus on sleep in 2022. We started working with Oura Ring to collect user data and directly infer whether Apollo is having an effect. In the future, users themselves will be able to use this information to verify if Apollo is working for them.
Many people use Apollo for falling asleep. Some people use Apollo for staying asleep, and some users even discovered they can use Apollo to wake up in the morning.
At this time, to play vibrations, users have to turn Apollo on manually. Blue light coming from your phone can disrupt sleep patterns and make it difficult to fall asleep.
For the above reasons, it is important and beneficial for both the business and users to improve the Apollo user experience in regards to sleep.
02 Discovery
Goal: To automate Apollo device function in order to decrease user burden and increase satisfaction
Our goal with this design is to automate Apollo in order to decrease that user burden and thereby increasing satisfaction.
Healthy sleep requires consistency, which can be achieved by using a schedule. Automating a process reduces user burden and effort. Reducing user burden and effort lowers barrier of use, which would increase device usage time. Coming full circle, consistent use is key to seeing benefits from Apollo.
Popular tools, such as Sleep Cycle App already have automated features. It can wake you up at the same time every day or when you are in a light sleep phase, without you ever touching the app, besides initial setup. Therefore there is existing precedent and design patterns shown to be beneficial for similar users.
An added benefit of increased device usage time is increased data collection, which helps strengthen our algorithms and increase product value over time.
Important considerations
There are two important considerations when designing this feature.
1) Adding a subscription-based model
At the time, Apollo Neuro's revenue model was hardware sales. Once people purchased an Apollo device, they could download the app for free and that's it. In order to generate recurring revenue, we planned to add a subscription-based user tier. We must now design for both free ("basic") users and subscription ("premium") users.
When you use Apollo, you play a Mode, which is a set pattern of vibrations. All users have access to the same Modes. With the addition of a subscription model, we wanted to create a clear benefit for people who choose to pay monthly, without reducing benefit for people who don't.
2) Adding Flows; renaming Modes to Vibes
Dr. Dave was already working on an upgraded version of Modes, one that would be adaptable and personalized to individual users.
This upgraded Mode is called Flows - like the ocean, tides are ever changing. Every body and mind is different, and technology should be adaptable and personalized when possible to address individual needs. We decided that Flows would be a valuable addition for premium subscription users.
With this update, Modes will also be renamed to Vibes because it's more descriptive - Vibes being short for vibrations.
03 Design
To kick off this project, the product team had an open discussion to create a solution that would support automating Apollo use.
Extremely accurate representation of product team meetings
Defining MVP for both basic and premium users
I then scoped out the MVP for the feature, which would be available for all users.
Must have
Ability to create, edit, and remove schedules
Set days active
Ability to add, edit, and remove Vibes to schedule
Edit intensity, duration, and time to start playing
Nice to have
Customize schedule name
A way to quickly toggle schedules on/off
Ability to turn off individual Vibes without removing them from the schedule
After several rounds of sketching and wireframing, I designed four key new screens to support the MVP. This is what basic users would see, while premium users would have additional features.
I designed using native iOS elements as much as possible in order to leverage users' prior experience and to move quickly.
Note: At Apollo we designed for iOS first since the overwhelming majority of our users were iOS. I would test both iOS and Android versions with each release.
Additional features for Premium Users
Exclusive to premium users will be three features - sleep settings, stay asleep, and Flows.
Must have
Sleep settings
Users can set wake up time and bed time. Apollo would play the appropriate Flows to help them wake up and fall asleep at those times.
Stay Asleep
Apollo detects when you are waking up in the middle of sleeping and will automatically activate to help you stay asleep. The device contains a seismic sensor that is able to detect movement.
Flows
As mentioned earlier, Flows is a new style of vibrations that are more tailored toward the individual's needs. Flows will be available to premium users only.
Users will need the ability to add, edit, and remove Flows in a schedule
Nice to have
Ability to toggle off individual Flows from a schedule without removing them
Ability to toggle off wake up and bedtime
Premium users will be able to configure their schedules the same way as basic users, but with the addition of wake up and bedtime, and Flows. They'll also be able to configure their sleep controls from the home page. This includes wake up, going to bed, and staying asleep.
Redesigning alert box in order to increase delight
Next, I built prototypes for testing.
While building out the prototype, there were many flows that required using an alert box in order to confirm a change. This made me realize the old design could be improved. It was static, took much of the screen, and the text often had a cold tone.
I designed an update alert box that is smoothly animated and is noticeable without being obstructive. The text tone is also now more friendly!
Although this feature is pretty utilitarian, we still have opportunities to increase delight for users through microinteractions.
Old alert box is…
Not animated
Takes up much of the screen
Has a cold tone
New Alert Box
Smooth animation
Less screen space
Less cold tone
04 Test
To validate our designs, I conducted usability testing internally first in order to evaluate both basic and premium key flows.
In the spirit of Agile, as I was designing, I worked closely with engineering so that they could build as early as possible. Because we moved fast, we very quickly released the MVP to our beta users.
At the same time, I was in the process of building our user research team. I conducted user interviews with people who use Apollo for sleep. The goal was to gain a deeper understanding of how people use Apollo for sleep in context. It was incredibly insightful and I was able to learn beta users' first impressions of the new schedule feature as well.
Test Plan
Internal usability testing
Basic user
Creating a new schedule
Editing a schedule
Adding a Vibe to a schedule
Editing a Vibe
Premium user
Changing wake up and bed time
Turn on Flows
Comprehension of Flows as as concept
Sleep Controls UI and UX copy
Release to beta testers
We released the MVP + stay asleep feature to Apollo beta users for testing.
We gave them a minimum of 2 weeks to get acquainted with the new feature.
User interviews
N Goal: 5 beta users
Profile: People who use Apollo for sleep
The goal was to gain a deeper and broader understanding of how people use Apollo for sleep.
Results
So what did we learn? All five beta testers I spoke with had a positive experience with the new schedule feature. This means choosing to build automated schedules in order to help users who use Apollo for sleep was the right call.
We also tested the Stay Asleep feature. Only a few beta testers used it, but it worked for them. This is a great start! We still need more data for adequate confidence.
Unfortunately, during internal testing, the concept of Flows/Vibes was confusing.
Insights
MVP feature reduces user burden and increases satisfaction, as evidenced through beta testing.
The biggest gap now is providing value for premium users through Flows.
Detailed insights from testing
05 Next Steps
My next step is to address the key issues found during usability testing, including edge cases and improving copy. In order to address confusion regarding Flows, I need to better understand Flows. At that time I reached out to Dr Dave for more information.
What I learned
As a designer, what did I learn through this project?
I learned there are always edge cases we don't consider that are revealed through testing. We should uncover them and design for them.
I learned I need to understand new or complex concepts well before designing them. I believe I didn't adequately design for Flows well due to my own lack of understanding. I admit I got a little stuck in the weeds there.
It was a challenge to work with the marketing team due to differing perspectives, but I learned teamwork goes a long way! I'm especially thankful for how quickly they helped me recruit users for research.
And speaking of research, I took initiative in forming a UX research team during this time. The user interviews I conducted provided greater insight and helped me validate my design decisions.