spudbud
Encouraging Potato Employees to Monitor Their Mental Health and Take Advantage of the Company’s Wellbeing Resources
Slack-Based Mobile App/Chatbot (Client)
Solo | 5 Weeks
Project Overview
*Full Case Study Coming Soon*
Potato (now AKQA Leap) is a digital product design agency with a strong focus on employee wellbeing. They were looking to implement a digital tool for internal use to actively monitor mental health amongst their workforce.
This was a solo project, so I was responsible for all stages of the research and design process.
Methods and Deliverables:
Competitor Analysis | User Surveys and Usability Tests | User Modeling | User Flow | Mid-Fidelity Mobile Wireframes | UX Writing | Conversational Interface Design | Avatar Design | High-Fidelity Mobile Prototype
Tools:
Google Forms | LucidChart | Balsamiq | Adobe Illustrator | Figma
Outcomes:
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A survey sent to the whole London office revealed that many employees desired wellbeing resources such as Headspace access, classes like yoga and pilates, and a running club, but were not aware that these were already available for free at discounted rates through the company. Additionally only 65% of respondents were aware of the Wellbeing Wiki page provided by the company.
In order to make use of existing resources, I designed an application that would focus on providing daily, weekly, and general recommendations, including those which highlight and encourage use of existing company resources based on an initial onboarding questionnaire and regular check-ins. Examples include doing one exercise daily from a particular Headspace playlist as Headspace is free to employees.
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While many employees were warm to the idea of incorporating wellbeing into their work life, many were reluctant to download yet another new app.
In response, I designed an app that lives within Slack, which the company already used for communication. The app also makes use of Slack's reminder capabilities, allowing users to set reminders to mental health check-ins or to engage in wellbeing activities.
Additionally, information about the company's various wellbeing activities was not centralized so I included a page with links to the various resources in one place.
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Being named 'Potato' at the time, the company had very distinct branding, including custom potato-themed avatars named 'spuddies' for various uses.
In addition to designing a brand new mental health 'spuddy', I made use of 'spuddies' throughout the design in place of traditional emoticons to represent the user's present mood. This retains company culture and brand identity, while also creating a fun, less clinical feel and encouraging all employees to use the app for general wellbeing needs that are not confined to serious mental health issues.
