Feedback: Tracking habits and productivity against mental health
TL;DR: the app is a tool to track which of my daily habits (exercising, reading, coding, meditating, etc) have the biggest impact on improving my mental health (measured by anxiety, depression, and well-being assessments) http://uprite.co
I've written up an overview of the project here, along with screenshots: https://gist.github.com/ilovemyselfapp/c84bc1a8af553c0a509dd1749bfb86d9
Right now I’m looking for general feedback as well as beta users who would be willing to try the app for a week and help me identify ways to improve it :)
Hi!
A few thoughts. I've done a fair amount of work in this specific area and here's what I have learned.
It's really hard to keep these users engaged. You'll need some kind of reason for them to come back to your app, over and above because they want to "check their stats". People get very bored checking their stats, especially when the stats are really what they've collected themselves. You'll want to think about how tell them something they don't already know (and that is not just a report of "you haven't slept well this week". Duh, I already know that.) I was just talking with someone about this the other day and we came to this conclusion that the consumer of a dashboard just has to be different than the contributor to the dashboard. Else, there really is very little value.
You are correct that the UI for the questionnaires is hard. So, don't build a UI. :) Build a chatbot instead. It can ask the right questions, skip unnecessary questions, give meaningful answers very quickly and with no friction. I've also worked as a product manager for chatbot projects, so if you are looking for someone to help maybe put a conversational dialogue map together, I might could help with that.
The field for quantified self is crowded, even though usage is actually dying off. I read some study that said some high percentage of fitbit users aren't actively using their fitbits after 6 months. Something like that. Again, you gotta give 'em something that they will find valuable and will keep them coming back.
Hope this is helpful to you in some way.
Cheers!
-Pmox2018
Hey there, really great feedback! Everything you've noted really resonates with my experience so far. I definitely agree that keeping users engaged is tricky.
I was thinking that maybe introducing a social aspect, or some form of "rewards" (e.g. badges, streaks, etc.), or some sort of weekly challenge or competition (to "gamify" it more), though I recognize these are not the most original of ideas...
So far, the main thing that has kept me engaged is the "insights," which I have found extremely interesting for myself. It's been fascinating to learn, as an example, that on days that I do yoga, I'm 5% less depressed, 4% less anxious, and 8% happier than average. It's been really useful in motivating me to focus more on the habits that are proven to be more personally impactful. Though the downside of this reward is that it requires a few weeks of engagement in the app before the user really gets any useful insights.
Do you have an suggestions for improving engagement?
Thanks again!
I do have some thoughts about improving engagement...do you want traditional or do you want out-of-the-box? Possibly way out of the box. LOL
Honestly, both traditional and out of the box would be super helpful! :D
Hey Alex,
I have been playing around with this idea a lot myself, and actually already started designing a chat bot to do a lot of the same tasks in your application here. I would the love to see if there is any way we can collaborate on this is you are interested. I have some ideas about how a platform like this could grown, be branded, as well as monetized. Nothing too serious, but I have put in a lot of thought to it.
I also started a blog and podcast around technology, the future, and mental health. https://thementalupdate.com/ If you this sounds like something you have interest in let me know!
Creighton