Mind Master
Role
Lead Product Designer
Responsibilities
Full Fidelity Prototype, Branding
Tools
Sketch, InVision, Figma
timeline
2 months
On the surface, Mind Master seemed like an app that would be fairly straightforward to design: a subscription-based model for listening to audio. As we dove further into the specifics of how the listening experience would flow, the app began to take shape as something more unique, with playlists, listening reminders and control over how many times an affirmation loops.
I spent a bit of time designing up some quick mockups to make it easier for the client to visualize some potential branding directions for Mind Master. This was a quick exercise to gauge where they wanted to take the app visually, and I wanted to them the opportunity to have some input.
When presenting these two options, I wanted to emphasize focus on the mountain logo as a branding element, even though the client had previously show an interest in text as the main branding motif. As the branding evolved, so did the mountain "M" and we shifted colors away from green towards a brighter, more modern mountain blue.
Before jumping into designs, I created a user flow in Miro to walk through with the client so that we could align on features and overall user experience. This also allows us to find areas that the client may not have thought through in detail, so our team can step in to fill in the gaps.
The playlist is at the core of the Mind Master experience, and the concept came to fruition during the first few ideation-heavy calls. Affirmations are short, looping clip of a calming voice speaking positive phrases to help users internalize their message. As opposed to navigating through the app and manually selecting an affirmation to listen to, we decided that allowing the user to make short, personalized playlists would be the best experience.
After a playlist is created, users can browse through different affirmations sorted by category and add them to their playlist. They can also record their own, which we'll get into a little later. We found that saving affirmations for later was important, even if they aren't added to a playlist right away, so users can favorite an affirmation to listen later. After they've selected the playlist, they can choose how many times they want to hear the affirmation before the next one is played.
Listening will more than often take place with the screen off and the device in a pocket or bag. Still, we wanted to make sure that user experience was simple and engaging from start to finish.
In order to encourage the client to keep up with daily affirmations, we built in scheduling. If someone wanted to create a playlist to listen to at lunch, they could schedule their playlist for 12:00pm and they'll get a daily notification. When creating a playlist, the user has the option to set a scheduled reminder.
I played around for a while with the design of the playlist player. The card motif was an early front runner, since cards are utilized throughout the design and represent interactive elements. This differs from the more Spotify-inspired concept, which was also considered.
After a playlist finishes, a summary screen is displayed with a spot to record how they feel after listening, some stats about their habits, and a few sharing options. This page was a big request from the client, after having used similar apps, they found this to be a great way to continue to engage with the experience and drive new impressions.
Mind Master is built on a subscription model, and we went with the in app purchasing model to make things convenient for users. Working with the client, we were able to determine a reasonable pricing strategy with a monthly subscription or the option to subscribe yearly and save some money.
Some challenges arose when working through the process of gifting memberships. The client wanted users to be able to buy a subscription for another user as a gift, but this method isn't normally achievable through the App Store or Play Store, since recurring purchases are tied to the account. Our dev team was able to work around it by allowing users to gift one-time yearly memberships.
Managing custom affirmations with Mind Master is all done through the custom section in the list. Affirmations can be deeply personal, and if Mind Master doesn't have quite the right topic for users, we want them to be able to record one that fits their life. The design for the recorder is a simple, and allows users to title their affirmation, set a photo, and listen back their audio after recording.
Most of the key functionality that Mind Master needs is available right from the dashboard. It carries over a lot of visual motifs from the mobile app, and brings a material design approach for familiarity.
The admin portal exists to manage affirmations, quotes for the completion screen, and users for Mind Master.
Uploading an affirmation is as simple as selecting an audio file, choosing a name and category and writing the description. The modal also allows for users to listen back to the uploaded file to make sure it's correct and functional.
A random quote shows up on the completion page after a user has finished with an affirmation. These are sharable images with the Mind Master logo watermark, and are created by Mind Master before being uploaded into the portal. We created a basic way to add and remove quotes, as well as see view count on hover.
The admin portal can manage both mobile app users and admin users from the Users tab. Both user types are super basic and didn't require a lot of planning to design, but we did include the ability to deactivate admin users instead of removing them, that way their data remains in the system.
The popular tab is another way to give Mind Master some useful data without building full analytics into the app. From here, users can see a list of affirmations and their listen counts. The table can be sorted by field as well to gain insights on the most popular affirmation in a category, for example.
Working with Mind Master was the perfect opportunity to exercise some visual creativity and build a new brand from scratch. Working with the client was a very collaborative experience. It was great to see new features take shape and see their excitement as the idea started to develop into something real.
The project is still in development as of now, but if Mind Master came back for some improvements, there's a few things I've got in mind
Mind Master was a fun and exciting creative challenge that allowed me to play around with UI, and I feel the final product is a fantastic new experience.