Overcoming procrastination with a 5 minute meditation.
User research • Information architecture • Wireframing • UX Writing • Art Direction
The briefing was simple and open: create an app for stressful users - the possibilities were endless.
Researching the market and reading into meditation and its several practices helped funnelling down the focus into a smaller group of people: procrastinators struggling to initiate tasks.
What started as a purely personal goal, turned into a surprising discovery that founded the whole project and thus Mindstart was set in motion.
FIG.02 Research board: from articles about procrastination to finding Tony Stubblebine's meditation exercise, the discovery stage was well grounded and it was time to start sketching.
Inspired by the five-minute "I Am Aware" meditation, Mindstart emerged as a solution to help individuals overcome procrastination and kickstart their productivity by enhancing focus.
The key is to train a specific mental skill, commonly practiced on a meditation session, called the “awareness-focus loop”. The exercise is the loop, it consists on becoming aware of where your mind wanders, acknowledging it, putting down that thought and bringing your focus back to breathing.
Ready to meditate for focus?
A minimalistic practice required a minimalist approach. With a simple and serene user-friendly flow we made sure of a seamless experience without the hassle of creating an account prior to doing the meditation itself.
As the main goal was to be a calming aid, two timers were tested. It wasn't supposed to be the focus and although simple and almost abstract, the first version didn't have the best positioning nor helped the flow of the meditation.
Acting as a mental gym, this practise aims to strengthen the mind and keep the user grounded in their tasks, while minimising distractions.
Mindstart promotes inclusivity with an audio and tactile guided experience.
A gentle pulsed animation guides the user through the breathwork.
With a quiet visual timer to keep track of the five-minute practice.
When the user’s mind wanders, it is important to pause and become aware of the underlying reason.
A distraction-free approach to productivity with a quick five-minute meditation before each task. Users can start their focus practice within the app, aiming to combat procrastination. This training will consistently guide the mind into the awareness-focus loop, resulting in increased productivity and improved focus.
Creating an account enables users to track their progress and unlock the full experience of this practice: gain valuable insights, accumulate experience, monitor growth and deepen their mindfulness journey.
From feeling overwhelmed, to having productive flow.
A very focused project that became an opportunity to fulfil the often asked question “is there an app for that?”.
The challenge was set to develop a meditation app that explicitly helped stressed users. It was very rewarding to first, find out that there was a specific solution for procrastinators such as myself and second, to be able to turn this exercise into a digital experience that benefited people with the particular problem of starting a task.
Hoping to one day ship out this idea and test it with fellow procrastinators is the next step. Keep posted for future developments.
