Deepen relationships with your audience through better usability.
At the height of the global pandemic, I suddenly found myself dealing with a level of anxiety I’d never experienced. Sudden bouts of shortness of breath, random nights of insomnia, and nagging days of acid reflux were just some of issues I had to address. On a random Zoom call with friends, someone suggested that I look into one of many meditation apps to see if that might help.
Fast forward to today, and although I can’t say all of my anxiety problems are fully resolved, I can say that Headspace in particular has made a big difference in my life. I’ve developed a daily practice that’s become so common that I’ve long ago moved it onto my home screen, in the top right position.
This morning I thought about this app, how impactful it’s been … but more interestingly, how did this fit so seamlessly into my life and daily routine? How have I not given so much thought to how I use this? One word: Usability.
Headspace is a great example of the power of good usability, and the effect it can have on deepening its relationships with its users.
For example, by upholding standards of consistency throughout the app, the designers encouraged a seamless, almost frictionless experience. You know when you’re in a category, or when you’ve landed on a meditation. It’s clear that the worlds of fitness are very different from that of guided sleep recordings. Search results are clear. You don’t have to struggle to figure it out.
Thoughtful visual design throughout also completes the environment, ensuring that association with consistency is memorable. The care taken to illustrate difficult concepts (as opposed to using stock photography to depict something like “pain management”) and incorporate illustration into photography play a large role in overall experience. It helps users to see the issues, as opposed to being distracted by bad stock photography. They’re also uniquely simplistic and approachable, which is something you want when you’re trying to tackle difficult topics like pain management.
Color is also applied very purposefully. Warmer tones of oranges and yellows take precedence over cooler blues, which make sense because they’re reassuring. Cooler tones are more predominant in calming scenarios like work and productivity, fitness and health, or meditations related to sleep.
The app is unquestionably learnable. Blue buttons consistently indicate the start of a meditation (reinforced with text as well as a ‘play’ icon). And every experience closes with an affirming message.
There’s never a mystery as to what is happening or where you are, whether you’re sorting through cards of meditation courses, or on a meditation. And constraints are communicated clearly. What can and can’t be done, and what has and hasn’t happened, are never a problem.
Unfortunately, when put through an accessibility test, Headspace didn’t fare so well. According to WebAccessibility.com, Headspace earned a 75% compliance rating, with violations spanning valid labels for form fields, providing alt text for images, and ensuring that link text is meaningful within contexts. These results show that no matter how great your usability might be, accessibility is just as important, and that there’s always room for testing and improvement.
I wasn’t around when Headspace first came to fruition, but it’s quite possible it could have been a totally different experience, something that might have looked more like a bad e-commerce website, or riddled with ads or complicated navigation. But the designers and developers took the time to figure out what’s important, how they wanted users to engage with their meditations, and how they’d want folks to feel so that they’d want to come back…without thinking about it.
And that’s one of the great powers that good usability can instill in a product. It might seem invisible, but paying attention to good usability and accessibility principles could not only foster the kinds of experiences you want your customers to have, but it very well might deepen their relationships to your brand, without them even realizing it.
