Move from home | Product case study

Problem Statement:

An employee working from home has to attend numerous meetings and is bound to fast deliveries, leading to constant stress and a sedentary lifestyle. Continuing this lifestyle for the long term can have a critical impact on overall health.

One of your clients recognizes this problem and wants to create an application to create awareness and enable better habit to tackle the sedentary lifestyle.

1. Assumptions

• This is a mobile app, that ensures awareness, measure and better habits to improve one’s overall well-being.
• People would be willing to install an app that helps them move and take breaks to avoid a sedentary lifestyle.
• People working from home don’t take enough conscious breaks and end up leading a sedentary lifestyle
• A person sitting in a meeting for half an hour drops their overall metabolism rate by 60%
• A constant drop in metabolism affects the overall weight and mood of the individual.
• People with conventional sitting jobs have a high risk of stroke, heart attack, high cholesterol, blood pressure & glucose.
• The first/present goal is Acquisition.
• This app is not in anyway a full fitness solution/weight loss app.

2. A quick brief on my process when I approach a problem

1. Identifying the ACTUAL/UNDERLYING PROBLEM

Dig deep to find the actual problem. Apparent problem: In this case, people keep sitting at a stretch for hours.

Root problem(s):

• The urge to finish everything quickly and at a stretch. (Urgency, laziness, time-saving incentive)
• Employees forget about the fact that they’ve been sitting for hours at a stretch and that its not good for their health. (No reminder)
• Employees don’t have the habit of taking breaks in between work.

2. Doing research and collecting relevant data, if possible

For instance, in product design case-studies, it could be validating hypothesis through data (qualitative and quantitative), analyzing competitors , market fit, market needs and trends, areas of opportunities, threats, etc.

3. Brainstorming all possible solutions

4. Prioritizing and finalizing the solution

5. Implementing the solution and following up

Collecting feedback, validating the solution and reiterating the whole cycle to include feedback.

3. Product Vision

To be the most useful break reminder app to ensure that employees get up and move between long sitting hours, avoiding a sedentary lifestyle.

4. Hypothetical user persona, goals, pain points

Hypothetical user persona, goals, pain points

5. Identifying the gaps

1. There is no popular, niche/specific app in India to remind people to take breaks and move, while they are sitting and working as employees. There are reminder apps but nothing specifically catering to this need.
2. The existing apps which could apparently seem similar, are actually not similar at all. They are more of fitness apps with different aims and focus points like weight loss, calorie management, fitness, workouts, etc. (First mover advantage)
3. With the advent of the pandemic era, a lot of people have increased their sitting time manifold, without even realizing it. They have got habituated to sitting way more than pre-Covid (work from home, Netflix, time spent sitting and browsing social media, etc.) This has resulted in a lot of people gaining weight and developing health problems they didn’t have before.
4. An app that specifically makes people understand the impact and consequences of these recently developed habits, increases their awareness, helps them create a habit, and gives them the ability to measure and track possible improvements has a lot of potential.

6. Identify the suitable feature set and prioritize the same.

1. Creating, editing, deleting break plans (Eg: Mon-Fri, 10 am to 6 pm)
2. Suggested break plan option: 30–120 seconds every 30 mins, 2-5 mins every one hour.
3. Plenty of pre-fed small prompts, of well-thought out mini workouts/movement routines that involve standing up and moving. Variety of them, each time, different and exciting.
4. Sound/vibration sound with notification at beginning AND end of each break.
5. A “Wohoo!” (celebratory) message after successfully completing all breaks in a week.
6. Option to skip breaks. (Limit of skipping should be there or not, debatable)
7. A progress tracker to measure and compare progress (previous week vs this week)
8. 5/7/10/12/15 mini weekend workouts that focus more on fitness and not just mere moving.
9. Overall wellness reminder notifications (Drink water, screen time, listen to a song, close your eyes for 1 min, etc.)
10. Onboarding form (for data collecting purposes: name, age, profession, etc.)

7. Prioritization

Framework- MOSCOW + Delighters

Prioritization

8. Product Roadmap

Since the dates of completion depend significantly on the efficiency of tech team, this is just a hypothetical product roadmap.

Product Roadmap

9. MVP

The homepage of the MVP can look something as shown below. The user should be able to:

1. Create, edit and delete break plans.
2. Receive notifications with movement prompts.
3. Should hear a sound at the beginning and end of each break.
4. Progress tracker is optional. It can be added in the final product and may/may not be included in the MVP.

MVP Screens

10. Solution Pitch and story to the customers

Studies show that sitting continuously for half hour slows your metabolism by 60% and long sitting hours increase your risk of developing chronic diseases.

We get it. It’s hard to consciously take breaks when you’re working from home and used to those long sitting hours. Introducing “Move from home”, a simple and super useful app that ensures you don’t keep sitting the whole day and well, MOVE! Lower the risk of high cholesterol, heart attack and blood pressure, just by getting up to stand and move.

See what Reena has to say about the app:

“Since the WFH started, I had developed the habit of sitting for hours at a stretch and was leading a sedentary lifestyle. I started experiencing mood swings, irritability, and back pain. Luckily, I stumbled upon “Move from Home”. It helps me ensure that I stand up and move, between those long sitting hours. With the help of these short, interesting yet extremely useful exercises, my habits have significantly changed and I’m happier now.

11. Success Metrics

1. Number of app downloads (Consideration and Awareness)
2. Number of successfully completed breaks per person per day/week/month (Engagement/adoption metric)
3. Number of break plans successfully made, edited, deleted. (completion of a key task/action- Task success)
4. Decrease in skipping breaks (Ensures that user finds app useful, has created a habit, User satisfaction)
5. DAU, MAU, etc

• Note that these metrics can be measured in a particular time frame (per day, peer week, per month, etc.)

12. References for User Research

I used internet threads related to users using similar platform for desktop/laptop to better understand users and their pain points, and come up with features accordingly: https://monkeymatt.com/bigstretch/

Thanks for reading. :)