Health-and-wellness programme
Why were users struggling with a redesigned health app?
I led in-market user research, combining interviews and public feedback to inform usability improvements.
- Year
- 2022–2025
- Discipline
- Service design & UX research
- My role
- In-market UX research, synthesis, and design input
After a health app was redesigned, users reported difficulties with navigation, rewards, and activity recognition. My research focused on understanding those experiences and identifying issues the team could address.
Public reviews offered useful examples, but couldn't show how common each problem was across the user base. I combined them with interviews to understand the experiences behind the feedback.
My contribution
- Research
- Wrote interview guides, ran user interviews, and compared what I heard with App Store reviews and community discussions.
- Judgement
- Compared feedback across sources to identify recurring usability issues.
- Collaboration
- Shared research findings with product, design, and engineering colleagues to inform improvements.
What users were reporting
Public feedback raised several themes:
- Navigation: no longer worked the way users expected from the old app.
- Rewards: felt less valuable than before.
- Activity recognition: users reported that some completed activities weren't recognised.
Comparing feedback across sources
I compared what people described in interviews with the issues raised in public feedback. My sources included:
- App Store reviews and ratings.
- User discussions on social media.
- User interviews I scripted and facilitated.
The rating alone couldn't tell us which problems were affecting users or how widespread they were.
Turning research into useful priorities
I synthesised recurring themes and shared the findings with product, design, and engineering colleagues. The research helped the team consider which usability issues to address, and I continued reviewing feedback across releases.
Outcome
1.3 → 4.6
App Store rating during the project, 2022–2025
The App Store rating rose from 1.3 to 4.6 during the project. This was a team outcome: I contributed research and synthesis, while colleagues across disciplines delivered the improvements.
The rating describes the app as a whole. It doesn't isolate the effect of my research or establish that every reported issue was resolved.
Reflection
This work reinforced the value of comparing evidence across sources and following up after a release. I'd approach a similar project with three things in mind:
- Keep checking an explanation when it doesn't account for what users are reporting.
- Follow up on the problems raised in research, including after a release.
- Be careful about changing parts of an app that people already value.
Team: Cross-functional collaboration with product, design, and engineering colleagues.