User Research for Wellness iOS App Redesign
Tappy is an up-and-coming wellness iOS app that primarily serves neurodivergent users. Through a unique blend of visual, auditory, and haptic stimulation, it offers users a soothing space to calm down and relax. ​
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Being neurodivergent myself, I jumped at the chance to join the Tappy team as a User Experience Researcher. Since joining in 2023, my role has changed slightly – in addition to leading a team of three researchers, I’m now managing an app redesign to accommodate several unmet user needs that our research has surfaced.
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This write-up covers some of the research we've triangulated while designing a new UI and UX that will support our neurodivergent users and position the app to grow quickly.
Table of Contents
Persona Research
When I first joined the team, there was limited knowledge about who uses Tappy, why and how they use it, and what they want from it. The goal of this initial persona research was to answer these fundamental questions.
Methods
Persona Survey
This survey (n=202) was designed to capture high-level user feedback, including:
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demographic data (age, gender, neurotype)
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psychographic data (reason for download, reason for use, feature satisfaction)
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behavioral data (feature usage, subscription status)
Stakeholder Interviews
We wanted to understand who the team believed they were building Tappy for. To develop this proto-persona, we asked the lead developer and designer to imagine they were average Tappy users and complete the persona survey. We then discussed their responses during semi-structured interviews.
Focus Group
To gather detailed feedback that the persona survey was unable to capture, we moderated a small focus group (representative sample, n=4) of new users as they downloaded and tried Tappy for the first time.
Analysis
Survey
We started with the survey analysis, first cleaning and coding the data. We then ran descriptive statistics on the quantitative variables and conducted a thematic analysis on the coded qualitative data.
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Screenshot of the thematic analysis in Excel, blurred for confidentiality.
​In R Studio, I ran more complex analyses such as generalized linear models (linear and logistic regression, factor analysis) and an algorithmic approach (random forest) to predict various outcomes such as feature satisfaction, usage, and conversion to the paid subscription.
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R code for a logistic regression analysis (left) and exploratory factor analysis (right).
Focus Group
As we were wrapping up the survey analysis and synthesizing the findings, we started consolidating the focus group feedback. This went quickly, as the focus group was small and the session generated only a few pages of notes.
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Because this focus group was small, we chose a representative sample to improve the data quality.
Outcomes
Proto Persona
Both stakeholders imagined the core persona to be basically like them:
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have ADHD or autism
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are mostly male
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are in their 20s
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want a fun fidget app to play with when they’re bored
While most Tappy users are in fact neurodivergent, the team's assumptions about users' other qualities was less accurate.
Data-driven Persona
Who uses Tappy?
The descriptive statistics alone proved to be quite revealing. By far, most users are young, female, and neurodivergent.
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Why do they use it?
While some users did download Tappy for its fidget features, the vast majority actually wanted a tool to help them manage their mental health and improve their general wellness.​
How do they use it?
A factor analysis found three distinct feature clusters. On average, these clusters covary moderately (most users use most features), but differ significantly by user type.
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Screenshots of a presentation we gave to the larger team showing usage patterns by user type.
What do users want?
Many users requested new or expanded wellness features and games. ​​An interest in these features was also expressed by focus group participants, who felt they would mostly use Tappy for its wellness features and arcade games.
Impact
While the team was surprised by these findings, they were excited to start building features they can trust users will love. Since sharing this research, three new Arcade games and two Relax experiences have been developed and launched. Additionally, the team is working on several new activities that will function as both wellness features and games.
Feature Prioritization Research
Objective
This batch of research came after several months of small studies on miscellaneous design modifications and new feature releases. We noticed a few themes popping up outside the scope of these minor updates and decided to take a big-picture look at what users needed from Tappy and what features the team should work on next. Because many of these themes were related to neurodivergence, and because so many of our users are neurodivergent (75%-86%), we decided to survey just these users. This survey addressed:
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How neurodivergent users see their neurotype as both a strength and weakness
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What tools users currently use to support these strengths and weaknesses
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How Tappy can change to better support neurodivergent users
Methods
Because this survey was fairly long (16 items, 11 open-ended), we decided to monitor the responses as they came in and end data collection as soon as we saw strong trends emerging. This was mainly to prevent “overfishing” the user pool and keep data analysis manageable given the large volume of qualitative responses.
Analysis
Thematic analysis of the qualitative data was fairly straightforward. We coded open-ended responses in the column next to the raw data, then used an excel function to count theme frequency.
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For smaller datasets, I use 95% CIs to decide if users outside the sample would likely report these themes.
Outcomes
Findings
While users find Tappy very easy to use, they’re only somewhat satisfied with what it has to offer.
Users specifically called out a need for:
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increased customizability
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gamification
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more engaging fidgets
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expanded mood tracking features
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more breathing/meditation exercises
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Many users shared their ideas for new features and changes to existing features that would address these issues, which we clustered and ranked by count.
Impact
These findings corroborated three of the themes we’d seen in previous research (bolded above) and highlighted two new themes to be explored further. This sparked a conversation around long-term goals for Tappy. Ultimately, we decided the best way to quickly bring these improvements to users was through a full app redesign.
App Redesign
My team drafted an initial plan for the redesign, outlining how we believed Tappy should change to better support our users and position the app to easily and quickly grow.
This involved bringing disparate tracking features into a designated Tracking tool and consolidating wellness features currently distributed across three existing pages. The team had deprioritized an unrelated Arcade redesign several months ago, which we revived as part of the broader app redesign and hope to see launched by mid-April.
Concept Test
Purpose
Before building a high-fidelity prototype, we wanted validation that our solution would address users’ unmet needs without negatively impacting their experience using Tappy. We also wanted an opportunity to better define the core feature set for each new page. We opted for an unmoderated concept test to quickly collect enough data to be confident in our next steps.
Stimuli
We created lo-fi designs for the Tracking and Mindfulness pages in Figma, showcasing the new page layouts and introducing a customizable dashboard.
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Low-fidelity designs for the new Tracking (left) and Mindfulness (right) pages.
Research Questions
We then developed survey items to understand:
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How users feel about the new designs
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What features and capabilities users expect from each page
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How users feel about the customizable dashboard
Analysis
We exported the survey responses to Excel, then cleaned, coded, and analyzed the data there. For open-ended items, we tagged each response with a theme, then calculated theme prevalence per survey item. For the scale items, we calculated means and medians, then ran chi-square tests on count data.
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Theme prevalence, ranked by theme size (left), and quantitative analysis of scale items (right).
Outcomes
Validated Solution
The vast majority of users felt favorably about both designs, indicating that they:
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liked the new designs
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felt the designs made sense
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would like to use the new designs
These findings gave us the confidence needed to move forward with this solution, making only minor revisions to the information architecture.
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Quantitative results for the Mindfulness page; most users endorsed favorable statements about the new design.
Tracking Features
Users provided detailed feedback about their expectations for what the habit tracker, mood tracker, and journaling tool should offer. They also described where they encounter friction when using these tools in the current state.
Mindfulness Features
Users also suggested a variety of new experiences within existing features, entirely new features, and integrations with other parts of the app.
Next Steps
Importantly, users reported greater interest in some features than others, giving us a better idea of which areas we need to address immediately and which should be deprioritized for now.
In collaboration with design and development, I developed a product roadmap that we feel is both ambitious and realistic. This plan allocates time for designing, building, and testing each page; start times for each page are staggered to prevent bottlenecking.
The design and research teams interlock to iterate through different page versions before finalizing the design. High-fidelity Figma files are then handed off to development to be built, QA’d, and launched. To keep the redesign on-track, I’ve been holding weekly meetings to manage scope and adjust the schedule as needed.
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Simplified product roadmap for the app redesign.
I also drafted a feature map of the current and future state to support strategic discussions around feature availability. In every study we’ve run, subscription pricing and perceived value emerge as barriers to conversion. Leadership has been unable to resolve this, so my goal with this initiative is to bring an additional level of intentionality to feature development. Not only will we prioritize features that we know users want, but we’ll be mindful of which features should live behind the paid subscription to motivate conversion.
