CASE STUDY
Newtopia’s Participant Support Tool App
As the company's design lead, I've aided Newtopia in becoming a well-known tech-enabled habit change start-up, providing its product to health insurers across the United States. Building the brand from the ground up and boosting the company's brand positioning and messaging across B2B and B2C channels. A big part of my role was bringing the company’s app to life through persona creation, User Experience, and User Interface design while keeping the brand’s visual voice in the foreground.
overview
Design the UI/UX that connects the dots of Newtopia’s participant habit-change journey that allows them to learn and apply better lifestyle habits, interact with their personal health coach and track their personalized goals in nutrition, physical activity and mental health.
the target
Men and women between the ages of 35-54, who lead a busy life. They are rarely active and have a hard time sticking with conventional diets or just generally eating well. Their weight, lifestyle and metabolic testing display signs of being at risk for chronic disease if real change doesn’t come soon.
the ask
Among the numerous features on the app, a few notable ones are:
Weekly goal overview: a place to see and apply one’s weekly goals and strategies assigned by their health coach at a glance
Ability to chat with one’s health coach
Consolidated tracking management
A place to view lessons and corresponding watch videos
Quick and simple Recipe ideas with filters based on likes/dislikes, dietary and ingredient selections
Visual progress of participant journey
Access to camera to easily photograph and upload meals instead of manual input
Easily accessible resources, information and personal coach communication that eventually become an extension of their coaching experience
Ability for food, weight and journal logging to be seen by health coach
Weekly/monthly participant community challenges
the client
A personalized, whole-health platform, Newtopia assists individuals in forming healthy habits shown to prevent, decelerate, or even reverse the path to chronic diseases, such as metabolic syndrome, while promoting improvement in mental health. Their objective was to assist its participants with losing 5% body weight in the first year of this 24-month program while gradually implementing tiny lifestyle adjustments that would eventually develop into positive long-term habits.
the direction
Display complex information in an easily digestible, bite-sized format
Visual cues utilized to guide users through the application's interface
Simplify complex information to avoid overwhelming or bogging down the elder user group
Visually engaging lesson guides to support videos and weekly health coach assignments
Visual brand alignment
Motivational, non-threatening language
Establishing a Direction
based on target research
target values
Bite-sized, tailored achievable goals
Relevant information customized to the participant’s unique circumstances
The participant and coach relationship is ongoing beyond their 20-minute weekly call
Ease of use. Not into logging every piece of food and ingredient of the day
Assistance in keeping motivated
desired thoughts
Inspired
Motivated
Trust in Newtopia’s process and coaches
Ready to make a change to my physical and mental wellbeing
Educated
Newtopia is a no-judgement zone
Informed
Supported and understood
Likes the accountability without too much pressure
desired feelings
“This personalized platform is becoming an extension of my better-health journey”
“This is the info I’ve been looking for”
“Finally, a safe space to guide me in taking my health into my own hands - and it isn’t daunting”
“I’m not expected to do too much all at once, it’s a steady process”
“My coach gets me. I love that I have access to what we talked about last week all in one place, and I can add more to it if I want to”
Combining Experience with Brand Identity
Newtopia’s product demonstrates its dedication to diversity. Regardless of one’s history, the brand aspires to offer a secure, accessible, and friendly environment for all participants and staff. Recognizing that, while one's health should be taken seriously, great things can be accomplished with a lighthearted and optimistic approach.
Nothing in life is perfect, and Newtopia wanted to celebrate that. The intention of the brand visuals was to display a playful, colourful but imperfect group of illustrations engaging in real-life, attainable activities.
Verson 1.10.3
Because signing up to the Newtopia program is a long-term investment – participants commit to the program for a period of 24 months – it allows for the luxury of setting the program at the participant's pace and readiness to change levels. This was kept in mind as each feature was built out, allowing for extensions or reductions and an increase of goals from week to week, maintaining that sense of accomplishment, and meeting the participant where they are at.
Version 1.8.2
A Few App Highlights
Now that you know a little bit about Newtopia, its target demo and the ideas that drive the brand, let’s dive into some main screens of the app.
The Meat and Potatoes: Goal tracking, management, & information display
The home page and where it all happens. Seeing it all at a glance was the main objective here.
What we’re looking at:
- Keep track of the progress of active goals from the home page.
- Launch videos or lesson guides with a tap of the screen.
- Take photos of meals and save them directly into the goal.
- See/edit when goals are due, view the number of successful or missed occurrences, or give yourself an extra week to complete your tasks if required.
Custom Self-Created Goals
Choose from a selection of nutrition, exercise, and well-being goals.
Select a type of goal to work on.
Select a target or an objective for your goal.
Confirm that you want to create the goal. Once confirmed, the selected goal will be added to the ‘My Goals’ home page.
Custom Coach-Created Goals
Setting Goals: Coaches can create pre-existing custom goals or design one-of-a-kind goals to meet personal needs.
Tracking Goals: A green box means the objective has been accomplished. If the goal is incomplete on the last day, the “need more time?” option extends the due date by a week.
Frequency and Occurrences: Goals can be set to daily or a fixed number of days up to 4 weeks.
Calendar Icon: The date shown in the calendar icon is the due date. It turns to a checkmark once the goal is completed.
Easy Recipies
Breakfast, Main Dishes, Snacks, and Desserts
Swipe up or down to see different meal categories, and right or left to browse delicious recipes within each category
Tap on an image to see the ingredients list and cooking instructions.