Identity / User Experience / Visual design
Scope of work
The *Awaken* app is designed as an inter-faith mindfulness platform, promoting well-being through brief yet meaningful mantras and exercises rooted in altruism. The app empowers users to integrate mindful awareness into their daily lives, helping to break the cycles of anxiety, stress, and exhaustion. Its core feature is guiding users through various mindfulness techniques, meditations, and wisdom from multiple faiths and belief systems.
When Blackout Digital joined the *Awaken* project, the goal was to create a unique UI experience for a diverse user base. The initial phase involved a deep dive into the mindfulness app market, analyzing competitors, and identifying potential unique selling propositions (USPs). Through user persona development and competitor analysis, we uncovered a gap: no app catered to a multi-faith audience while providing long-term journaling features for self-reflection.
Moreover, existing mindfulness apps often displayed data poorly, failing to deliver meaningful insights back to users. These findings shaped the direction of the project, steering us toward creating a more inclusive, user-centric product.
Working alongside a small team of very talented developers, we focused on refining the user interface and information architecture. One of the primary challenges was organizing a vast amount of content to ensure a seamless user journey. After several iterations, we implemented a JSON tagging system to simplify the content management process. To assist the stakeholders in managing content updates, we developed a custom Mac App that allows them to easily amend and reference information.
Though still in BETA, this Mac App will evolve alongside the main *Awaken* app, providing the client with tools to streamline content updates.
The collaborative nature of the design and development process led to several key wins. Working closely with developers allowed us to speed up production and resolve issues such as re-arranging functionality, redesigning the journaling feature, and even eliminating non-essential features like achievements, which research showed to be counterproductive for user engagement.
However, the project was not without its challenges. Inconsistent user journeys and complex content categorization were among the hurdles faced. These issues were addressed through collaborative sessions and late-night problem-solving, though we learned the importance of engaging clients earlier to map out their long-term goals and prevent scope creep.
The project started as a game but evolved into a comprehensive mindfulness app as the client's vision changed. Adapting to the evolving nature of the project required flexibility and open communication, but the end result was a product that not only satisfied the client's expectations but also helped her secure her PhD.
Conclusion
The *Awaken* app presented an exciting challenge in both design and development, with its multi-faith focus and rich feature set. The lessons learned from this project have shaped our approach to future engagements, particularly in refining our discovery processes to manage scope and client expectations more effectively.
Blackout Digital is proud of the work we delivered on *Awaken*, and the app continues to grow, bringing mindfulness to users from diverse faiths and backgrounds.