Discovery
The Psychology of Employee Wellness
Discovery
The Psychology of Employee Wellness
Discovery
The Psychology of Employee Wellness
Employee Wellness
An EAP is intended to help employees by providing them with access to mental health care services, legal assistance, financial assistance as well as empowering them to improve their physical and overall well-being.
My Role
Discovery's existing EAP app was outdated and I was asked to conduct research to identify possible design solutions that could support employee well-being.
Where to start?
I started my research by delving deeper into the psychological aspects of well-being by asking, what sorts of behaviours and actions make people feel well?
I researched different theories about this topic and found that meeting certain needs can boost our well-being and increase motivation, like our need for relatedness or social connection for example.
I used these findings as the basis for my initial ideation and brainstormed possible features that could meet the needs I'd identified.
Need: Automony, involvement and personalisation
Feature: Selecting goals, ratings and gratitude journal
Need: Automony, involvement and personalisation
Feature: Selecting goals, ratings and gratitude journal
The Pivot
At this point the client decided not to go ahead with any changes due to budget constraints.
Flash-forward a few months and the client wanted to integrate the EAP with an in-house banking product to facilitate better financial guidance to employees. I was requested to design the new flows in the financial well-being portion of the app.
What I achieved: Although the scope was initially limited to financial well-being flows, I was able to motivate the client to holistically update and improve the app as a whole.
Key Changes
The existing EAP designs were very content-heavy. The existing designs placed a lot of burden on the user to digest content and make sense of it.
I advocated for the inclusion of illustrations, visual representations of data and better content hierarchy. This created a more digestible interface and presented the data in a more helpful way.
A closer look at the improvements
Through the use of elevated cards and illustrations the main dimensions (core benefit of the app) became more highlighted. This was the first time illustrations were used by the client and I was able to champion that. The illustrations bring visual joy and enable users to more quickly scan and recognize the content.
The existing mood icons felt dated and there was no clear indication of what the colours represent. These icons were uplifted and the content was restructured (see below).
A more direct colour association was created using existing colour theory, with blue representing negative moods, green representing positive moods and grey representing neutral emotions. A mood key was added to give users further context for the colours.
Research
All design goes through an iterative process where I conduct initial research, ideate based on user needs and flows, mock up wireframes, create prototypes, test the prototypes and refine designs until they reach a high-fidelity level.
As the app is designed for Discovery employees I was able to source participants easily and conducted guerrilla usability tests in-house.
What I achieved was low-cost, rapid testing with almost no budget and tight deadlines. Although my client didn't allocate budget for user testing I still found a way to test my designs before they went live.
Lessons
A firm knowledge of technical limitations is critical if you want to effectively apply UX improvements to existing features. A deeper understanding of constraints and the ability to work within them is one of the most valuable skills I believe you can have as a product designer.
If I could change anything I'd have had more time and broader scope to improve the entire EAP app.
Employee Wellness
An EAP is intended to help employees by providing them with access to mental health care services, legal assistance, financial assistance as well as empowering them to improve their physical and overall well-being.
My Role
Discovery's existing EAP app was outdated and I was asked to conduct research to identify possible design solutions that could support employee well-being.
Where to start?
I started my research by delving deeper into the psychological aspects of well-being by asking, what sorts of behaviours and actions make people feel well?
I researched different theories about this topic and found that meeting certain needs can boost our well-being and increase motivation, like our need for relatedness or social connection for example.
I used these findings as the basis for my initial ideation and brainstormed possible features that could meet the needs I'd identified.
Need: Automony, involvement and personalisation
Feature: Selecting goals, ratings and gratitude journal
Need: Automony, involvement and personalisation
Feature: Selecting goals, ratings and gratitude journal
The Pivot
At this point the client decided not to go ahead with any changes due to budget constraints.
Flash-forward a few months and the client wanted to integrate the EAP with an in-house banking product to facilitate better financial guidance to employees. I was requested to design the new flows in the financial well-being portion of the app.
What I achieved: Although the scope was initially limited to financial well-being flows, I was able to motivate the client to holistically update and improve the app as a whole.
Key Changes
The existing EAP designs were very content-heavy. The existing designs placed a lot of burden on the user to digest content and make sense of it.
I advocated for the inclusion of illustrations, visual representations of data and better content hierarchy. This created a more digestible interface and presented the data in a more helpful way.
A closer look at the improvements
Through the use of elevated cards and illustrations the main dimensions (core benefit of the app) became more highlighted. This was the first time illustrations were used by the client and I was able to champion that. The illustrations bring visual joy and enable users to more quickly scan and recognize the content.
The existing mood icons felt dated and there was no clear indication of what the colours represent. These icons were uplifted and the content was restructured (see below).
A more direct colour association was created using existing colour theory, with blue representing negative moods, green representing positive moods and grey representing neutral emotions. A mood key was added to give users further context for the colours.
Research
All design goes through an iterative process where I conduct initial research, ideate based on user needs and flows, mock up wireframes, create prototypes, test the prototypes and refine designs until they reach a high-fidelity level.
As the app is designed for Discovery employees I was able to source participants easily and conducted guerrilla usability tests in-house.
What I achieved was low-cost, rapid testing with almost no budget and tight deadlines. Although my client didn't allocate budget for user testing I still found a way to test my designs before they went live.
Lessons
A firm knowledge of technical limitations is critical if you want to effectively apply UX improvements to existing features. A deeper understanding of constraints and the ability to work within them is one of the most valuable skills I believe you can have as a product designer.
If I could change anything I'd have had more time and broader scope to improve the entire EAP app.
Employee Wellness
An EAP is intended to help employees by providing them with access to mental health care services, legal assistance, financial assistance as well as empowering them to improve their physical and overall well-being.
My Role
Discovery's existing EAP app was outdated and I was asked to conduct research to identify possible design solutions that could support employee well-being.
Where to start?
I started my research by delving deeper into the psychological aspects of well-being by asking, what sorts of behaviours and actions make people feel well?
I researched different theories about this topic and found that meeting certain needs can boost our well-being and increase motivation, like our need for relatedness or social connection for example.
I used these findings as the basis for my initial ideation and brainstormed possible features that could meet the needs I'd identified.
Need: Automony, involvement and personalisation
Feature: Selecting goals, ratings and gratitude journal
Need: Automony, involvement and personalisation
Feature: Selecting goals, ratings and gratitude journal
The Pivot
At this point the client decided not to go ahead with any changes due to budget constraints.
Flash-forward a few months and the client wanted to integrate the EAP with an in-house banking product to facilitate better financial guidance to employees. I was requested to design the new flows in the financial well-being portion of the app.
What I achieved: Although the scope was initially limited to financial well-being flows, I was able to motivate the client to holistically update and improve the app as a whole.
Key Changes
The existing EAP designs were very content-heavy. The existing designs placed a lot of burden on the user to digest content and make sense of it.
I advocated for the inclusion of illustrations, visual representations of data and better content hierarchy. This created a more digestible interface and presented the data in a more helpful way.
A closer look at the improvements
Through the use of elevated cards and illustrations the main dimensions (core benefit of the app) became more highlighted. This was the first time illustrations were used by the client and I was able to champion that. The illustrations bring visual joy and enable users to more quickly scan and recognize the content.
The existing mood icons felt dated and there was no clear indication of what the colours represent. These icons were uplifted and the content was restructured (see below).
A more direct colour association was created using existing colour theory, with blue representing negative moods, green representing positive moods and grey representing neutral emotions. A mood key was added to give users further context for the colours.
Research
All design goes through an iterative process where I conduct initial research, ideate based on user needs and flows, mock up wireframes, create prototypes, test the prototypes and refine designs until they reach a high-fidelity level.
As the app is designed for Discovery employees I was able to source participants easily and conducted guerrilla usability tests in-house.
What I achieved was low-cost, rapid testing with almost no budget and tight deadlines. Although my client didn't allocate budget for user testing I still found a way to test my designs before they went live.
Lessons
A firm knowledge of technical limitations is critical if you want to effectively apply UX improvements to existing features. A deeper understanding of constraints and the ability to work within them is one of the most valuable skills I believe you can have as a product designer.
If I could change anything I'd have had more time and broader scope to improve the entire EAP app.