Hello and Welcome!
This case study was created by Elisejane Plecnik as a set of deliverables to establish a proof of concept for the Technical Interview portion as a candidate for the UI/UX Designer role at Hallow.
Key takeaways are as follows:
UXR Abilities: A quantitative snapshot of our end users was cultivated from reviews through data scraping, and entity sentiment analysis through Cloud Natural Language using Google Cloud’s platform.
UI/UX Abilities: The data derived from UXR formed a path to distill work into 3 user personas. Then, a user journey map was created using Figma.
UI Abilities: Reviews showed product features end users requested. This was used to create a high-fidelity mock-up, then it was prototyped using Figma.
Dev Handoff abilities: This web artifact serves as a proof of concept in understanding how to take design and development into actionable practice. This website was made with 💜 in South Bend, Indiana.
The front-end technology uses WordPress CMS, sped up with Elementor.
The back-end uses an Nginx server and MySql schema.
Words of gratitude: A great big thanks to Shang Lin, Head of Product at Hallow, who cultivates open communication and inspires creativity, even at the candidate level! Thanks for your inspiration to create at my highest potential.
My husband and cats, who endure my intensive creative energy for moments that fill me with joy. ~ECP
Case Study Overview
Hallow’s co-founders, Alex Jones, Alessandro diSanto, and Erich Kerekes realized the ongoing troubles of anxiety and fear pressed onto people leading them to feeling hollow. The co-founders of Hallow took this problem to heart and answered this distress by acting with urgent action.
Today, Hallow is the #1 audio-guided prayer and meditation app for Catholic men and women, and people of all faiths and religions. Hallow’s app innovates to actualize peace and purpose to multi-generational users around the world.
This case study guides readers to see how Hallow has shaped wellness and purpose in the everyday lives of people.
The Challenge
Finding Hallow’s users: Platforms research was conducted in order to set and seek close knowledge of Hallow’s users and end user. It was determined user reviews from GooglePlay and Apple’s AppStore served measurable and qualitative purpose.
Additionally, HeadSpace reviews on GooglePlay and Apple’s AppStore were also reviewed to gain insights on the driving forces for self-help technology.
The Impact
The data gives an opportunity for zoning in on focus groups, design sprints, and forming an end user data library available across all Hallow teams. With the data pulled and cleaned, we are afforded methods to glean on what users think about Hallow and how our support team at Hallow activates customer support.
The data harnessed from these reviews form as nodes that are yet to be connected through cross-functional team discussions and end user volunteer participants.
Note, as reviews were voluntarily contributed by people who had an emotional stake with Hallow’s product, it also serves as sustainable insights that begin the process of a rich end user data library. This is important as all Hallow teams gear toward fast growth and innovative productivity with its recent Series B funding win.
The Approach
Google Cloud Platform’s Cloud Natural Language API was instrumental to form 40,000+ entities. Then, entities were run through Google Natural Language’s pre-trained models and reported a salience and sentiment score and magnitude for Hallow’s and Headspace’s product.
An entity sentiment analysis was conducted for Hallow’s user base and existing meditation apps on market. These formed Hallow’s customer journey and beyond.
13,734 data points were collected and sifted into 3 verticals that showed what the app was doing right and what users were excited to see.
Insights to GooglePlay data are found here.
Insights to AppStore data are found here.
Headspace reviews and analysis are found here.
After this initial exercise, there is still much to harness and glean from the remaining 70% of data results.
This app has been an answer for my weary soul... - Kim
The Results
Data insights encouraged and instantiated a method to deliver a user experience journey map. Of the thousands of data collected, a user persona that was formulated is represented by an actor called, Forlorn Felecity, who yearns connection in a busy social environment in and out of the work place setting.
A New Product Features document was created as it was inspired by the prepared data. The document aims to procure innovative solutions which arrive at helping users pray and be at peace more as well as sustaining Hallow’s mission.
A Product Feature Idea
The following review inspired a high-fidelity mock-up and prototype to serve target users who are hearing impaired or have hearing loss: a closed captioning feature.
“I truly love having so many prayer options at my fingertips each day!
I didn’t hesitate to subscribe. I definitely would have rated with a full 5 stars, however, as an older individual suffering from hearing loss, I miss so much. Fr. Mike Schmitz speaks so fast, his words become a blur; I would have loved to participate in the Bible in a Year series. If only Closed Captioning for the hearing impaired was available, I’d rate this app with 10 stars!!”
A high-fidelity mock-up and prototype was made through Figma. Below is a screencast of the flow of the prototype. Access with editing permissions was sent to Shang Lin. For viewing permissions, the prototype can be found here.
The prototype demonstrates two main flow’s for the close captioning feature: setting CC before a prayer, and setting CC during mid-prayer.
And that’s a wrap! 🎉
Thank you for healthy design sprint and challenge!