ManulifeMOVE App
Wellness Feature PoC
High-fidelity mockup
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Challenge
How might we increase member engagement on the Manulife MOVE app using the employee “Innovation Challenge” winner’s suggestion for a new mood-tracking feature that would pop up and ask membrs how they were feeling and track their mood over time?
Solution
A new mascot that functions as an intelligent guide within the app, continuously learning from user behavior and feedback to deliver highly relevant content based on member data. This enhances the user experience by making interactions more personalized, engaging, and predictive, fostering a deeper connection with our members.
Business Sponsor
Group Benefits - Hong Kong
Business Goal
ManulifeMOVE mobile app engagement
Core Team
6 people across 5 business units
Global Innovation
MOVE
Hong Kong UI
Hong Kong IT
Stakeholders
7 people across 5 business units
Global Innovation
Hong Kong Group Benefits
MOVE
Hong Kong HCD
Hong Kong IT
My Role
Project Lead (Partnered with PM)
UX Lead
Research Lead
UI Lead
The ManulifeMOVE app promotes a healthy lifestyle by enabling members to track their progress against set fitness goals and potentially gain a discount on their health insurance. The app includes these key features: Daily step progress, Challenges, Rewards, and Badges.
I recommended assessing the new MOVE app wellness feature that was selected as part of the Asia Employee Innovation Challenge to ensure they were going to build something that members would find useful and engaging and that would achieve the business goal of increasing app engagement. To do this, I conducted user research to learn how members were currently using the MOVE app and to better understand their needs to see if the new feature would be a value add.
Discovery Research
Discover how, when, where, etc. members use the MOVE app
Identify member pain points and opportunities
Understand the value members are looking for in the MOVE app
Research Objectives
Created a research plan
Explored the MOVE app to better understand how it functioned and how members could interact with it
Conducted a heuristic evaluation of the MOVE app
Completed a competitive analysis of other fitness and wellness apps
Desk Research
Created an interview guide and screener
Recruited 10 English-speaking ManulifeMOVE members in Hong Kong via member list
Conducted 8 (1hr) virtual interviews via UserTesting
Customer Interviews
Used Miro as my virtual workspace
Transferred key points from my interview notes and created an affinity map which gave me the following:
Insights
Opportunities
App feedback
Participant suggestions for future improvements
Analysis and Synthesis
Affinity Map
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How might we make the MOVE app feel more personal, human, caring, and connected for the member?
How might we help members achieve their step goal in order to achieve their discount?
How might we reward the users who interact with MOVE app more often?
How might we create differentiation and value within the MOVE app that is not replicated by other apps?
Themes and Insights
“I know my mood generally, and I don’t need to track it, and I don’t need advice on how to deal with it.”
“It’s like not just steps...we’re caring about your feelings.”
Members use the MOVE app to sync their data and check on the progress of getting a discount on their health insurance
Members didn’t see as much value in the other features because they are redundant with more complete fitness apps they already use
Most members were NOT interested in mood tracking because they didn’t feel it was a problem they needed to address
Members want the app to feel more personal and connected to them
Content and incentives should feel more relevant and personal to the member
Members want small and personal rewards
Opportunity Areas
Design and Development
Conducted a virtual ideation session via Teams with 5 people
Came up with 8 high-level ideas aligned to our 4 opportunity areas
Dug deeper and came up with 28 potential solutions
Mapped the solutions on a 2x2 matrix measuring Impact vs Effort
Highlighted 6 solutions we wanted to get feedback on before moving forward
Ideation
Virtual ideation board
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Once we discussed our potential solutions with our teams and leadership I met with the ideation team again where we did further ideation, prioritization, and scoping based on Viability, Desirability, and Feasibility.
Scoping
Virtual scoping and concepting board
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The concept we landed on was a “Move Guide” within the MOVE app. This new feature aimed at bringing a more personal, relevant, and predictable experience to our members.
This guide (temporarily named “Gus”) appears as a small and friendly anthropomorphic cat that offers optional helpful and relevant health and wellness tips based on learned member behavior and preferences. Gus accompanies popup cards that can contain tips, actions, and messages. This concept looks to:
“Move Guide” - Provide a more personal and caring experience by giving members a friendly mascot to interact with
Relevant Content - Give members new content on the topics they are most interested in more often
Behavior-triggered Messages - Gives relevant content and suggestions triggered by customer data
We came up with a variety of different messages, tips, and actions and then narrowed it down to 5 messages and their necessary actions, triggers, and frequencies:
Onboarding message
“Congratulations!” message for reaching their daily step goal
A range of random health tips (Can also opt out of all tips via Settings)
“Dip in progress” message
“How are you feeling” question (We put this in place to validate the initial “innovation challenge” feature
From there I wrote the content for the messages and created a prototype to test with users.
Concepting
“Gus” the MOVE guide
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Virtual concepting board 1
Virtual concepting board 2
I did 2 rounds of testing with 34 people:
29 Unmoderated tests via UserTesting
5 Moderated tests via UserTesting
Some key things I was looking to learn:
Did they like the overall “MOVE Guide” concept?
What did they think about “Gus” the mascot?
Was it easy to understand?
Did it function as expected?
What popup card style did they like best?
Tested 3 popup card styles
What notification location did they like best?
Tested 2 notifiaction locations
Testing
We learned a lot from our testing and our concept was validated by a very large majority of testers which gave us the ok to move forward.
After getting business alignment with our sponsor I refined the prototype based on testing feedback and worked with the UI teaem to finalize the design. We then handed it off to the engineer to build the feature and integrate it into the MOVE app.
PoC Launch
Launch to Market
We launched the PoC to 3 markets (Hong Kong, Singapore, and Vietnam)
The PoC was for an 8 week period
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Home screen with notification
“Nice to meet you” popup card
Health tip popup card
“Dip in progress” popup card
There was 50% activation in the 1st week
36% repeated engagement with the new feature (This engagement was on par with the historic high of MOVE engagement)
45% opted in to continue receiving messages from the MOVE guide
69% of surveyed members enjoyed receiving tips from the MOVE guide
Those who interacted with the new feature returned to the app more frequently than those who weren’t included in the PoC and didn’t see the new feature
Vietnam showed the highest interaction followed by Singapore and then Hong Kong
PoC Metrics
“Cute!”
“It informs about what I can do to lead a healthier lifestyle”
“Some good tips about health”
“A gentle reminder or some tips that I’m not aware of”
Weekly visits x Unique visitors graph over 8 week period
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Graph Key:
Green (Top line) = PoC Members who participated in the PoC
Coral (Middle line) = iOS 6.4/Dacadoo registrants who were not part of the PoC - (A qualification for participating in the PoC, but not all who are registered participated)
Blue (Bottom line) = ManulifeMOVE Members who were not part of the PoC and not iOS6.4/Dacadoo registrants
The “How are you feeling” message we used to validate the original concept coming out of the “Innovation Challenge” only received a 13% engagement rate echoing our research and proving we de-risked the feature by creating a solution based on user needs preventing the MOVE team from building something that wouldn’t positively impact member engagement.
De-risking
Business Impact
We met the business goal and increased overall customer engagement on the app by 36% during the PoC
Set the standard of using HCD to validate ideas before building and going to market
Avoided spending time and resources building and launching a feature that customers didn’t need or want
Product and design team learned how to incorporate HCD into their projects
The most popular question, which received 45% user-opt-in, helped show the business where to focus
Results
Success Factors
A leader who heard our concerns and brought us into the project rather than moving forward without research
Advocating for the customer and standing by what we feel is right for the business and our customers
Clearly explaining the value of pivoting and finding ways to tell that story to get buy-in and approval from leadership
Working flexible hours so we could collaborate on a solution with our team in Hong Kong
Key Learnings
It would be helpful to educate the business on the value of HCD so we aren’t trying to do that at the same time as the project
I discovered ways to work collaboratively across the US, Canada, and Asia and in different time zones