Apple Health Redesign

Implementing nicotine recovery feature

I recall seeing the rise of vaping skyrocket as I progressed from high school to college, watching my friends fall victim to these dangerously addictive devices. This trend quickly took hold of their lives, affecting their physical and mental health and close relationships.

For this project, my team thought it would be best to redesign an existing app that is automatically downloaded onto every iPhone: Apple Health. By including a streamlined user interface, home screen widget, and increased social connection, we sought to help users quit vaping and track their behavior.

Role
TIME
Responsibilites
TEAM
UI/UX Designer
July 2024
User Research, UI/UX Design, Usability Testing, Prototyping
2 UI/UX Designers

Project goals

Personal Goals
User Goals
My goal for this project is to gain proficiency in using design systems to seamlessly integrate new features while upholding our brand's identity and core values.
Young adults aiming to overcome their vaping addiction require a method to stay motivated and accountable, supporting their journey to quit nicotine for good

01. Research

Problem

How might we redesign Apple Health to motivate young adults to overcome their vaping addictions?

Key statistics

As of 2018, the US Surgeon General has declared vaping a national epidemic among young adults. In fact, research conducted by and found that

1 in 5

1 in 10

of adults ages 18-29 smoke e-cigarettes regularly.
of middle of high schoolers use tobacco products.

Understanding Apple Health

Apple Health tracks and monitors users' health by collecting data from a user's Apple Watch, iPhone, or third-party apps, providing a comprehensive overview of the user's health and wellness. The original design of Apple Health did not allow for the discoverability of different health categories. It lacks an engaging interface that draws the user to learn more about their health data.
Summary
The Summary page does not encourage the user to browse different health categories.
Sharing
Sharing tab allows users to share data with contacts and medical professionals.
Browse
Browse tab shows all other health categories that are not accessible from the Summary page.

Empathizing with our audience

For user research, I focused on young adults aged 18 to 29 who have quit or want to quit vaping. I assumed they struggle with vaping addiction and want to quit due to negative experiences, but I couldn't rely on assumptions alone to justify our potential solutions.

I aimed to understand their behaviors, motivations, and sentiments regarding vaping addiction. Additionally, I wanted to see how our target audience interacts with the Apple Health app, if at all.
Vaping addicts are driven by the thought of having their devices in the same room
Peer pressure hinder progress. 3/7 participants reported caving into vaping urges at social gatherings
7/7 participants reported changes in respiratory health. This is the strongest reason to quit vaping
“If it is out of sight, it is out of mind.”
“I wanted to try something cool that my friends were doing.”
“I would feel winded just going up a flight of stairs.”

User personas

Using these interview findings, we came up with two personas: Daniel, who is a college student actively trying to quit vaping, and Carissa, a working professional who wants to maintain her vaping abstinence. Both personas provide insight into what problems a typical nicotine addict encounters.

User journey

While keeping our user interview findings in mind, we began to brainstorm user flows to depict how a user might interact with an Apple Health category meant for quitting vaping.

02. Ideation

Sketching

I then came up with some sketches that depict the user flow through the app to lay a foundation for wireframes and user testing.
The first set of sketches shows how a user would add the "Vaping Recovery" category to the navigation bar after taking the onboarding survey
The second adopts Apple Health's current UI and shows the "Vaping Recovery" category within the Summary page.

Usability testing

We created two sets of wireframes from these sketches to conduct user testing with 3 different participants between the ages of 22 to 26 who either currently have a nicotine addiction or have successfully quit. Our team was able to summarize these findings into three major points:
Users value efficiency
Users are driven by data
Summary page changes
They preferred having multiple choice questions and a page by page layout for the onboarding survey
Real statistics motivate users by showing the health risks of vaping, while quantitative progress encourages continued recovery.
Users felt that adding categories to the navigation bar didn't make sense. The summary page layout lacked a holistic view of Apple Health categories.

03. Final Redesign

The final design offers a rearrangement of the Summary page's "Favorites", a seamless and customizable onboarding experience, and an informational main page for the Vaping Recovery category. This redesign helps users feel more comfortable in using technology as an aide to treat vaping addiction.
Widgets
A more organized way to view Favorite categories and discover new ones to pin
Maintains aspects of Apple Health's current UI and structure
Recent data displayed within widget
Onboarding
Explains how Vaping Recovery works and is tailored to users
Multiple-choice questions to reduce cognitive load
Welcoming and encouraging language to reassure users that they are on the right track
Progress Calendar
Tracks how many days a user has gone without vaping
Vape-free "streak" motivates users to keep up good behavior
Allows users to report any changes in their progress without promoting guilt or shame
Motivation
Different sources of motivation to continue living a vape-free life
List of goals for users to actively work towards completing by a certain deadline
Curated informational articles regarding vaping and/or respiratory health
Contact section for users to have the option to share how far along they are on their journeys or view others' progress

Final Thoughts

key Takeaways

Apple Health's data collection

Although Apple Health is an app installed on all Apple devices, many participants, including me, have yet to utilize more than one or two features in daily life. I would have liked to understand how Apple Health collects and displays health data to better suit user needs. Our redesign targets a sensitive topic that may not work for all young adults trying to quit vaping, so our next steps would have been to conduct more user testing and iterate on our design. It would have been great to show some sort of respiratory health data, but it would be a lengthy and invasive process for users.

key Learnings

If it ain't broke don't fix it!

Initially, I thought that a redesign meant that we should revamp the entire UI while integrating our unique ideas, but I soon realized that we should stay true to Apple's design system, which is already seamless. Not only is the visual design already on par, but users find comfort in familiarity and tend to prefer UI that they can trust.

Close to home

From a personal overview, I am extremely proud that this idea came to fruition! When brainstorming project ideas, I recalled how serious of a problem vaping is becoming among young adults, especially some of my close friends. I enjoyed working toward a potential solution for them and understanding the significant effects of vaping on their lives. It was especially rewarding to interact with participants during interviews and hear how interested they were in a technological tool to treat vaping addiction.

In the future, I hope to take on more projects that I am passionate about to see how people's lives might change and improve overall!

Check out my other projects!