Idem Spark.
Making Wellness Easier than ever.
Role:
Context:
Time Period:
2019-2021
UX Researcher, Designer
Employment
00. Overview
1. To figure out what aspects of wellness our target demo (women age 18-35) is struggling with the most.
2. To deliver solutions to their wellness issues by connecting to resources or oneIdem Spark's Rockstar workshops.
3. To develop meaningful, long-term relationships with our community/userbase.
01. Problem Space
Everyone, at some point or another, has struggled with maintaining their health and wellness at some point in their lives. This is especially true for women ages 18-35, as society puts tremendous pressure on women to look a certain way.
Busy professionals and college students especially don't have as much time, energy, or resources to dedicate to their wellness as they would like. Idem Spark's mission is to figure out how to help these people. We want to start a conversation with women everywhere about emotional, mental, and physical health.
We know women are struggling out there, we aim to deliver to them wellness solutions in ways never thought possible.
02. Goals
1. To figure out what aspects of wellness our target demo (women age 18-35) is struggling with the most.
2. To deliver solutions to their wellness issues by connecting to resources or oneIdem Spark's Rockstar workshops.
3. To develop meaningful, long-term relationships with our community/userbase.
03. Secondary Research
Since we are a new company, it was necessary for me to conduct secondary research to determine what solutions I and, by extension, the rest of the Idem Spark team should focus on.
The companies and products we researched are listed below. The goal of our secondary research was to answer the following questions.
Jenny Craig is the classic example of a wellness brand that has a prominent, friendly figure that patrons can look towards. Similar brands that follow the "Jenny Craig" blueprint are "Goop" by Gwyneth Paltrow and "Centr" by Chris Hemsworth. Idem Spark is meant to be a casual brand that users can connect to, so our Chief Swagger Officer, Anniedi Essien, is our Jenny.
Noom is another company that is in-line with Idem Spark's vision. Their instagram posts/stories in particular are much like the type of food posts we share, and we do occasionally repost their stories as well. Overall, noom is a good model to follow for marketing the all too important food aspect of wellness.
Weight Watchers has long been a household name, but that does not mean it's a perfect product. If we take a look at the weight watchers home page, we get a corporate color scheme and a message that is out of touch with today's weight loss culture. The current era is about body positivity and overall wellness. Weight watches whole platform is based on outdated conventions on weight loss, which doesn't mesh well with today's market. If we look further into the demographics, Weight Watchers is woefully unpopular with the 18-35 demographic we're trying to hit, although it still remains an ideal model business in some aspects.
Athleta is more in-line with the message we try to promote at idem spark. Although, their brand is focused on clothing as opposed to overall wellness, they still promote a message of body positivity and diversity. They are also a very sought-after brand in today's zeitgeist. This is a brand that we could like for inspiration and would make an ideal partership/sponsor in future endeavors.
In the early phases of the startup's creation, we looked outwards for inspiration. We saw Curvy Con as a prototype for the type of image we strived for Idem Spark to have. Curvy Con is a platform for plus-sized fashion influencers and their followers to connect at a 2-day convention. They promote "health at every size" and have been featured on major platforms like Oprah. We look forward to connecting with Curvy Con in future promotional offers, once the the pandemic is over and conventions are commonplace again.
03. Secondary Research
Since we are a new company, it was necessary for me to conduct secondary research to determine what solutions I and, by extension, the rest of the Idem Spark team should focus on.
The companies and products we researched are listed below. The goal of our secondary research was to answer the following questions.
03. Primary Research
I was tasked to conduct surveys that would later inform business strategy for the company. These surveys were sent both to "general" users who registered an email with the company and "rockstar" users who were more invested in our programs and had already paid a significant sum of money for our services.
In total, I recruited the opinions of 7 rockstars users (using sogosurvey.com) and asked them questions focused on:
- How they feel about their current offerings (customer satisfaction).
- How long they would foresee needing/wanting the help of Idem Spark.
- If they would prefer 1-on-1 or group focused activities in the future.
- What products they are looking for.
- How they fit in with the Idem Spark community.
- Where they first learned about Idem Spark.
Survey
Interview
The interview was more broad than the survey, as I asked users (all female) aged 19-48 their opinions on health and wellness, and what types of services would help achieve those goals best. The interview took approximately 10-15 minutes with simple, yet profound questions to get users to open up the core of their issues. I asked:
- What's your motivation for bettering your health/wellness?
- What interests you more dieting more or exercising more?
- What are your current health and wellness solutions?
- What's your biggest "pain point" in your day-to-day wellness?
- How often do you watch videos or articles about health?
- Do you feel that the media fairly portrays women's body/health standards?
Persona
Personas were designed so the team better understand the types of users that use/will use our product. Our company story is based on an imaginary user named "Imabong." I boiled the story of Imabong into a persona and developed a few other hypothetical users to make personas out of as well.
These personas are based on interviews with existing users, as well as founding members of the company. Despite the limited scope of data, the personas have so far proven to be useful, and new users that have come into Idem Spark have generally fit within one of to three personas or were a hybrid between them. We went through several phases of personas that we used, and at one point I had nine different personas that I was designing around. Eventually, we boiled it down to just three core personas.
04. Design Solutions
To lay the groundwork, I was tasked to conduct surveys that would later inform business strategy for the company. These surveys were sent both to "general" users who registered an email with the company and "rockstar" users who were more invested in our programs and had already paid a significant sum of money for our services.
Exlcusive "SPARK!" spotify playlists, promotional codes, surveys were all perks that I developed for members to enjoy. To learn more, click either of the icons below.
Incentives
360 Branding
The four qualities that define 360 Brand Identity are verbal, visual, interactive, and sensory qualities. My job focused on the verbal and the visual qualities of Idem's identity. The verbal qualities we came up with focused on maintaining an overall positive, encouraging demeanor with our customers. We made sure to use consistent language and verbiage with words like "rockstar," "superstar," "groove," and "vibe." The visual qualities of our 360 identity are defined below with our text/style guide and some sample posts we used for marketing.
Goals
Signals
Metrics
Happiness
Engagement
Adoption
Retention
Task Success
For users to be satisfied and keep coming back, and for marketing and incentives to be effective in recruitng new users.
For users to keep interacting with content, coming to workshops, and responding to emails
New users see the value in the product. Existing users share with their friends.
Existing users resubscribe and respond to our posts. Existing users upgrade to "Rockstar" accounts.
Users reach their wellness goals. BONUS: Users "push the goalpost" after being successfull and happy with reaching their wellness goals.
- Responses from our surveys
- Comments on instagram posts
- Leaving user feedback
- Satisfaction surveys
- 5 Star Google Reviews
- Net Promoter Score
- Number of responses on Instagram posts
- Email blast responses
- Instagram Live views
- Instagram followers
- Number of views on posted videos
- Number of shares
- Instagram Followers
- Join Facebook Group
- Web Traffic
- Number of followers/ members
- Number of inquirys
- Amount of $ spent
- Staying active on socials
- Regularly visiting website
- Reguarly attending Rockstar seminars
- Churn rate
- Subscription renewal /upgrade rate
- Amount of $ spent
- Finding our product and content quickly
- Finding where to connect with other users
- Search exit rate
- Time to become a power user
- Number of new users
