Intro

There is a growing awareness in the U.S. that meditation can bring positive effect to people's emotional well-beings, especially in today's fast-paced lifestyle. People interested in meditation can find a variety of apps providing guided meditation, soothing music and timers to start with. Among them, Headspace is the fastest growing app with 11 million downloads and $50 million annual revenue. However, one of the biggest challenges for Headspace users is to find a quiet space and spend 20 minutes to practice meditation out of their busy schedule. Omedi is a meditation app that helps users practice meditation in daily routines, such as commuting and exercising, and enjoy immersive meditation experience in fast-moving urban lifestyle.

01_Problem framing

Among the 11 million downloads of Headspace, only 500,000 become paid subscribers. Why?

(information source: Fast Company)

02_Product experience (free vs paid)

Users have free access to Level 1 introduction to meditation and need to pay subscription fee to unlock the rest contents, including Level 2, 3, Singles and Packs. The overall experience is to guide users progressively from practicing fundamental skills to applying mindfulness techniques in a variety of life situations.

03_challenges for free users

Subscribers are willing to pay for progressive guided meditation. Unpaid

users, however, have no motivation to continue this journey, because they

1. only want to practice when having high stress and anxiety and

2. are unable to find time and space to practice in busy schedule

04_Design principle - From progression to immersion

Headspace has offered 10 basic guided meditation for free users. However, because the contents are not designed to address the challenges above, it is very easy for free users to drop out during or after finishing the take 10. How might we help Headspace provide a more engaging landing experience?

Omedi is a meditation app that helps users practice meditation in daily routines, such as commuting and exercising, and enjoy immersive meditation experience in fast-moving urban lifestyle.

augmented reality

Omedi AI learns user's emotional status and physical condition and provides responsive and immersive meditation experience using contexts of his current location via augmented reality.

design process

01_how headspace works

Headspace is the most downloaded, 11 millions times, meditation app in the Apple App Store. It provides guided meditation suitable for all levels and help improve user's focus, exercise mindful awareness, relieve anxiety and reduce stress. With 500,000 subscribers paying an average of roughly $100 a year, Headspace is able to generate $50 million annual revenue and has a valuation estimated by Forbes of about $250 million. 

02_Opportunity space

This 2x2 matrix shows the landing experience of existing competitors and points to an opportunity space where incorporating meditation in daily activity and providing more personalized guide.

03_Primary research

Most meditation events take place in more private context or communities, in order to observe people's meditation journey, I taught a group of student and faculty how to meditate and introduced headspace to them. I also created a poster to explain the idea of mindfulness to facilitate the teaching. This group helped me understand the learning journey and barriers of meditation.

04_User Journey

05_screen iteration